“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.

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.

Trashing Appalachia: Coal, prisons and whiteness in a region of refuse

While prisons are often seen as locally undesirable land uses (LULUs), nuance and historical analysis is needed to understand why this is not the case for all places, as well as why many of these “sites of acceptance” are layered upon legacies of resource extraction and environmental degradation. Central Appalachia has seen a shift from coalfields to prisonfields in the past three decades as policymakers turn to the incarceration industry to stem unemployment and depopulation as coal mining declines. Using the conceptual lens of trash, I contend that the literal trashing of the ecosystems of this region has been fostered by the metaphorical representation of Appalachians as “white trash.” In turn, the space is now viewed as a logical location for the deposition of “societal castoffs” in the form of prisoners.

Peculiar Whiteness

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.’

“It Aint Nothing But Jest Another Snopes”

This chapter investigates how William Faulkner presented poor whites and white trash across his oeuvre, with particular emphasis on his fairly unheralded Snopes trilogy. The chapter charts how poor whites are presented in different eras of his writings, from As I Lay Dying until the final Snopes novel published shortly before his death. While Faulkner is well known for his attempts at discussing the evolving racial situation in the South since the end of the Civil War, most critics have considered his depiction of whiteness as fairly homogeneous, a fact that this chapter's sustained focus on the Snopeses seeks to complicate. In short, while the Snopeses are frequently villainous characters, they are still met with language that stigmatizes them as a racial other, and as an inferior form of whiteness to the more well-to-do denizens of Yoknapatawpha.

Introduction

The introduction contextualizes the current state of whiteness studies and southern literary studies and argues that considering these lines of criticism alongside one another results in a more complete understanding of the underlying assumptions that have been made about poor whites and those deemed 'white trash.' In addition to analysing the history of the term, the introduction considers recent developments in southern studies scholarship, especially ways in which scholars have sought to expand recent definitions of the term “South.” The chapter also discusses the history of whiteness studies and argues that increased attention to the attitudes that middle- and upper-class whites have had toward poor whites is a fruitful line of scholarship. Finally, the introduction provides an early focus on the works of Erskine Caldwell and Flannery O'Connor as representative authors who complicate ideas that whiteness is homogeneous and universal.

Maimed Souls

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.