Reddit Reddit reviews White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

We found 14 Reddit comments about White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
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14 Reddit comments about White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America:

u/AdSin15 · 86 pointsr/stupidpol

There's a great book about this called White Trash: the 400 year History of Class in America.

it's awesome. Slavery started just as a way to make money but quickly poor whites and poor blacks began working together so the rich had to stop that. That's when they instituted laws making all blacks legally inferior to whites.

Before that there was no concept of "white people". English people were considered to be totally seperate from German people who were totally separate from Scandinavian People who were totally different from Irish people.

https://www.amazon.com/White-Trash-400-Year-History-America/dp/0143129678

I own the audiobook.


Fun Fact: The term 'White Trash" being used to describe poor whites has been around for as long or longer than the N-word.

u/behindtimes · 35 pointsr/unpopularopinion

The current book I'm reading White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America delves into this a bit.


Part of the argument it makes is that a lot of what we consider to be racist issues, were originally classism. Things like poll taxes weren't just to keep blacks from voting, but also to disenfranchise a large percentage of poor whites who were looked down upon by society. In the 1920s, nearly half the states in the USA had eugenics laws on the books. And during the early 1930s, when many WW1 veterans demanded to be given the bonus pay they were promised, the senate voted against it, and the army was called to disperse the crowd, burning down their camp in return.


The main problem is, it's almost always been the same group of people who are despised in this country. Poor, rural Americans. And we still despise them to this day. It's just that we describe them differently with each generation. Yesteryear, we called them racially impure, or born of bad blood. Today we call them racists, sexists, deplorables, etc.

That's not to say there isn't any racial privileges, but a lot really come down to majority privilege. And the rest, which we call white privilege, are in reality, wealthy privilege, which a lot of white people don't experience.

u/HyperKiwi · 22 pointsr/todayilearned

If you really want to know what's going on in America you should read the following books.

White Trash

The New Jim Crow

u/QNIA42Gf7zUwLD6yEaVd · 8 pointsr/canada

> Obviously that's not everyone, but how insulting to the hard work of some people to be where they are.

The assholes behind these posters need to read shit like White Trash and Hillbilly Elegy, then re-think this whole "white privilege" thing.

Those books are about the US, but a lot of the same stuff happened/happens here, too.

u/EverlyBrothers · 8 pointsr/IAmA

I am cutting and pasting from a HelloGiggles interview i did because this is not a short list:

EG: I love Gail Collins. She’s a New York Times journalist. She wrote a book called America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines. It’s the feminist history book you never had. It’s a book you cannot put down. It’s so jam packed with information, and you just can’t believe you don’t know this stuff. She has a whole thing about how pioneer women basically built San Francisco. Because when the gold rush happened, there was no one to cook for the men. So women would come out, set up shop, and make tons of money. They were business owners and had autonomy and control of their finances for the first time. Stuff like that. I mean, Bear Grylls would look like Tom Brokaw compared to these pioneer women. That’s not even a good analogy. But these women would like, crawl up mountains while giving birth. Their skirts would catch on fire all the time. The shit that they went through was insane. So you’re reading this, and [Collins is] just giving you all of it. It’s the most fascinating book I’ve ever read.

Of course, all of Roxane Gay’s books. She’s necessary reading. I just read In Her Words, the Eleanor Roosevelt book. That was uplifting, and also so sad to see this woman with this knowledge and access to power whom, if she had been given the chance…god, the things she could have done. You should read Susan Faludi’s Backlash. That’s super necessary feminist reading. I also like this book called White Trash. It’s about America’s history of poverty and how it explains a lot of what’s happening today. But because it’s written by a woman — it’s written by Nancy Isenberg — it has a feminist slant to it. It’s fantastic.

Oh, and Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World by Penelope Bagieu. It’s a graphic novel of incredible women. It’s gorgeous and informative and great. And it’s a great book for a teen, or an adult who likes graphic novels like me. Also Bitch Planet. It’s a graphic novel that’s The Handmaid’s Tale of space. That’s great. And of course, The Handmaid’s Tale. Read Margaret Atwood. And not just The Handmaid’s Tale. She’s written tons of other books that are thematically similar and just as depressing.

