As a side note: at some point we should really talk about the differences between poverty and class markers.

We associate certain things, like trash and cars in the yard, with poverty--but class markers are not a bank statement. https://twitter.com/pinkrocktopus/status/1314557034583535617

Overt, violent racism is a class marker, too, among white folks. You can see that in the way we talk about the south, rural america, skinheads, you name it. The reason "dapper" nazis get so many glossy profiles is because they transgress class boundaries.

Now obviously racism is not a factor of social class. There are many extremely wealthy racists in the world. Many McMansion-dwelling one percenters waving smurf lives matter flags. But there are "classy" ways of being racist and "trashy" ways of being racist.

"Trashy" racism is easy to condemn, because condemning it is a way of reinforcing class boundaries.

So we do this "economic anxiety" dance, which is at once infantilizing and insulting--"well of course they're racist--they're poor."

But what that really means is, "of course they express their racism in trashy ways. That's a marker of their social class."

In this view, joining a terrorist cell is just like having a truck parked on the grass: it's unsightly. What will the neighbors think?

And well. White American social class enforcement teaches us to view poor people as objects of pity. White terrorism is trashy and trashiness indicates poverty and poverty is to be pitied--and suddenly it's "poor dears, they have economic anxiety. We mustn't judge them."

Thus we get people posting photos to argue that a homeowner with two cars turned to racist terrorism because he's poor. Because he parks his cars on his lawn, which is trashy, just like terrorism.

Racism is not, in fact, about class, either in who does it or who's affected by it. But re-branding racism as a class marker does double duty: excusing violent racists as victims while absolving middle-class and wealthy whites of any need for introspection.