I would argue racism has always been the element causing instability. Racism is why we don’t have universal healthcare, it’s why the inequality we do have is so punishing. Republicans are the party of white grievance since at least the 1960s, and even mentioning this fact is enough to send so-called moderates rushing to vote Republican because how dare I point this out.

I think that a lot of what we call racism is dressed up classism. If race A is poorer on average, people of race A will get treated as if they are poor--more likely to steal, more likely to break laws as they have less to lose. If race A is wealthier or the same, on average, the classism won't be intermingled in the same way with race.

Sadly, in the US, we have a terrible system where schools are locally funded, and poor people get poor schools. Under this system, socioeconomic class self-perpetuates.

> people of race A will get treated as if

I think you've just described racism.

While it isn't helpful that you're focusing on definitional terms rather than the point, the dictionary doesn't really back you up here anyhow.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism

Well, to me part of your point seemed to be that a lot of what we call racism has roots in classism, rather than in beliefs about inherent differences between races.

My point is that the resulting behaviors and discrimination can still be racist, even if they don't have their ultimate roots in racism itself.

From your link:

> also : behavior or attitudes that reflect and foster this belief : racial discrimination or prejudice

> : the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another

Edit: Anyway, I do recognize that the distinction you're pointing out does have implications for the best way to address the problems.

That's possible, and it's difficult to disentangle class and race in the US, due to historical racism economically repressing many minorities. However, follow on studies to the famous resume name-swapping study found that the original study used stereotypical lower-class black names as its pool of stereotypical black names. When stereotypical lower-class white names and stereotypical upper-class black names were added to the randomized pool, a larger component of discrimination fell along class lines vs. race lines, for both white and black prospective interviewers.

I hope our discrimination problems fall more along class lines, because that's much easier to solve by implementing economic policies to reduce economic inequalities. Government programs won't change people's races (well, non-terrifying government programs, at least), but policies can change people's economic class.

It's also entirely possible that different areas of the country have different mixes of classism and racism. My wife is of a different race, and our son is mixed race, and my wife and I both went to top-tier schools, so my social group is almost certainly less racist and more classist than the US median. It's very difficult and dangerous to extrapolate my lived truth to the whole nation.

Class is cultural before it's monetary. You can give Billy-bob a million dollars- a rich hick, a hick remains.

Every class tranche uses fashion to differentiate themselves from the tranche just below, while imitating the tranches above. The upper class used to wear fancy clothes to differentiate themselves from the middle class; the middle class started wearing the clothes of the upper class to try and join them; boom, ghetto chic becomes popular among ivy-leaguers. (They don't have to worry about being mistaken for actual lower-class people; the cultural differences are big enough that that isn't a concern).

This helps maintain in-group selection with all the wonderful effects it has.