Let me explain some things about the kind of casual racism I grew up around in poor, rural, Appalachia - this is *not* to justify anything, I'm simply describing what I witnessed as a widespread attitude around me. Racism, in all its forms is bad. So...

I'm going to talk about people's attitudes & beliefs. I'm using "racism" in that sense. Structural racism is real & is, in my mind, the bigger issue, but we still have to be able to talk about people's racist attitudes & beliefs - that's what I'm addressing here

Most of the racists I knew & grew up with held the idea that the races as they saw them where fundamentally different somehow. They really believed that the day to day life & attending lifestyle of non-white races was radically different from their own

Sometimes, yes, this idea about fundamental racial difference was accompanied by white supremacy, the idea that whites were morally superior in some way - this was often an inchoate idea, but it was there often enough

But not all racists were exactly white supremacists. In fact, I'd say a lot of people didn't really have an idea of white supremacy so much as they just thought that because the races were so irreconcilably different, it would be best if we just kept to ourselves

I don't think this is a good thing to believe, but the racists I mostly knew growing up - & they were racists, for sure - didn't so much hate other races as they wanted each to keep to their own. They were segregationists & wanted to be left alone among their own

Again, maybe there was overarching white supremacy, but that didn't seem to predominate in the casual racism I'm talking about here. Not to downplay the threat & danger of white supremacist ideology & its role in shaping structurally racist institutions - that shit is real

Where the anger & hatred would come up is when the races mixed - specifically when the other races were felt to be encroaching on the things that were supposed to belong to whites or to which white people were entitled - the idea of whiteness as property is really helpful here

This perceived threat of encroachment is where the individual attitudes I'm talking about collide with the structural issues, because the structure codes certain social goods for whites & the people I'm talking about pick up on & are invested in that

So, entitlements & rights being extended to Black people, for example, in the racists mind, encroaches on white coded goods that are available in a zero-sum game. Some thing is "taken" from them & they feel threatened, hence the fear, anger, & yes, sometimes or eventually hatred

This collision is a better explanation of why some whites are radicalizing into explicit white supremacist ideologies & getting violent, etc.

Their precarious economic position, which is the poverty element here, is exacerbated by the failures of capitalism at the same time that there is a very loud, persistent, & totally justified clamor for racial equality & protests of racial injustice

They see that, from their casually segregationist standpoint, as these other races encroaching on their goods - goods that are "supposed" to be theirs by right. Explicit white supremacist ideology feeds into the fear of loss & provides a scapegoat to direct their anger on

Because the labor movement has been eviscerated in these areas, which could act to redirect this anger toward it's appropriate targets, which are capitalists & the capitalist system, there is nothing compelling to sway them away from the racial divide as an explanation...

...since people who hold this casual attitude I'm describing are primed to see races as fundamentally different somehow, even if they're not quite to the white supremacist point yet - it's not hard to push them there.

This thread is long, so let me wrap up just by saying, even casual racism is bad, but most of the racists I knew growing up are not really seething with hatred or card carrying white supremacists, & we really need to understand this if we are to address & change this problem

The most generous way to spin an ugly reality is that there is a strong "live & let live" ethos among many rural people that can feed into racist, segregationist ideas if someone also believes there are fundamental differences in how each race, however they perceive them, lives

If you're interested in the idea of whiteness as property, you can start with Cheryl Harris' groundbreaking paper here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=927850