Editing White trash (section)

====Celtic heritage====

The [[Brandeis University]] historian [[David Hackett Fischer]] says there is an enduring genetic basis for a "willingness to resort to violence" &ndash; citing especially the finding of high blood levels of [[testosterone]] &ndash; in the four main chapters of his book ''[[Albion's Seed]]''.<ref>Particularly the chapter "Borderlands to the Backcountry: The Flight from Middle Britain and Northern Ireland, 1717-1775".</ref> He proposes that a propensity for violence in the Mid-Atlantic, Southern and Western states is due to genetic changes wrought over generations living in traditional herding societies in [[Northern England]], the [[Scottish Borders]], and Irish [[Border Region]], which were then transferred to other ethnic groups by shared culture.<ref>[[David Hackett Fischer|Fischer, David Hackett]] (1989) ''[[Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America]]''. New York: [[Oxford University Press]]. {{ISBN|978-0-19-506905-1}}</ref>{{efn|In ''Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and Southern Heritage'', [[Grady McWhiney]] and Perry D. Jamiesen analyze the military behavior of the Confederate Army by comparing it to that of the Celts of Europe and the British Isles, and conclude that the Confederate's over-aggressiveness coupled with a lack of tenacity, among other characteristics, is well-aligned with Celtic battle behavior throughout history. They believe that the Celtic-ness of the South was one of the factors which contributed to its losing the [[American Civil War|Civil War]].<ref>[[Grady McWhiney|McWhiney, Grady]] and Jamiesen, Perry D. (1982) ''Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and Southern Heritage''. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press. pp.170-191. {{isbn|0-8173-0229-8}}</ref>}}

Even before there was any scientific investigation into the roots of the poor white people of the South, social critic [[H. L. Mencken]], in his 1919 essay "Sahara of the Bozart", challenged the prevailing myth at the time that "poor white trash", and most of the South's population, were primarily of Anglo-Saxon stock, suggesting most were Celtic, with lesser elements of French, Spanish, German and African American heritage.{{efn|Mencken wrote: "The chief strain down there, I believe, is Celtic rather than Saxon, particularly in the hill country French blood, too, shows itself here and there, and so does Spanish, and so does German. The last-named entered from the northward, by way of the limestone belt just east of the Alleghenies. Again, it is very likely that in some parts of the South a good many of the plebeian whites have more than a trace of Negro blood. Interbreeding under concubinage produced some very light half-breeds at an early day, and no doubt appreciable numbers of them went over into the white race by the simple process of changing their abode."<ref>[[H. L. Mencken|Mencken, H. L.]] (1919) [http://writing2.richmond.edu/jessid/eng423/restricted/mencken.pdf "Sahara of the Bozart"] in Cairns, Huntington, editor (1977) ''The American Scene: A Reader''. New York: Knopf. pp.157-168</ref>}} According to historian [[Jack Temple Kirby]], Mencken was "woefully ignorant of even the basics of southern history", and was a "captive of the tradition that Old South society consisted only of planter aristocrats, slaves, and poor white trash".<ref>[[Jack Temple Kirby|Kirby, Jack Temple]] (1986) [1976] ''Media-Made Dixie: The South in the American Imagination''. Atlanta: University of Georgia Press. p.66. {{isbn|0-8203-0885-4}}</ref>