I rise from my folding chair, no longer just another anonymous face in the crowd. Clearing my throat nervously, I announce to all and sundry: "My name's Dave, and I'm White trash."
"Hi, Dave!" roars the throng, in unison.
Yep. There's no denying it. I'm beer-drinking, gun-toting, White trash. A latter-day savage and dweller beyond the pale.
And I'm proud as hell of the fact, and enjoy it immensely.
For thousands of years, my ancestors have been the eternal outsiders, the fringe-dwellers, the barbarians just beyond the gates of what passes for "civilization" at any given time. Whether ornamenting our lawns with human heads or pink flamingoes, whether clad in plaid, or checks, or snakeskin cowboy boots, whether watching NASCAR or chariot races, we Celts are the original White trash, and haven't changed very much since ancient times, as this brief survey of centuries' worth of name-calling will illustrate. Join me then, gentle reader, as I tuck into this lip-smackin', finger-lickin' feast of abuse and observation -- some admittedly flattering, some anything but, and much of it accurate, however disparaging. (Just don't get BBQ sauce on my black velveteen Elvis posters).
Stereotyping?
Many hillbillies in the mass media are there to make the normative, middle-class urban spectator feel better about the system of money and power that has him or her in its grasp. Someone is always beneath us, lending proof that the twig on which we stand is really the rung of a ladder leading upward to something we must defend with our lives....[T]he urban majority is growing further and further removed from real rural experience, and hence is freer to dissociate the hillbilly as a purely comic cartoon, something to be safely and unambiguously dispensed with rather than something symbolic of the banished rural memory that will not stay banished.
-- J.W. Williamson, Hillbillyland.
One of the chief denunciations of rednecks is an alleged bundle of psychological "fears" that lead them to demean anyone different from them. But flip the pancake over: Isn't this precisely why most people demean rednecks -- for being DIFFERENT from them as measured by most known indexes of social difference?.... Our stereotypical, pop-up, cardboard-cutout, cereal-box redneck figurine is a Social Martian under all the prongs of bigoted stereotyping: biologically (inbred, degenerated, momma-impregnating vermin and scum); geographically (xenophobic, backwoods, rustic, heath-dwelling, trailer-sheathed yahoos); economically (poor, barefoot, toothless, no-account, earth-scratching trash); culturally (gullible, superstitious, bumpkinesque rubes and throwbacks); and morally (cross-burning, baby-molesting swamp creatures and their slatternly wives).
-- Jim Goad, The Redneck Manifesto
It Brings a Tear to My Eye...
Among emigrants from northern Ireland, the proportion of servants was somewhat higher, but even there a majority were free. This was so in part because Irish servants were not much wanted in America. They were thought to be violent, ungovernable, and very apt to assault their masters. Buyers were discouraged by lurid accounts of Irish servants who rioted in Barbados, "straggled" in Bermuda or ran away on the mainland, sometimes with their masters' wives and daughters in tow... The Scots-Irish who came to America in the eighteenth century were not poor in any of these senses. Their pride was a source of irritation to their English neighbors, who could not understand what they had to feel proud about. It was said of one Scots-Irish man that "his looks spoke out that he would not fear the devil, should he meet him face to face...He loved to talk of himself, and spoke as freely and encomiastically as enthusiastic youths do of Alexander and Caesar...Qualities united in him which are never found in one person except an Irishman."
-- David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed
Payback is a Medevac Dept.:
Brian [Boru] and his warriors overran Limerick, slaughtering and plundering. 'They carried off the foreigners' jewels and their best property: their saddles beautiful and foreign; their gold and silver; their satins and silken cloth, pleasing and variegated, both scarlet and green. They carried away their soft, youthful girls, their silk-clad women, and their large and well-formed boys. The fortress and the good town they reduced to a haze of smoke and red fire. All the captives were assembled. Everyone fit for war was killed and everyone else enslaved.' It seems that many of the Danish women were then ritually raped. Brian's sack of Limerick, though barbaric, showed him as a man of power. He now consolidated his successes. Local opposing chieftains were slain. His warriors kept fit and fed by numerous cattle raids. He built a fleet upon the Shannon and sailed as far as Loch Ree where he plundered the territory of Connacht and Meath. With his hold over Munster secure, Brian then moved against the men of Leinster.
Tim Newark, Celtic Warriors
Awww, Ain't That Sweet? Dept.:
The kerns sprung thus from this prodigious brood
Are still as lewd as when their city stood.
Fraught with all vice, replete with villainy,
They still rebel and that most treacherously.
Like brutish Indians these wild Irish live;
Their quiet neighbors they delight to grieve.
