I am reading bell hook's Where We Stand: Class Matters...and am in the section where she is talking about poor whites and white trash (a distinction I have failed to make up til this point).Some of her pronouncements are interesting....but her discussion of certain things put me in the mindset of my own family and its dealings with "white trash." IT is sort of odd, or perhaps not odd, but just untalked about- the nature of small, southern towns...but the racial dynamics in them are something worth and that NEED to be talked about. To give an example,when I was going to Prattville High School, there were two boys that went there, both named Michael Rawlinson-- one was black and the other was white. Both were related to me and were related to each other. That said, the Deramuses(me) are related to more than their fair share of poor white trash--- we didn't get to be related to too many high brow white people as is the experience of many other Blacks;-) But alas, one of the stories that has intriqued me the most is how my mother used to tell me when she was a little girl, this white woman would come to her grandmother's back door (she didnt want to be seen coming to the front) and knock and knock. And then she would say "Aw sissy (my great grandmother's nickname), you know we cousins....." and my mother would be standing behind her grandmother thinking "Who is this white woman at my grandmother's door begging for food?" Oh my, white power really does rule......