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Zoë Heller and James Wolcott

the breakfast table
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from: James Wolcott

Is "White Trash" Offensive Because of Who Says It?

Posted Monday, Aug. 6, 2001, at 5:08 PM ET

Dear Zoë,

So much moralizing has been dumped on Gary Condit like a medieval dose of burning coals, but in the midst of this stagy outrage, none of the pundits has dared question the behavior of the women involved. Yet Condit didn't deceive either Chandra Levy or the flight attendant with the cherry-red hair and vacant stare. They both knew he was married, that they would have to meet him on the sly, yet dove right in. If he was a predator, he doesn't seem to have much trouble locating prey, who don't appear to have taken any more account of his wife's feelings than did Condit himself. (Younger women nearly always see The Wife as a weak, expendable rival.) I saw some on-air hysteric asking how Chandra could have lowered herself to abide by Condit's rules of engagement (getting off the elevator at separate floors, private phone numbers), as if the poor dear obviously suffered from damaged self-esteem. Well, the answer why Chandra or any other girlfriend might play Condit's game is obvious: They found this sneaking around exciting. It made them feel special, on the snug inside. Secrets are sexy. In Zola and Balzac, the furtiveness of adultery is what binds lovers together, enlists them in a conspiracy against which the rest of the world become oblivious bystanders. But since pundits are more fluent in psychobabble than fiction, they can actually ask without blushing on the cable news shows whether Condit's mistresses constitute a "cult" and are under his mind control. It's insulting to women to assume they can't make their own (bad) decisions.

I don't want to ignore the political agenda behind the Condit media orgy, which was revealed in a recent Rush Limbaugh whale-spouting on his radio show about the Democrat tradition of exploiting women from Ted Kennedy to Bill Clinton to Gary Condit. Never mind that Condit voted like a Republican in drag, and that Newt Gingrich would never pass for a gentleman in Trollope. Bashing Condit has become a way of tarring Bill Clinton all over again and providing a make-work program for Barbara Olson, Ann Coulter, and all those blond "former prosecutors" Larry King seems to have corralled as his personal Charlie's Angels.

I agree with you about the fake hypocrisy over Lizzie Grubman's use of the phrase "white trash," which some even suggested constituted a hate crime. I think the phrase has value precisely because it's so punchy and vivid. Somehow referring to a tattooed bigamist on Jerry Springer who's having an affair with his mother-in-law as a member of the lumpenproletariat just doesn't have quite the same zing. When an essay in a recent book about Monica Lewinsky disputes Toni Morrison's view of Bill Clinton as our first black president, calling him instead our first white-trash president, that strikes me as a descriptive avenue to take, perhaps because I grew up in a borderline white-trash environment and feel a certain affinity with our former president. I wonder if "white trash," like "nigger," is a term where the offensiveness hinges on whose mouth it flies out of. Your average rapper can pepper his steak with the "n" word, but when Jennifer Lopez does it, that's a no-no. Out of Lizzie Grubman's pampered lips, the phrase "white trash" carries a sneer of class snobbery--OK, fine. But since nearly everyone in Manhattan is a snob of some particular persuasion, the indignation over her outburst was in bad faith.

Anyway, now that Grubman's mother has died, the thrill has gone out of the hunt for the press pack. Nothing puts a damper on a feeding frenzy like feeling sorry for the person you've been trying so hard to loath.

In the heat of the naked city,
Jim

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516171819
from: James Wolcott

Is "White Trash" Offensive Because of Who Says It?

Posted Monday, Aug. 6, 2001, at 5:08 PM ET
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Zoë Heller is a columnist for the London Daily Telegraph and author of the novel Everything You Know. James Wolcott is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and author of the novel The Catsitters.
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