The second costume was bit longer ago, though I was still in my 30s, and a bit more complex when it comes to the politics of it. I went as White Trash Girl. Obviously, I’m Black, which adds layers to the problematic nature of the costume. No, I did not whiten my face. I wore a blond mullet, ripped tights, a “too short” skirt, and a lot of baby blue eye shadow.
This is problematic, it is shameful, because I was punching down. I wasn’t just making fun of white people. I was making fun of poor white people. While I could argue being poor doesn’t make you trash that’s semantics and respectability politics both of which are bullshit arguments. I’ve never been poor. My upbringing was middle/lower middle class and, it could be argued, I am solidly middle today.
Poor white folks have white privilege. Now, when I talk about white privilege, I am talking about it on a systemic level. White privilege will not protect you from your bigoted, Black, homeroom teacher. What white privilege means is that a zip code won’t be redlined by banks because it has too many white people in it. Yes. This is still happening. It’s just no longer federally enforced. It means that white people in America will not be pulled over by cops, followed in stores, assumed to be outsiders in certain neighborhoods *because of the color of their skin*.
Class privilege is different than white privilege but, like so many things, they often overlap. It’s the flipside of every headline about the poor in America have the phrase “and minorities” tacked on. In White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack the author, Peggy McIntosh puts at number two on her list of things she ascribes to having white privilege: “If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.” This is class or economic privilege. Not white privilege.
As a Black woman I obviously don’t have white privilege. I do, however, have some class/economic privilege. Not a whole lot. I grew up lower middle class. This meant there was always money for the necessities. We couldn’t afford high end brands, our home was modest, and vacations were mostly road trips to nearby beach towns and cities, but we were comfortable. We were safe.
As a young child I didn’t know any poor white people. I knew poor Black people. We had family on the poorer, Black side of town and even in the projects. But the white kids I went to school with, was on sports teams with, in scouts with, were all at least lower middle and many were upper middle. They were like the people on TV. It was hard for me to even conceive of poor white people in the modern world. Poor white folks were in black and white.
Americans don’t like to talk about race, and when we do, we will often double down on our racism. We will put on our colorblind goggles and talk about individualism and bootstraps. But we are so rigid in our belief in a classless society we would rather talk about race than poor white people. It’s another reason the headlines about the poor always have “and minorities” tacked onto them. When you compare apples to apples, for example white people living in isolated urban poverty versus people of color who live in isolated urban poverty, they have the same problems. No one wants to talk about that. Even a lot of poor white people.
In An Un-Humourous Treatise On Punching Up Vs. Punching Down comedian Mathew Farthing talks about the benign violation theory (BVT). In his words:
Essentially, BVT posits that we laugh when we perceive (1) a situation is a violation, (2) the situation is benign, and (3) both perceptions occur simultaneously. In other words, we feel and recognise both “safety” and “violation”.
https://matthewfarthing.medium.com/an-un-humourous-treatise-on-punching-up-vs-punching-down-d76fa60ba0b1
I often reminisce on how much more optimistic the late 90s were. Before 9/11, the Republican Recession, and the backlash against having a Black man elected president. When Columbine was an outlier and crime was falling faster than we could process. Dressing as White Trash Girl wasn’t funny fifteen years ago. I was caricaturing someone who, on many levels, has less privilege than I do. It especially isn’t funny now because, back then, we at least felt safe and now we most assuredly don’t. So, short story long, attacking ideas, injustice, or the clear failure of the government can be funny. Attacking someone who has less power or knowledge than you do for having less power or knowledge is just mean.