"Poor white trash center is needed"

"Poor white trash center is needed"

This satirical letter response to the Black Awareness Council protest for a cultural center is indicative of the growing lack of civility in racial debates in the pages of the Technician. In the letter, Carscardden calls for the building of a white trash cultural center and implicitly compares African American culture with some of the worst elements of white culture, suggesting that African American culture has little of worth to be celebrated. Carscadden's mocking tone raises important questions about whether the Technician could be a safe, respectful space for students to engage in interracial dialogue. The founders of the Nubian Message obviously believed that the Technician could not serve the African American student population and African American students needed their own space to express their views and receive fair media coverage. By establishing the Nubian Message, Williamson and his supporters inadvertently created a segregated space for African American knowledge and furthered a tradition of black marginalization. However, letters like Carscardden's provoke disturbing questions about whether any integrated safe space could truly exist on NCSU's campus in the early 1990s.

Rob Carscadden

Rob Carscadden, "Poor White Trash Center is Needed," The Technician vol. LXXIV no. 20 (September 28, 1992), 7.

1992-09-28

Cheryl Dong

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First off, I would like to pledge my support and the support of my organization to the students at UNC-Chapel Hill who want a free-standing black cultural center. As my uncle Ned says, when he’s coherent (which isn’t all that often as he has a problem with the hooch, not all liquor mind you, just the store bought stuff, “Son, sometimes you gotta give a little to get a little.” You see, I am also a minority; I’m poor white trash. We are not a proud group and often deny our heritage. I ‘member sitting on the kitchen floor while my momma fried up some okra and chicken (she fries a good chicken, not as good as ol’ Mrs. Hayes down the street though, but then again who fries a chicken like Ol’ Mrs. Hayes), and my momma saying to me, “Boy, I ain’t no po’ white trash and neither is you!”

But Momma, I am poor white trash and I’m proud of it. People harass us, tease us, call us tactless, tasteless, etc.. Well I’m tired of it. Just because we like pickups with gun racks, Trans-Ams, tight jeans, big hair and country music, people feel free to make fun of us. We ain’t gonna stand for it no more. In order to preserve our heritage and promote our culture, we want, no we demand a free-standing double-wide poor white trash cultural center. The university could set us up anywheres, just give us a satellite dish, so’s we can get all the television we want, including HBO, “Hooter Box Office as uncle Ned calls it. A few appliances and some ceramic lawn ornaments around the yard would be nice also. We would sperad our culture everywhere and again raise our heads up in pride, if only we were given this cultural center.

So the next time someone laughs at your woman just because she squeezed her size 16 rump into a pair of size 10 running shorts, stand up proud and say, “I’m poor white trash, I’m proud and I ain’t gonna take it no more!!”

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