Regarding different classes in America, various forms of media, like TV shows or movies to all forms of advertising, portray class with a double standard. For example, black people and white people are held to different standards with respect to class in that a rich black person might be automatically associated with being a drug dealer, while this would never happen to a rich white person. Bell Hooks writes about this double standard in her book Where We Stand: Class Matters, and she also argues that the media today still perpetuates ill-conceived notions regarding race and class. She draws particular attention to news media and how statistics are used to paint a misleading image, like how blacks are more likely to live in poverty than whites rather than saying how there are significantly more whites in poverty than blacks. In the same way that rich people of color are discredited, poor white people are looked at by society as lower than poor black people. Slang like “white trash” and the meaning it entails is unfortunately true for some poor white people, but I think it’s wrong and dangerous because it is hardly true for all white people.

Class did not play much of a role in the documentary about feminism, “She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry,” but one lady spoke briefly about her hardships in academia because of being a woman but also from being a poor white person. While we like to believe that our past does not define us, it is evident that being successful when coming from “white trash” can be more difficult than being successful when coming from a poor black family. Many forms of entertainment portray black people as poor but also constantly striving to make a better life for themselves, like Everybody Hates Chris where the main family is in poverty, but the father works two jobs. Not surprisingly, it is harder to find entertainment focused on poor white people, which might say something about the people in charge of entertainment and the general attitude of white people of privilege towards “white trash.”