From “The Rise of Southern Redneck and White Trash Writers”1

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Bledsoe
Keyword(s):  
Southern Literature ◽  
White Women ◽  
White Men ◽  
Southern Writers ◽  
White Trash ◽  
Poor Whites ◽  
White Southerners ◽  
Poor White ◽  
Almost All ◽  
New Generation

This chapter discusses the emergence of a new generation of southern writers who are giving voice to a different group of southerners, forcing their readers to reexamine long-held stereotypes and beliefs while challenging the literary roles traditionally assigned poor whites. According to Linda Tate, “traditionally, southern literature has been understood to be that written by white men and, on rare occasions, by white women—and, in almost all cases, by and about white southerners of the upper middle class.” This chapter looks at three new voices who write about the Rough South and the southern poor whites from within the class: Dorothy Allison, Larry Brown, and Timothy Reese McLaurin. The term “Rough South” refers to as the world of the redneck or white trash. The terms “redneck,” “white trash,” “cracker,” and “poor white” have all been used to describe certain white southerners.

Elevated above the Real: The Poor White Southerner in Cormac McCarthy’s Early Novels

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Southern Literature ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Southern Writers ◽  
White Trash ◽  
Poor Whites ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Poor White ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Child Of God ◽  
White Southerner

This chapter discusses the work of Cormac McCarthy, whose early novels depicted the poor white southerner. In The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, Robert Benson praises McCarthy for his vivid and honest portrayal of east Tennessee and its people—the lower classes in particular. Benson accurately characterizes McCarthy's work as a critical shift in the representation of lower-class characters in southern literature. McCarthy's focus on exploring and illuminating the lives of those often called “white trash” suggests a direct and important link between his work of the 1960s and early 1970s and the work of later southern writers invested in recovering the poor white southerner from the margins of literary representation. And yet, for several reasons, McCarthy's connection to later Rough South writers is decidedly complex. Furthermore, not all critics have been as quick as Benson to praise McCarthy's portrayal of southern poor whites. This chapter examines McCarthy's first three novels: The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark (1968), and Child of God (1973).

Peculiar Whiteness

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Mellette
Keyword(s):  
Southern Literature ◽  
White Trash ◽  
Poor Whites ◽  
Thomas Dixon ◽  
Close Proximity ◽  
Disparate Treatment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Poor White ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Fear And Anxiety

Peculiar Whiteness argues for deeper consideration of the complexities surrounding the disparate treatment of poor whites throughout southern literature and attests to how broad such experiences have been. While the history of prejudice against this group is not the same as the legacy of violence perpetrated against people of color in America, individuals regarded as ‘white trash’ have suffered a dehumanizing process in the writings of various white authors. Poor white characters are frequently maligned as grotesque and anxiety-inducing, especially when they are aligned in close proximity to blacks or with other troubling conditions such as physical difference. Thus, as a symbol, much has been asked of poor whites, and various iterations of the label (e.g., ‘white trash,’ tenant farmers, or even people with a little less money than average) have been subject to a broad spectrum of judgment, pity, compassion, fear, and anxiety. Peculiar Whiteness engages key issues in contemporary critical race studies, whiteness studies, and southern studies, both literary and historical. Through discussions of authors including Charles Chesnutt, Thomas Dixon, Erskine Caldwell, William Faulkner, and Flannery O’Connor, the book analyzes how we see how whites in a position of power work to maintain their status, often by finding ways to re-categorize and marginalize people who might not otherwise have seemed to fall under the auspices or boundaries of ‘white trash.’

The Rough South of Ron Rash

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Ærvold Bjerre
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Family Background ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
White Trash ◽  
Poor Whites ◽  
The People ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Violent Conflicts ◽  
North And South

This chapter discusses the fiction of Ron Rash, who sets almost all of his work—poems, short stories, and novels—in the Carolinas and focuses on the people who live or have lived there. Rash was born in Chester, South Carolina, in 1953, and grew up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. While not a direct heir to the “Southern Redneck and White Trash” tradition, Rash fills his work with characters firmly embedded in the Rough South—mostly lower-class whites from Appalachian North and South Carolina. Rash's work illustrates his concern with working-class characters and their struggles, with poor whites and their violent conflicts. His interest in the working class reflects his own family background. Rash published his first collection of poetry, Eureka Mill, in 1998. He also wrote novels that depict violence, such as One Foot in Eden, The World Made Straight, and Serena.

