Who would be happy under Jim Crow or apartheid if you were black? Ridiculous.
Why would blacks complain to a hillbilly or redneck that was part of the ruling class that was oppressing them? Ridiculous.
Now as far as people not defending what he said...but defending his right to say it...
He DID utilize his right to say it.
And A and E utilized their right to not air him any longer.
Case Closed.
So why then, would a governor come out on his behalf AT ALL???
He wasn't part of the ruling class he was just as much being oppressed and discriminated as the blacks were, as being poor white trash.
He could not get a regular job as white trash, no white would hire him.
White trash is a derogatory American English term referring to poor white people, especially in the rural South of the US, suggesting lower social class and degraded standards. The term suggests outcasts from respectable society living on the fringes of the social order who are seen as dangerous because they may be criminal, unpredictable, and without respect for authority whether it be political, legal, or moral. The term is usually a slur and insult.
The term White trash first came into common use in the 1830s as a pejorative used by house slaves against poor whites. In 1833 Fanny Kemble, an English actress visiting Georgia, noted in her journal: "The slaves themselves entertain the very highest contempt for white servants, whom they designate as 'poor white trash'".
In 1854, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the chapter "Poor White Trash" in her book A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. Stowe tells the reader that slavery not only produces "degraded, miserable slaves", but also poor whites who are even more degraded and miserable. The plantation system forced those whites to struggle for subsistence. Beyond economic factors, Stowe traces this class to the shortage of schools and churches in their community, and says that both blacks and whites in the area look down on these "poor white trash".
By 1855 the term had passed into common usage by upper class whites, and was common usage among all Southerners, regardless of race, throughout the rest of the 19th century.