subs. phr. (American negro).—See quots.; poor WHITE TRASH (q.v.).
1837. H. MARTINEAU, Society in America, ii. 311. There are a few, called by the slaves ‘MEAN WHITES’; signifying whites who work with the hands.
1873. JUSTIN MCCARTHY, A Fair Saxon, xix. That despised and degraded class, the MEAN WHITES—the creatures who had neither the social position and property that seemed essential to freedom in the South, nor the protected comfort of slavery.
