Linguistics and Literature Studies 5(6): 424-431, 2017 http://www.hrpub.org DOI: 10.13189/lls.2017.050605 Stereotyping and Stigmatizing of Poor Whites in Today’s USA Concepción Parrondo Carretero Department of English Philology, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, University of Málaga, Spain Copyright©2017 by authors, all rights reserved. Authors agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License Abstract The stigma once imposed upon poor whites colonial territories, by farmers in the region who regarded (also known by the terms of ‘white trash,’ ‘cracker,’ ‘red serfdom as a commodity as well as a sign of wealth. Life in neck,’ or ‘hillbilly,’ among others) still lives on in a the colonies was modeled after life back on the British Isles, specific type of poor, notorious for their laziness, that is to say it rested on a feudal social hierarchical system dirt-eating, propensity to criminality, sexual perversity, controlled by a few, but powerful, masters of the land. The consanguinity, feeblemindedness, and chronic disease colonies were rooted in a social structure where the notions portability. It is through mass media communications that of southern elite, gentility, and honor were paramount. In this group has been placed on the margins of a capitalist such state of affairs three different terms—lubber, cracker, interest-driven market economy in the hands of the and poor white trash—stood out among a plethora of dominant whites who dictate the rules by which all pejorative words by which to refer to the poorest and members of society are to abide. It is no longer the account weakest of society. of the traveler or the written text what can be damaging to Lubbers were known to be disdainful people with no the public image of a social group, but a much powerful regards for industry or work, yet they were considered vehicle of communication that attracts large numbers and harmless to society. Crackers, on the other hand, referred to travels at the speed of light. As an image is worth a poor and landless free white people who had run to the west thousand words, the visual impact created by TV or the margins of the colonies. Crackers had a reputation for cinema has no equal. This paper aims to examine the social stealing, being ill-mannered, arrogant, treacherous, and stereotyping and stigmatizing of poor whites (the bad type) even dangerous. They, as pointed out by Matt Wray [2], in mass media communications through the analysis of two embodied a type of poor who went against the law and films (Deliverance 1972 and Monster 2003), a rebelled against the planters and landed gentry. It is in this documentary (The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West variant of poor white crackers that term poor white trash Virginia 2009), and a reality TV series (Here Comes Honey originated. Several and distinct ‘traits’ defined the social Boo Boo 2012) to ultimately come to the realization that category of poor white trash: th social stigmatizing is very much alive in the United States In the 19 century, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet of the 21st century. created Ransy Sniffle, a character which would popularize and stigmatize the figure of the poor man. Though Sniffle Keywords Poor Whites, Poor White Trash, was a comic man notable for his poor diet, his physical Stigmatizing, Hegemonic Whites, Mass Media deformities, his laziness, apathy, and low intelligence, Communications, Commodification what really made him standout was his habit of eating dirt. Dirt-eating was considered the mark of poor white depravity and, therefore, came to be known as the first of many traits belonging to the stigma of poor white trash. The second trait attributed to this social category quickly 1. Introduction: The Origins of the spread after the Civil War, upon the emergence of a Poor Whites’ Stereotyped Traits professional and industrious higher class of whites, known as the middle-class. As the middle-class could not accept The concept of slavery was no novelty in the colonies the existence of poverty among them, scientists, but was adopted by those settlers who first arrived in the researchers and scholars of the time concentrated their New World. Such a concept encompassed different groups efforts on studying the social degeneracy of being poor in not so much thought of by race as, rather, by class. Barney the lower class. Because of Elizabeth Kites’s [3] work, Warf [1] explains that enslaved classes were taken in, in rumor had it that social depravity and degeneration could Linguistics and Literature Studies 5(6): 424-431, 2017 425 spread among the general population. Such misconception Comes Honey Boo Boo (2012) and the documentary The led to the compulsory and involuntary sterilization of Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia (2009) are thousands of poor whites during the first half of the 20th brought to discussion in an effort to come to the realization century. that social stigmatizing is very much alive in the United Not happy with tagging poor whites with the label of States of the 21st century. depravity, researchers applied themselves to digging further into the condition of being poor and concluded that poor whites also suffered from feeblemindedness which 2. The Visual Arts and the Concept of quickly became an identifier of poverty. It was Henry Displacement Goddard’s study [4] that launched the belief that intelligence was inherited and could be measured. The development of the film industry has greatly Intelligence studies were performed on the poor, contributed to the exposure of ideas and opinions through considered a threat to society because of their laziness, the art of storytelling. Yet, in the beginning, films did not reluctance to work, propensity to criminality and grant serious roles to lower classes such as poor whites. disgusting habits such as dirt-eating. Science resolved that Being invisible to the film industry for years, poor whites’ such a trait, feeblemindedness, was more noticeable in relevance to protagonists in movies did not occur until a rural areas in the South of the US. Feeblemindedness and few decades ago. It was in 1972 that the film Deliverance degeneration marked a very sad and misfortunate period premiered in the US, causing social unrest due to the for the poor whites of the South. portrayal of a highly stereotyped image of poor whites that As if it could not get any worse, the epidemic of the appeared in the film as savage, ignorant and inbred. hookworm, a disease that haunted the US in the first three Given the deep impact that Deliverance made on decades of the 20th century added another mark of audiences, one may infer that films seem to hold the power inferiority traits to the list. Scientists’ opinions over the to project an image based on prejudice and stereotypes, a causes and consequences of the epidemic of the hookworm far more profitable economic strategy than siding with was divided in two schools of thought: the eugenicists, who ‘politically intended’ causes. Indeed, the film industry and believed the hookworm was the cause of having been born its capitalist economy on which it rests have done more poor white and trash; and the member doctors of the harm than good to marginalized social classes, for ‘telling a Rockefeller Sanitary Commission, who thought that the story’ on film is much more attractive than writing it out in hookworm was the result of the dire conditions poor whites a book. In addition, films, TV series, or documentaries, were forced to live under,. While the former were in favor have been turned within the market place into articles to be of forced sterilization and even institutionalization, the consumed, or, in other words, commodities. In a way, film- latter proposed a sanitary campaign which included making—and, by the same token, anything related to the medical treatment and the teaching of healthy habits, visual arts—as the industry that sells entertainment to especially in the areas of personal hygiene, good audiences, disguises human and economic relations in the housekeeping and proper child-rearing. In such a way it story in order to turn their product into a money-making was their belief that the social category of poor white trash proposition. As Jillian Sandell [6] states, when referring to could be remedied and solvable, being their so-called traits white trash representation in film, “commodification not inherited, but rather acquired by the environment they operates, in other words, as another form of displacement were living in. Whatever opinions scientists and […] one that has a public and legitimate place in the market researchers may have had as to the causes of the hookworm place.” epidemic, the bottom line was that everybody saw the poor Alongside these commercialized, commodity-building whites as a group made of inferior people, basically lazy, films which perpetuate misconceptions and prejudice dirty, stupid and diseased. [5] against the less privileged classes, there have been others Today’s poor whites’ juncture has not changed much that expose the repression and restriction to which these from that in the first half of the 20th century. Poor whites groups are subjected with the aim to freely express agency are still looked down upon and harshly criticized for their and explore subjectivity; among them, it is worth lazy, apathetic, dirty and dangerous habits. The mentioning The Secret Life of Bees (2008) and Beloved stigmatizing of the under-favored, however, no longer (1998). Because of the emergence of such films in the last relies on travel accounts or published books. In this day and thirty years, one can safely argue that film-making is as age, we are constantly being bombarded with opinions, valid a venue to turn stereotypes around in order to develop stances and approaches to news and current events via a true whole identity by which to reach a broader public.