“Since there is no black trash, am I to assume that blacks is analogous to white trash.”
In the south of my youth, we learned the subtleties of race and class by osmosis, without really addressing the issue directly.
The “coonasses” and “rednecks” I grew up among mostly took our cues from the “colored people” (polite term back then) themselves, because we lived among them.
Black folks who were church-going, law-abiding, decent folks were just folks, and we saw no particular reason to even mention race.
Mr. Henry was just a neighbor, Miz Jane was just Miz Jane, the lady who makes the best pies, go on down and get you one.
OTOH, young no-account blacks who spent their days cursing, fighting, shooting dice, drinking and stabbing—? We referred to the black trash the same way the colored folks did.
I still think this way. Just not out loud.
I never really thought much of it until I grew up and marched for Civil Rights, when there was a lot of angst over whether “negro” or “colored”
were more demeaning terms than “black.”
I realized that the way I had been taught as a child, it was more about class than about skin color, “class” meaning not money or social status, but in the sense of one’s dignity and self respect.
It really was about the content of one’s character.