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How "bad" is white trash considered?
Are people generally hurt by being called this, or is it considered milder then for example nigger? Are someone using this word considered a bigot?
Is it ever used in main stream texts like newspapers or the like?
Mostly see it used in comments or other entries on the World Wide Web, but seldom, if ever, see people criticize the use in comparison to racial slur.
In common English usage, it is not considered to be as offensive to the recipient. However, based on its history, it should probably be considered more offensive than it is, and both white and black Americans may be offended. It should be avoided if at all possible.
The term "white nigger" came into common use in American English in the 1830s, and the similar term "white trash" came into common use a little later, as a more polite form of essentially the same concept. ("White nigger" had somewhat different meanings and implications in early UK usage that I won't get into).
The idea behind calling someone "white trash" specifically is to describe them as someone who is white, but acts trashy. The clear implication is that what is unusual is not that the person is trashy, but that they're a white person who is trashy--or, in other words, that non-whites are expected to act that way, but white people ought to know better. Acting in a "less than white" way gets you labeled as a "white nigger" or "white trash."
In this sense, it's an inherently racist insult. It was used in the American South in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by upper-class whites to describe lower-class whites, who the upper-class whites saw as equivalent to black people--and those southern elites didn't think much of black people, as you may recall.
So "white trash" is offensive for the same reason it's sometimes considered offensive to describe a black man as "articulate" or to say that someone is pretty smart "for a [fill in the blank]"--because its usage implies the derogatory stereotype it's meant to be an exception to.
That said: not everyone makes this connection, and many white and black Americans use the term as a synonym for cracker, to describe a specific social stereotype of a poor, rural, uneducated, working-class, evangelical Christian white person, often from the American South. In modern usage it is considered offensive to people who identify themselves as working-class and rural, but not to all white people. The less racially charged term "trailer trash" is sometimes used instead.
Depending on the person you are talking to, "white trash" will probably be considered fairly offensive--more so than other cultural referents like "soccer mom" or "valley girl," but not as offensive as the most offensive group slurs, like "nigger," "faggot," or "kike."
It would probably be placed on a par with insults like "Oreo" or "Uncle Tom," terms that are divisive enough that you would never use them in a formal setting and that they might provoke a fight if you used them to someone's face, but that are not considered entirely taboo.
Edit: Because I was asked in the comments, I'm adding a quote showing the use of "white trash" and "white nigger" interchangeably.
From a first-person account of growing up in the Jim Crow south:
What anybody will tell you, though, to prove that he or she is not prejudiced, is that the worst kind of nigger is a white nigger, which is defined to be a white person who has become completely niggrish, who lives even worse than a nigger. White trash might as well be niggras, have all the bad habits, smell just as bad, cook dirty food, live in filthy houses, and thrive on squalor.
I'll add more if I can find them.
Let me note that most "descriptive" terms like this are only offensive or not based on cultural norms and perceptions. Like why is the word "negro" considered insulting and offensive but "black" is not? Especially considering that "negro" means "black". The N-word is considered highly offensive. But again, why? It just is.
I suppose any phrase with the word "trash" in it is likely to be at least somewhat offensive ... but then again, in other contexts it could be taken humorously. Like I once saw an "Ugly Man Contest", where men entered voluntarily to complete for the title of "ugliest man". I'm sure they all laughed about it. If anyone was insulted, I presume he wouldn't enter.
All that said ... My subjective impression is that "white trash" is certainly viewed as an insult and a nasty one. Few would laugh at being called that. But it's not seen as as harsh as the N-word.
I don't challenge Chapka's account of the origin of the phrase. I don't know. But I have never heard a black person say that he was insulted by it. It's white people who are insulted by it. Whatever the origins, the people insulted are the people who it is used to describe.
"White trash" intends to be -- and is -- highly offensive. Calling anybody any sort of trash is highly offensive. However, it is not taboo (yet). Newspapers and broadcasters would be likely to get away with using it (at least in the UK) and would probably have no problem at all if they indicated that they objected to the term.
The N-word is the opposite way around. Historically it was meant to be neutral, but it became associated with negative attitudes of those times that most of us have grown out of, and there are attempts to reclaim the word (albeit with a different spelling, but you won't know the difference on the radio), for instance the band N.W.A.. However, in the UK at least, it is very strongly taboo, and broadcasters are likely to get into serious trouble even for broadcasting a song that contains the word in its more innocent historical context, and broadcasters generally dare not use the word even to discuss the offensiveness of it.
I dont think calling someone white trash is any less offensive than calling someone else black trash, japanese trash, chinese trash, mexican trash, or any other kind of trash you can think of. (i've deliberately left out those racial epithets we're all too familiar with)
I think every society has its people who are on the bottom rung of the class system and those people have to struggle for survival. The ways that they have to do it might seem offensive to someone from outside that group. In India, it's the lower-caste folk who make a living cleaning crap out of commodes. But where I live, it's the folks who dig through the trash for cans and bottles so they can make a few bucks to survive with. In either case, sometimes a whole community has to survive this way.
I'm sure all have heard about the mess with the Clippers basketball team's owner, Donald Sterling. If he'd used the word "trash" instead of "blacks", the outcome would have been the same -- it's the fact that he singled out a group at which to turn up his nose.
