The derogatory term "white trash" as explained by wikipedia

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Cyberdad lives in Australia and is at a disadvantage when it comes to being able to observe the complexities and nuances regarding class in America. While it may have had its start with colonizers, it’s morphed into its own thing and “the motherland” isn’t entirely responsible for it. The term is used by many people, not just wealthy educated folks, so it’s a much bigger issue than some might realize.

I’m also a member of the demographic. I tend to think about this stuff in terms of intersectionality while keeping in mind that, on an individual level, we’ll all experience more or less discrimination due to any number of factors. The more oppressed groups you belong to the more likely you are to experience (more) discrimination * but, obviously, everyone’s experience is different. The fact that the US is not homogeneous complicates things further. For example, some places are more LGBTQ+ friendly than others just as some are more ethnically, racially, and religiously diverse.

* People who are in marginalized groups (racial minorities, disabled, LGBTQ+, etc.) are more likely to experience poverty overall.

Before you leave this forum I suggest you take home Twighlight's moniker
The main scourge of humanity is not ignorance, but the refusal to know.

I already "know" that rich white snobs love to look down on poor uneducated white people. Why don't you teach me something I don't know? And without that condenscending attitude for once?

To think that I can easily be put in that category makes me feel angry.

Believe me I understand. Being called "White trash" is just as demeaning as being called by any other racial slur

Agree with 99% of your post. There's a really insightful work of fiction which I am sure you have read called "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding. In that story the children who survive a plane crash form a kind of heirarchy based on the strengths of the individual children. Darwinian survival of the fittest in action. It seems forming social class systems is hard coded in our DNA.

What's my point? I think the basic reasons why social classes form is universal. Across cultural boundaries (since you are trying to emphasise as an Australian I lack understanding of nuance in the US) there is a basic distinction between landowners and workers. This is certainly the template which translated from the UK to the US or Australia. The famous British aristocracy disdain for the "lower classes" is replicated (perhaps not to the same level) in 2024 when people choose where they live, where they send their children to school and whom they choose to socialise with, Even which church they choose. It isn't exactly such a great chasm between perceptions of class in the US vs Australia but yes, there is nuance based on local historic and cultural factors.

Sometimes your posts on America/American culture miss the mark by a wide margin. This is especially the case in recent threads concerning poverty in America, so there may be more differences between our countries than you realize. Of course, when people lack personal experience with living in poverty or whatever else, they may not fully appreciate various facets to it. Class and cultural issues here are not entirely the same as those in Britain just like American English is somewhat different from British English. There are influences from other countries going on. The intermingling of various cultures and the evolution that came with the passage of time makes this a much more complex topic than one might think. America has been its own nation for hundreds of years. It would be an exercise in futility to blame Britain for our current problems.

Lord of the Flies is a great book. However, it’s a work of fiction and is, thus, not particularly relevant to the current discussion.

Yes I agreed with that premise (if you read my post). But human psychology is much the same. The basis for forming class systems is hard coded in our DNA.

The OP indicated he is triggered by the derogatory term "white trash" but this type of sentiment is universal across all non-tribal societies. I don't need to go into detail on what lower classes are labelled in countries like Japan or India. In western European countries the treatment of lower classes has been historically not so great. In Britain there was great enthusiasm to basically dispose of the lower classes from the streets of Birmingham, London and Manchester to Australia and sending the hordes of poor Irish to the United States. I'm not 100% sure but that might be the origin of where the word "trash" in reference to lower classes.

It would be nice in the future when we stop referring to people this way.

If you read the quote in the OP, you will find that it’s about how “white trash” is defined in America. The origin of the word is not important if it carries a somewhat different meaning/connotation than that of our current discussion. Obviously, most societies have some degree of classism. However, there are significant, cultural differences when it comes to this topic, so IMO, it’s worth addressing in a more specific, nuanced way, especially considering the lived experience of certain contributing members.

Exactly, I'm referring specifically to American classism.