Also, Samantha Irby. Her books…I don’t know what to say about her books. I have a really loud laugh, and when something tickles me and gets me really hard, I laugh really loudly. And I do it like, every other page with her.

u/veringer · 4 pointsr/politics

From what I understand, there's always been a tension between the colonial frontier states and the more coastal centers of wealth and political power. Without getting too long-winded, colonial America was populated in several waves that each laid claim to different geographical areas. The last wave was largely made up of poor, uneducated, war-ravaged people from the hinterlands of northern England/Scotland/Ireland. When they arrived they weren't accepted with open arms and given housing/jobs in Philadelphia and Boston so they could acculturate. No, they headed west into the wilderness and, more or less, carved out their own 'nation' up and down the Appalachians (living close to the bone, fighting natives, and mostly being left alone). The common thread in this culture is a more pronounced tribal instinct, bellicosity, skepticism toward highfalutin concepts related to Social Contract, and pride.

I don't want to unnecessarily piss people off by painting with too wide of a brush. I'll just say that there's a lot to admire about the Appalachian culture/nation. However, there are also a lot of flaws too. Most fundamentally, I think it's the pride that is the toughest to overcome. It's hard to convince one struggling person to swallow their pride and try an alternative approach. How do you convince millions?

EDIT: Shit! A whole paragraph got fat-fingered. Anyway, what I typed out was something like:

> Today the culture has adopted a contrarian stance using the confederate flag as an emblem of resistance/antagonism designed less as an honest affinity toward the Confederate mission, but more as a statement that they're unique and don't identify with the urban cultural centers. Sure there are hard-line organized and principled racists in the mix too, and they may be exploiting the current milieu. But (in my experience) the initial attraction that an average West Virginian might have toward the confederate flag is more about thumbing their nose at moralizing Yankees while signalling their membership in an alternate club. In short: librul tears.

Sources and references:

u/noosecorp · 2 pointsr/listentothis

Pick up a book, friend.


specifically this one (because its difficult to accept that different people in different times that sometimes don't look like you can ALSO have it bad), since it's based on US history.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0143129678/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495463925&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=white+trash+the+400-year+untold+history+of+class+in+america&dpPl=1&dpID=51tMN%2B5IXNL&ref=plSrch

u/platocplx · 2 pointsr/hiphopheads

https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/16/politics/blacks-white-racism-united-states-polls/index.html

This shows the divide.


This is a full study on it from pew.

http://www.people-press.org/2017/10/05/4-race-immigration-and-discrimination/


This speaks about police and justice reform that is needed

https://www.joincampaignzero.org/

This talks about racism that happens to Asian people.
https://psmag.com/news/ghosts-of-white-people-past-witnessing-white-flight-from-an-asian-ethnoburb

And if you would like to educate yourself more about race in the US.
these books are a great start

Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class


So You Want to Talk About Race

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America


I see where this convo is going. And I will reference you to literature that will help for you to expand your knowledge on race and class in this country. There isn’t a reddit post in the world that can wholly give you the full picture on what’s wrong with race in America but these books give you a great starting point. Good luck.

u/mattsergent · 2 pointsr/Dodgers
  • How are you spending this off day?

    Work and then heading to the diamond for game 1 of my baseball team's championship series

  • As we approach the holiday season, what is your favorite family tradition?

    i'm not a big holiday guy, but i do love the big meals that are a part of them

  • What was the last book you read?

    White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

  • Frozen yogurt is still a thing, right? What flavor/toppings you go for if you go get some?

    I'm a fan of plain tart with some fresh raspberries on top

  • And finally, what was the most memorable time you got first place in something?

    I'm hoping it will be a nice championship series sweep for my team this week.
u/panicClark · 2 pointsr/italy

Sull'inutile concordo, non aggiunge niente di radicalmente nuovo. Disprezzabile no, perché comunque arricchisce uno tra i tanti argomenti.

Ho sentito parlare bene anche di White Trash, l'ho ordinato in libreria e mi dovrebbe arrivare in settimana.

u/MoleMcHenry · 1 pointr/Unexpected

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

This book is great and helped me realized we've always been like this, we were designed to be like this and we will continue to be like this.

u/day_1_10yrs_7_days · 0 pointsr/news

Actually, according to Nancy Isenberg in her book White Trash: The 400-Year Untold Story of Class in America, the term refers to someone who is "cracked" in the head, or stupid. But this reference indicates the term is older, Shakespearean even, and referred to Celtic peoples originally.