A New Constituency for Berea

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christi M. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Competitive Dynamics ◽  
Organizational Leaders ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Racial Oppression ◽  
Poor Whites ◽  
White Southerners ◽  
Education Movement ◽  
Poor White ◽  
New Form

Chapter 7 chronicles the efforts of Berea’s leaders to construct Appalachians as a particular brand of poor whites, and without the stigma of the Confederacy attached to other Southern whites. By the mid-1880s, a new wave of benevolent agencies launched a new form of colleges designed for this newly categorized group— “mountain education.” The mountain education movement treated poor white Southerners as deserving of Northern philanthropic aid by arguing that class oppression could rival racial oppression. Here, competitive dynamics, as navigated by organizational leaders, produced not only particular types of education but also consecrated groups of people.

Maimed Souls

2021 ◽  
pp. 141-152
Author(s):  
Justin Mellette
Keyword(s):  
Asian American ◽  
Physical Disability ◽  
Southern Literature ◽  
Whiteness Studies ◽  
Southern Studies ◽  
White Trash ◽  
Poor Whites ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
American Authors

The conclusion gestures toward hope for the future of studies regarding poor whites and white trash, noting that work remains to be done, especially in the way that mental or physical disability is often presented as a form of inferior whiteness. Flannery O'Connor's work, for example, gestures toward the importance of these issues. In the closing pages, the conclusion also expresses hope that new avenues of southern literature, such as the rise of Asian American authors writing about the South, receives increased attention. Finally, the conclusion considers the 2016 election and the attention paid to the rural and urban divide and its relationship to how contemporary discourse considers poor whites as a racial other. It closes by noting that the idea that prejudice against poor whites is strictly a southern phenomenon has been complicated in recent years, and that both southern studies and whiteness studies are continually evolving fields of inquiry.

“We Ain’t Nothing but White Trash”. The Ethnography of Poor Whites and the Politics of Stigma in Zora Neale Hurston’s Seraph on the Suwanee.

2021 ◽  
pp. 092137402110533
Author(s):  
Djemila Zeneidi
Keyword(s):  
Objective Analysis ◽  
White Population ◽  
White Trash ◽  
Poor Whites ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
Historical Group ◽  
Poor White ◽  
Seraph On The Suwanee ◽  
Subjective Side

This article aims to demonstrate the documentary value of Zora Neale, Hurston’s descriptions, in her novel Seraph on the Suwanee, of the condition of the poor white US Southerners known as “crackers.” By, depicting a “cracker” woman’s upward social trajectory through, marriage, Hurston reveals the social and existential reality of this, segment of the white population. Her novel presents an objective, analysis of the crackers as a socio-historical group distinct from other, whites. However, Hurston also explores the subjective side of belonging to this discredited group by offering an account of her heroine’s experience of stigmatization.

Factors Influencing Electrophysiologic Responsivity in Normal Adults

1965 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 323-347
Author(s):  
Robert Goldstein ◽  
Benjamin RosenblÜt
Keyword(s):  
Conditioned Stimulus ◽  
White Light ◽  
Pure Tone ◽  
Alpha Rhythm ◽  
White Women ◽  
White Men ◽  
Inverse Relation ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Electrodermal Responses ◽  
Normal Adults

Electrodermal and electroencephalic responsivity to sound and to light was studied in 96 normal-hearing adults in three separate sessions. The subjects were subdivided into equal groups of white men, white women, colored men, and colored women. A 1 000 cps pure tone was the conditioned stimulus in two sessions and white light was used in a third session. Heat was the unconditioned stimulus in all sessions. Previously, an inverse relation had been found in white men between the prominence of alpha rhythm in the EEG and the ease with which electrodermal responses could be elicited. This relation did not hold true for white women. The main purpose of the present study was to answer the following questions: (1) are the previous findings on white subjects applicable to colored subjects? (2) are subjects who are most (or least) responsive electrophysiologically on one day equally responsive (or unresponsive) on another day? and (3) are subjects who are most (or least) responsive to sound equally responsive (or unresponsive) to light? In general, each question was answered affirmatively. Other factors influencing responsivity were also studied.

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