What's the true meaning of salt of the earth?

[malaise]

I keep hearing CNN's Pamela Brown use it. Can non-whites be salt of the earth folks?

[marble falls]

1. Me, dammit! You, too!

[malaise]

2. She's really showing her true colors

Not that I hadn't seen through her ages ago

[marble falls]

4. There's no doubt about it. Her version is a dog whistle. Ours is about real people.

[JohnSJ]

5. I think it means an honest person. She must NOT be referring to republicans

[underpants]

6. Salt is the reason West Virginia became West Virginia

and got out of the Civil War. Main salt producer to North and South. It’s not personal, it’s business.

[48656c6c6f20]

24. That's a little simplistic and not quite the only reason

The area was mostly small farms and some salt mines. It was a much more complicated issue though.
My home state is a shadow of itself. And it's sad.

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/181568

It is a custom of the United States Senate that allows a minority coalition (as small as 41 senators) to block a bill supported by the majority. History offers several deleterious examples of giving a legislative minority the ability to suppress the majority. One such example can be found in antebellum Virginia, where an Eastern slaveholding elite feared losing their majority to politicians from the rapidly growing, mostly non-slaveholding population of Western Virginia. To prevent this, Easterners concocted rules that allowed slaveholders (and thus, Easterners) extra power in the legislature. This sense of political oppression by an elite minority generated immense antipathy in Western Virginia, eventually leading to the rupture of the state during the American Civil War.

[Shellback Squid]

7. I don't believe skin tone makes a difference

Definition of the salt of the earth

: a very good and honest person or group of people

but easily misled

[myohmy2]

8. nope...

...to be like salt you have to be pigment challenged...

...not sure but I think the meaning is that some people taste more salty than others...

...

[questionseverything]

9. I thought it meant like backbone of the family or community

When you bless a house you give bread, so the house never knows hunger

Salt for flavor

And wine for happiness

Of course poc can be and are salt of the earth peops

[Walleye]

10. I always like this song

https://m.

[malaise]

11. Always loved that song

[Raine]

12. Yes, hard working no nonsense people that keep things running

can be any color. 👍

[kozar]

13. In eras ago

Salt was used as money. I read somewhere that the saying ( in reasonably same form) meant if a person was salt of the earth, they were as trustworthy and good as money.

Koz

[malaise]

17. Thanks to you and everyone else

[Solomon]

31. Yes. Salt is where the word "salary" comes from.

[TxGuitar]

14. can't believe this hasn't been posted yet

[malaise]

15. Heheheheh - one of my all time favorite movies

[JanMichael]

29. I was looking for it too shocked it wasn't the 2nd or 3rd reply...

[Tanuki]

16. It's from the Bible. Salt was highly valued.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.courant.com/ctnow/hc-fea-word-watch-1125-story.html%3foutputType=amp

"Though “salt of the earth” is a venerable expression with biblical origins, it has managed to provoke a salty linguistic controversy. The phrase derives from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “You are the salt of the earth.” (Matthew 5:13) Jesus meant that the common people he was addressing – fishermen, shepherds, laborers – were worthy and virtuous."...(more)

[malaise]

19. I know that reference

but I meant today's meaning

[Red Mountain]

18. Naturally occuring salt comes in all colors

I doubt that's even a consideration but I don't think it's a dog whistle.

Yes they are.

[ProfessorGAC]

22. I Just Bought Some Pink Salt!

Adds a lot to presentation, tastes the same.
It's typically mined in Pakistan and the pink comes from trace amounts of minerals, particularly iron, calcium & magnesium.
It's mined, so it's literally "salt of the earth" & it's not white!!!

[Buckeye_Democrat]

20. Salt was a valuable commodity, especially in ancient times.

Jesus called his devoted followers the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13), and that phrase has been used ever since.

Skin color has nothing to do with it.

Salt comes in various colors anyway.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

21. +1. Good post. . . nt

[LuvLoogie]

23. Also the title of a film about the strike by Mexican immigrant workers

against a mining company in New Mexico.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_of_the_Earth_(1954_film)

[malaise]

25. Very interesting

Thanks

[marybourg]

26. Worth seeking out and viewing.

[DBoon]

27. I'd heard the film was made by folks suffering from the McCarthy era blacklist

I recall it was a favorite showing at left wing fundraisers in the 1980s

[JanMichael]

28. Yep. It's a great movie.

[VGNonly]

32. Most of the cast

were non-professionals. Will Geer (Grandpa Walton) played the sheriff. In reality he was a communist, and hung out with Woody Guthrie.

[BlackSkimmer]

30. An odd question. Of course.

I guess you're inferring something about Brown, and I don't know her enough to comment regarding her personally.

But one of the people I've seen interviewed by various reporters is a man named Ivy Williams, whose wife worked in that candle factory. Both he and his wife are the very definition of salt of the earth, which is one of the reasons they've been so interested in his story.

I haven't watched coverage today, and I assume she didn't survive. The whole thing is so tragic, and his particular circumstance illustrates it so heartbreakingly perfectly.

Really, making political hay out of this awful disaster is just...