Reply to Why is it okay and not considered racist to call someone "white trash"?

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Reply to "Why is it okay and not considered racist to call someone "white trash"?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Implicit in the term "racism" is an institutional power structure that enforces racial inequality. So, no, "white trash" is not "racist". [/quote]

Says who?  You can be a racist without an institutional power structure backing you up. [i]Racism is just the belief that every person of a race shares some characteristic other than their mutual race[/i].  "White Trash" is racism combined with a socio-economic factor.  [/quote]

No that's stereotyping and prejudice.  Racism is the systematic oppression of members of a group of people based upon their racial classification.  It is manifested through accepted practices and beliefs (institutionalized racism), and actions by individuals toward other individuals that are either out in the open (overt) or hidden in coded language or practices (covert).  The use of "white trash" is an example of the latter.[/quote]

Also, the fact that trash is the modifier for "white" makes this pretty clearly *not* a case of racism. Racism (of the institutional variety) would be where all whites are denied the right to buy housing in particular neighborhoods because "white people are trash". Informally you could make the case that someone who thinks that white people should not be permitted to buy houses in DC because "white people ruin everything and drive out decent folk" is a racist.

But, no, a phrase like "white trash" which had its origins in middle-class white society cannot conceivably be argued to be "racist."[/quote]

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