PWT

Years ago, my friend Philip made reference to "PWT," an aconym with which I was not acquainted, and as to whose meaning I could only, at best, offer haphazard speculation. "Pale, Widowed Tanzanians"? "Poultry, wings & thighs"? "Putrid, wino Texans"? Yet none of these, save perhaps the last one, really seemed consistent with our conversation at the time.

Later Philip explained that because there were white people around, he couldn't have elucidated the term, which stands for "poor white trash."

My student Benson recently mentioned crystal meth, and Jennifer, with a look of sheer derision, interrupted, "ew, how poor, white trailer park trash can you get?" I am apprised (despite my general naivete regarding all activities illicit) of the fact that particular forms of drugs are perferred by different races (i.e. users of crack cocaine are predominantly black, while powered cocaine is favored by whites), yet Jennifer's strong, visceral response to "ice" surprised me. "When did we assign racial and socioeconomic classifications to narcotics? Is there a memo in circulation that I missed? Did all of this stem from the 'heroin chic' movement?" I wondered to myself. Eventually, I decided that models, rock stars, actors, and rich white trash (think people like Paris Hilton, or Lindsay Lohan, or their mid-1990s equivalents) made heroin "chic," and somehow the use of methamphetamine was relegated to the unsavory inhabitants of mobile homes.

Then today at Century 21, Michelle, who is the sweetest receptionist ever, who never says a bad word about anyone, made a similar off color remark. In preparation for the upcoming 30th anniversary party, the office closed down the strip mall parking lot to set up a stage and the dinner tables. The other businesses who share the lot didn't mind, except for the bar for doors down; in protest, the bar manager said that we were impeding his clientele from frequenting the bar--before 11!

"Seriously," I asked Michelle, "Who is drinking at 10:45am?"

"White trash."

When did it become okay in our PC world to insult poor, non-hispanic whites? Did I miss that memo too? (Did all this take place the year I spent abroad in Beijing? How come no one filled me in?) Is it "cool" now to insult the destitute of European descent? Or does it just remind all the minorities in this country that despite their power, their dominance in politics, film, and TV, & their majority status, whites still occupy some of the saddest, LOWEST, most degraded stations in our society: the trailer parks.