A term developed by African slaves in the early nineteenth century to describe the
poor, landless whites with whom they dwelt in the South. According to historian Eugene Genovese, author of Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made, slaves developed the term as a way of looking down at
poor whites, who lived in abject economic poverty, often in worse conditions than those inhabited by the slaves themselves. Although the
poor whites were not considered property
like the slaves, the slaves chose to view the so-called "
white trash" as inferior to themselves, and members of a social echelon lower than the
one they occupied themselves. (Genovese, 20-30; 58) This information does not necessarily change the the contemporary Urban Dictionary
definition of the term, but it does change the term's origins and etemology. Rather than being a term made by the middle and upper class whites to define even the poor of their race as better than all non-whites, "
white trash" was a term developed by poor non-whites, Afro-American slaves to contemptuously distance themselves from poor whites, whose social station they believed was even worse than their own.
Tom (a white male) : Look at those poor white
people standing in line at the unemployment office, that should be proof enough that not all white
people are wealthy.
John (a black male) : Indeed. They are what my great great grandmother would call
White trash. I don't agree with the term myself; I'm just telling you what she would have said.