Impoverished whites in the US may not suffer from direct racism the way black people and other people of color do, but we are treated as basically invisible by all of society. When you're labelled as "white trash" in the US people will claim you deserve to be uneducated, poor, and to come from an unstable home life full of physical & sexual abuse plus alcoholism & drug activity.

The “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality is very strong in the US, so when people can’t do it for whatever reason, they are often labeled as “lazy” and deserving of the harsh realities that come with poverty - like being labeled as “white trash.” Some also think those on disability for “invisible disabilities” are just trying to “work the system” because being poor is super fun./s

It’s not just wealthy people who express these views. It’s often working class people who are only a paycheck or two away from being in a similar position as those they are casting judgment on. Some don’t like the idea of their tax dollars funding food stamps, welfare, SSI, etc. It often seems to come down to a poor understanding of invisible disabilities, socioeconomic deterrents, and various other issues that can make it impossible for some people to progress economically.

Oh believe me I get the part about blaming the disabled and the mentally ill too. I've had people talk crap about my mom for years for still taking care of me and my youngest brother (like me he is also autistic but also suffers from cerebral palsy) because we are in our 30's. They treat her like she babies or controls us or just wants to control our money, but she pretty much has to do this for us because we cant handle our own finances. She makes sure we have a roof over our heads and food and medicine and all that good stuff.

And you've brought up another good point that its not just the rich here who look down on the poor. It's the middle class too and from what I have noticed, now that you mention it, other poor people living in my own trailer park can be very overly critical of those who are not much different than they are.

It's basically like our American society has turned "divide & conquer" into an artform.

I'll refer to the link posted by the OP

Beginning in the early 17th century, the City of London shipped their unwanted excess population, including vagrant children, to the American colonies – especially the Colony of Virginia, the Province of Maryland, and the Province of Pennsylvania – where they became not apprentices, as the children had been told, but indentured servants, working particularly in the fields, especially in Maryland and Tidewater Virginia. Even before the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade brought Africans to the British colonies in 1619, this influx of "transported" English, Welsh, Scots, and Irish was a crucial part of the American workforce. The Virginia Company also imported boatloads of poor women to be sold as brides. The numbers of these all-but-slaves was significant: by the middle of the 17th century, at a time when the population of Virginia was 11,000, only 300 were Africans, who were outnumbered by English, Irish and Scots indentured servants. In New England, one-fifth of the Puritans were indentured servants. More indentured servants were sent to the colonies as a result of insurrections in Ireland. Oliver Cromwell sent hundreds of Irish Catholics to British North America during the Irish Confederate Wars (1641–1653).

In 1717, the Parliament of Great Britain passed the Transportation Act 1717, which allowed for the penal transportation of tens of thousands of convicts to North America, in order to alleviate overcrowding in British prisons. By the time penal transportation ceased during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), some 50,000 people had been transported to the New World under the law. When the American market closed to them, the convicts were then sent to Australia. In total, 300,000 to 400,000 people were shipped to the North American colonies as unfree laborers, between 1/2 and 2/3 of all white immigrants.

The British conceived of the American colonies as a "wasteland", and a place to dump their underclass.The people they sent there were "waste people", the "scum and dregs" of society. The term "waste people" gave way to "squatters" and "crackers", used to describe the settlers who populated the Western frontier of the United States and the backcountry of some southern states, but who did not have title to the land they settled on, and had little or no access to education or religious training.

This is identical to what I was saying and (I highlighted exactly the same thing happened in Australia) what you (and strangely the OP who posted this himself) are trying to ignore.
There is a saying "if you don't know where you have been, you won't know where you are going"

Here is a relatively recent thread on class in the UK:

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=418642&start=0

It seems like having one on current class issues in the US is reasonable. I’m pretty sure OPs can have some say in the direction their threads take.

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=407898&start=48

Cyberdad, you could start a thread on history, but that’s not what this thread is about according to the OP.

I agree with TwilightPrincess.