While some lucky few come out of the right vagina and into a life of privilege and luxury, we all begin with the same origins: a fetus identical to a chicken embryo and sharing the same basic building blocks of DNA with every living thing on the planet. And by some miracle, this breakthrough in scientific knowledge made it through the clenches of old white men in funny hats (the Catholic Church) Thank you Jesus!
Still, as we learn the rules of socioeconomic classes that dominate society, everyone, no matter how much they have in their bank accounts, is white trash. So listen up, as we start at the top of the heap:
A yuppie from San Francisco, a trust fund brat with a closet full of slightly distressed, very expensive high end clothing, was horrified when he encountered a redneck from North Florida, a woman covered in tattoos and with no amount of shame or attempt at hiding her blatant self destruction as she guzzled down a bottle of Jagermeister. And yet, this same yuppie with his dry-cleaned designer clothes and luxury condo with a bay
view, snorted crystal meth every day for a year. So, I can’t help but wonder when the lines of white trash begin to blur? Which is worse? Eying an empty bottle of Jagermeister or ingesting a nasty concoction of battery acid and Drano that was made in someone’s bathtub?
And I can’t help thinking about Grammy and her spices at the flea market. Here was a woman who was explaining in passionate detail how to make a hand-squeezed Ossetra caviar shaved geoduck clam with smoked wasabi citrus emulsion, but had teeth so rotted out, that I wondered if the two teeth she had left somehow managed to snaggle their way through those amazing dishes. (Which reminds me, I really need to take care of that cavity soon.) She was a spice expert, a knowledgeable foodie with a subscription to Gourmet Magazine, but unfortunately couldn’t afford proper dental insurance.
Admitting to being white trash can also be very beneficial in certain situations, especially those times when you get drunk and make a complete ass of yourself. Just shrug and say “sorry, I’m white trash,” and order another bottle of Cristal Champagne. You can also dress badly, swear in public, and post photos of chips and cases of Budweiser on Facebook without a hint of shame.
And the hipsters also use white trash culture, but in their typical ironic way which makes them feel cool. Still, both the hipsters and the rednecks they mock wake up with the same awful hangovers from cheap whiskey and PBR. Ironic or not, white trash is white trash.
In the end, we all want the same thing—to annihilate awareness when life becomes painful. We want to lose ourselves, peel away the layers so we can get back to our fun-loving innocence. But most of us want to achieve this the easy way, not waking up at 4 am, meditating for 18 hours, and eating nothing but gruel like a 13th century Buddhist monk.
In the 1800’s it was Mark Twain who sold the charms of white trash to the masses through his heroes Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Today white trash culture is similarly marketing to the youth through the likes of Britney Spears, the Kardashians, and their hipster counterpart Jack White of the White Stripes. Who represents the ideal of white trash? Classic American literature? Trashy poptarts? Pretentious hipsters? You decide.