greater-than-the-sword:

rabbits-of-negative-euphoria:

flashback to about 40 years before the Civil War. there was a widely-present but oft-overlooked class of white Americans who were too poor to own slaves, and too expensive to hire (because…slavery). they were described by other classes as ignorant, degenerate criminals.

much like the slaves, they were treated as cannon fodder in the war, and absent conscripts were hunted with dogs.

after the war, freed blacks were considered “humble, quiet, and hardworking” while the impoverished whites were called “illiterate, vicious, worthless barbarians”

disgusted by this class, black slaves popularized the term “white trash” in the 1830s and it is still used today to refer to poor white people, usually interchangeable with “trailer trash”

this is not to undermine the injustice of slavery – racial or otherwise – in any way, but I do think if white privilege wasn’t even a thing before the Civil War, it’s certainly not a thing today

This entire article is fascinating but

Can we stop romanticizing the confederacy now? The people I’m talking to know who they are