Class discrimination

Classism is prejudice or discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes individual attitudes, behaviors, systems of policies, and practices that are set up to benefit the upper class at the expense of the lower class. or vice versa

For example, middle-class and upper-class individuals in the U.S. referring to working class, white Americans as "poor white trash" can be regarded as a form of class prejudice, the insult having the capacity to be historically analogous to racist language against African-Americans.

History

Class structures existed in a simplified form in pre-agricultural societies, but became much more complex and established following the establishment of permanent agriculture-based civilizations with a food surplus. Classism started to be practiced around the 18th century.

Institutional versus personal classism

The term classism can refer to personal prejudice against "lower" or "upper" classes as well as to institutional classism, just as the term racism can refer either strictly to personal bigotry or to institutional racism. The former has been defined as "the ways in which conscious or unconscious classism is manifest in the various institutions of our society."