A white beater is a slang for wife beater, not the other way around. They first called them wife beaters refering to the stereotype that men who wore the tanks were generally ones who beat their wives. The typical color of the tank is white. Its like saying "white wife beater".

When you eat dirt for the first time and leave your family to build a shack in the woods

A sleeveless white shirt usually worn by guys with muscular bodies.


Alternative: wife beater.
(note: "Wife beater" is the slang version of white beater. The word evolved from the image of those who wear white beaters beat their wives)