Honestly, I think this explains quite a bit. I grew up fairly poor (single income household in Appalachia). I had to train myself out of a lot of speech patterns / mannerisms that don't fly in other parts of America.

It's unfortunate, but the stereotype of inbred white trash is still alive and strong when most people hear Appalachian drawls. They hear the way we talk and immediately think we're ignorant. It's an openly-mocked culture.

Speech patterns / mannerisms might be one factor, but looks are another:

I worked on Wall St for over a decade. I regularly walked into the corner store (Duane Reade) in a high-end suit, $300 Thomas Pink shirt, cuff-links, a tie, and shiny shoes. I also had the mannerisms i was expected to take on having gone to an Ivy League undergrad.

Still on at least 5 or 6 occasions, individuals would walk up to me and ask "oh which aisle has the detergent" as if being of Indian origin automatically made me the store keeper. They saw right through my impeccable outfit, ignored it all, and saw "the Indian store-keeper guy."

I'd go so far as to argue that it's harder to get by as a white Appalachian than as a black urbanite. Plenty of people & programmes care about the latter; few about the former.

There's a lot of truth to that. I grew up in a poor single-income family in rural southern Illinois and the only programs we really had were free lunches, special ed, and a few assorted gifted classes in some grades and subjects (and honestly, I don't think they were as advanced as the normal classes in average or better school systems). We had very little in the way of access to museums, schooling alternatives, after school programs, etc.

A conversation with the Wash U financial aid office made it very clear just how bad the low-income white situation can be. We were working on my financial aid package and trying to figure out some way I could get the loans and grants I needed (I nearly had to quit school) - and as the woman was looking through her options, she jokingly asked if I was hispanic, saying they had a number of full-tuition scholarships and other funding opportunities for black and hispanic students plus a few opportunities for inner city St. Louis residents. Nothing targeting the low-income and rural.

The good news is that they (along with many other schools) later dropped the race requirements for their scholarships. They also offer free tuition for most, if not all, low-income students now. Sadly, those changes were too late to help me avoid $100k in student loans.

Even now, though, I wonder if many rural students would know about those opportunities. When I was applying to colleges, I went through a couple guidance counselors before I found one who didn't try to talk me into going to community college and studying something easier, like cosmetology or secretarial work. It takes an abnormal amount of effort and drive to get beyond that kind of rural upbringing and educational system, but people tend to ignore the fact that white people can also have a lot of systemic disadvantages.

That may be true, but the white Appalachian can learn to switch accents/mannerisms (code switch). A black urbanite (who may already have had to learn to code switch, depending on where they grew up) can't change their skin color.

Yup, that is indeed a problem. 'Race' in the U.S. is, I believe, really a cypher for class, and where in other countries someone born to a lower-class can learn to fit in among a better class, it's impossible to change one's race.

This also hurts immigrants from other countries: they may be well-educated but on first sight they appear to belong to a lower class. It's very unfortunate.

There's also the reverse effect, notably lampooned in the film Love, Actually: if you've a British accent, Americans will assume you're posh.

No you misunderstand people talk about and pretend to care about the latter. Unless you actually know what those experiences are like. It is very unlikely that a white man is going to go to the top graduate school in the country and discover that they don't give white people Phds. Black people can't say the same.

> It is very unlikely that a white man is going to go to the top graduate school in the country and discover that they don't give white people Phds. Black people can't say the same.

Got a link? I'm not questioning you, I'm curious to know more.