Cruel and bloody, barbarous and rude,
Dire vengeance at their heels hath them pursued.
They are the savagest of all the nation;
Amongst them out I made my peregrination,
Where many wicked customs I did see
Such as all honest hearts I hope will flee.
--Gervase Markham, c. AD 1600
Lest We Forget Dept.:
They bellowed insult and challenge across the battle-lines. At their great feasts they were quick to laughter, and to ferocity. Their spirits could be moved quickly from deep troughs of melancholy to furious outbursts of uncontrolled energy. Astonishing examples of loyalty unto death went hand in hand with tales of appalling treacheries. Blood-feuds were commonplace; and the cult of head-hunting played a major part in their feelings about war and the supernatural. They were a people capable of fine gold-work of the utmost subtlety; of enamelled brooches, utensils and weapons of nearly unequalled quality --and yet a people whose dark beliefs allowed them to commit unspeakable acts of savagery against helpless captives. They were a contradictory, tumultuous, dynamic and infinitely spectacular people, whose blood is permanently mixed into that of the inhabitants of the British Isles and north-west Europe.
--Peter Wilcox, Rome's Enemies: Gallic and British Celts
It's For Their Own Good Dept.:
...how great are the enormities of vice with which the people of Ireland are infected, and how they have departed from the fear of God and the established practice of the Christian faith, so that souls have been placed in peril. We have further learnt from your letters that Henry, the noble king of the English, our dearest son in Christ, moved by inspiration from God and summoning all his strength, has subjugated this barbarous and uncouth race, which is ignorant of Divine Law; and through his power those forbidden things which used to be practised in your lands now begins to diminish.
-- Pope Alexander III, in a letter to several Irish bishops, AD 1172
Once Ya Go -- Uh -- Irish, Ya Never Go Back Dept.:
Now many English of the said land, forsaking the English language, fashion, mode of riding, law and usages, live and govern themselves according to the manners, fashion and language of the Irish enemies; and also having made divers marriages and alliances between themselves and the Irish enemies aforesaid...the English language, the allegiance due our Lord the King and the English laws there are put in subjection and decayed, and the Irish exalted and raised up, contrary to right.
Preamble to the Statutes of Kilkenny, AD 1366
Ya Can Dress 'Em Up, But Ya Can't Take 'Em Anywhere Dept.:
Surely there was never a people that lived in more misery than they do, nor as it should seem of worse minds, for matrimony among them is no more regarded in effect than conjunction between unreasonable beasts. Perjury, robbery and murder are counted allowable. Finally, I cannot find that they make any conscience of sin; for neither find I a place where it should be done, nor any person able to instruct them in the rules of a Christian.
-- Sir Henry Sidney, AD 1572
Lazy, Shiftless, No-Good, Thievin', No-Account...
One part of the Wild Scots have a wealth of cattle, sheep and horses, and these with a thought for the possible loss of their possessions yield more willing obedience to the courts of law and the king. The other part of these people delight in the chase and a life of indolence. Their chieftains eagerly follow bad men if only they may not have the need to labour. They are full of mutual dissensions and war rather than peace is their normal condition.
--John Major, History of Greater Britain
A 13th Century Trailer Park?
Their clothes are made after a barbarous fashion. Their custom is to wear small, close-fitting hoods, hanging below the shoulders. Under this they use woolen rugs instead of cloaks, with breeches and hose of one piece, usually dyed. The Irish are a rude people, subsisting on the produce of their cattle only and living like beasts. This people, then, is truly barbarous, being not only barbarous in their dress, but suffering their hair and beards to grow enormously in an uncouth manner.
Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia Hibernica et Expugnatio Hiberniae
Today, Gaul; Tomorrow, the WWF
Physically the Celts are terrifying in appearance, with deep-sounding and very harsh voices. In conversation, they use few words and speak in riddles, for the most part hinting at things and leaving a great deal to be understood. They frequently exaggerate with the aim of extolling themselves and diminishing the status of others. They are boasters and threateners and given to bombastic self-dramatization, and yet they are quick of mind and with good natural ability for learning.
Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica
And They're a Bunch of Lushes!
And since the qualities of the climate are spoiled by the excess of cold, the land bears neither wine nor oil, and therefore the Gauls, being deprived of these fruits concoct a drink out of barley called zythos, and they wash honeycombs and use the washings as a drink. They are exceedingly fond of wine and sate themselves with the unmixed wine imported by merchants; their desire makes them drink it greedily, and when they become drunk they fall into a stupor or into a maniacal disposition.
Ibid
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