First, I want to clarify something. There is no such thing as White Trash (noun)---poor or otherwise---just as there is no such thing as Evil Incarnate, the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. Folks are folks. They can be nice one moment and shitty the next. They love some people and hate some others. They have positive qualities and negative qualities----and, depending upon their circumstances, their negative qualities can become virtues and their positive ones can become liabilities.
However, there is such a thing as white trash (verb), as in to blame one’s loss on someone else’s race or ethnicity. Recently, we witnessed former New Hampshire governor and current Romney pit bull, John Sununu demonstrate how white trashing is done.
When John H. Sununu suggested Thursday night that former secretary of state Colin Powell endorsed President Barack Obama because both are African American, it was not the first time the former governor of New Hampshire and top surrogate for Mitt Romney had stoked controversy during this election cycle.
"Frankly, when you take a look at Colin Powell, you have to wonder whether that's an endorsement based on issues or whether he's got a slightly different reason for preferring President Obama," Sununu said in an interview on CNN. When pressed on what those reasons might be, he replied, "Well, I think when you have somebody of your own race that you're proud of being president of the United States, I applaud Colin for standing with him."
http://newyork.newsday.com/...
Poor John Sununu. When he uttered those infamous words, he probably didn’t even realize that he was white trashing. In his mind, he was thinking “Colin Powell is a Republican. Romney deserves the support of all Republicans. If Powell endorses Obama, then Romney has been robbed! How did this happen? It was all the Black man’s fault! Those Black folks hate us white folks! They can never resist an opportunity to do us harm!”
White trashing is not as rare in this country as some would like to believe. Every time a New Yorker complains about how many Asian kids are getting into the city’s prestigious specialty high schools, he or she is committing white trash. Every time a worker complains that he cannot get a job, because some “Mexican” will work harder, longer and for a lower salary, he is contributing to the white trashification of our society. When you hear a woman complain that her Social Security check is too low, because all those (insert ethnic slur) are getting too much welfare, you have just witnessed white trashing at its worst---
Or best, depending upon your point of view. Because all things are relative. If you are a business owner looking for cheap labor, your best investment is divide and conquer. And the slickest move rich folks in the United States have ever pulled is to convince so many working class whites that they are poor, homeless, uninsured because some equally poor, homeless, uninsured Black, Brown, Yellow or Red person conspired to make them that way.
John Sununu---and the candidate he supports, Mitt Romney---want you, their fellow white Americans to believe that you lost your house because some Black couple got a mortgage they did not deserve---not because you voted for Bush, the village idiot from Texas, who seemed like someone you could sit down and have a beer with, and then he turned around and let the banks commit grand larceny. No, no, it isn’t any white man’s fault that Bush did what he did. It isn’t even Bush’s fault that he did what he did. As John McCain just said, in a white trash moment of his own, it was Colin Powell’s fault we are up to our eyeballs in debt.
"Colin Powell, interestingly enough, said that Obama got us out of Iraq. But it was Colin Powell, with his testimony before the U.N. Security Council, that got us into Iraq."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
That’s right John! You tell them. Meanwhile, I will go check your Senate record to confirm that you voted against the war----
Oops! Sen. John McCain voted for the war. But that can’t be right! A Black man got us into that war! McCain told us so!
We all make mistakes. We all miss opportunities or flunk entrance exams or make foolish investments. If we are Mitt Romney, we repeatedly do and say stupid things that get us into political hot water---like calling a press conference in the middle of a national security crisis in a pathetic attempt to score political points that ends up costing us the endorsement of a former Secretary of State. None of us---not even millionaire Mormons---measures up to our dream.
Fortunately, most of us are grown ups. We own up to our mistakes. We learn from our failures and try to do better next time.
But there will always be some Americans who try to soothe their bruised egos by declaring “It’s not my fault! It’s all the fault of that god damned__!” And for a moment, those Americans will feel a whole lot better about themselves---until they realize that projecting all that anger on someone else is about as useful as a roller skates for a fish. It doesn't get them jobs. It doesn't get them a house or health insurance. It just keeps them distracted, so the banksters can do what they do best---rob them blind and then declare "It wasn't us! It was the ___s!"