White trash is a derogatory racist and classist slur used in American English to refer to poor white people, especially in the rural southern United States. The label signifies a social class inside the white population and especially a degraded standard of living. It is used as a way to separate the "noble and hardworking" "good poor" from the lazy, "undisciplined, ungrateful and disgusting" "bad poor". Use of the term provides for middle- and upper-class whites a means of distancing themselves from the poverty and powerlessness of poor whites, members of a privileged class – whites – who cannot enjoy those privileges.