Quote:
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Most white bigots would rather be white and poor than black and rich.
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That may be so, but the amount of money you have will never lift you up (and rarely step you down) the class ladder, it just doesn't work that way. The concept of class isn't purely a matter of social standing, it is a way to decide who to identify with. Older class definitions tend to carry with them a stronger polarisation of good/bad traits. But it isn't the level of polarisation that makes the difference.
As you say, the root source is ignorance and fear, but discrimination (of any kind) is the placing of someone into a certain 'class'. Take the word class from the
dictionary:
Pronunciation: klås
n. 1. A group of individuals ranked together as possessing common characteristics; as, the different classes of society; the educated class; the lower classes.
2. A number of students in a school or college, of the same standing, or pursuing the same studies.
3. A comprehensive division of animate or inanimate objects, grouped together on account of their common characteristics, in any classification in natural science, and subdivided into orders, families, tribes, genera, etc.
4. A set; a kind or description, species or variety.
People from the same race posses a 'common characteristic', men and women are separated by the 'characteristic' of their sex. If one chooses to use a particular characteristic to form snap (and likely ill-founded) judgements, i.e. one performs an act of classification, then I guess one could be described as classist, and be seen as engaging in classism.
I know it's a question of semantics, but I'd definately say that classism is more generic a term than racism or sexism, it therefore should come first in the list.