I'll give you guys another POV to look at.
My parents are white, but I'm not. Adopted, small town (25,000 max). 90-95% of all my friends growing up were white. I'd say the breakdown of races where I'm from was like 85% white, 10% Mexican (not Spanish, like illegal alien, speak no english, constantly people being deported, no offense to anyone), then split the last 5% between black people and Native Americans.
The cost of living where I'm from was so much lower than most places, I'd say we were upper middle class and my parents combined probably brought home between $150,000- $175,000 yearly.
To say the least, it was different. Honestly, like I said, due to cost of living and stuff, unless it was a 4, 5, 6 member family, you could live off of $60,000-70,000 like it was $200,000 anywhere else. I never wanted for anything, always food on the table, parents always had good jobs. Dad could have taken an office position a few times in my life and taken a bit less money a year, and he'd have been home more, but he was a working kind of guy. Still working now, even though he's retired.
We never had a Benz, never had a BMW, but my dad's had like literally 8 boats, my parents love camping so they've had 4 different RVs, I've been on vacations pretty much everywhere. I used to get new Jordans when I got a good report card or silly $%*! like that in elementary and grade school
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My mom came from I'd say a "standard" middle class home, 2 sisters, mom and dad. My dad however came up in what I'd say is lower class and just worked his %$% off. As I've gotten older, I've come to respect him more and more for this, and frankly, like someone else said, he's my hero.
THE HARDEST PART, and it's the thing that will probably separate me from most that fit into the "white male from a middle class family" category, is that being from a small town, even if your parents are white, if you aren't, the race card comes out quick when things get heated. I've had some of my closest friends go there, when they were younger and more immature, just because it's an easy way to pit the "you vs. me, us vs. you" when you're in an argument. I've never really against any of my friends because frankly in arguments between friends, it's always about who can get the 3rd, 4th, 5th friend to side with them.
However, with people I didn't consider friends, some messed up $%*! has happened. Instance I can't ever forget is in the 1st or 2nd grade, I got a lot of praise from my teacher for being really intelligent at a young age and I enjoyed being "good" at something. Well one day, someone's mother came in as a substitute because our teacher had jury duty or something (yeah, in small towns sometimes someone's mom will teach, forget professional substitutes) and this particular lady thought her daughter was the chosen one or something. Well as we're going out for recess, the lady pulls me to the side and says "You don't have to show off for all the kids, you think you're so smart. Well if you're so smart, why didn't you real mom and dad want you and they threw you away".
It was the first time I ever asked my parents about me looking different, we had the wholeeeeeeeeeeeeeee discussion about adoption, etc. If you're curious, no, nothing ever happened to the woman. My mom went to school, it ended up being a "child's word against an adult" thing, but it helped me out in the long run because my mom rode for me no matter what from that day through high school graduation
Oh yeah, one last thing. Even though my parents made great money, even in a small town, we weren't really "accepted" by the "upper" class. Because my dad was a high school dropout and we weren't millionaires, there was always that unspoken, unsaid line there. Now had we been upper class in terms of income, none of his education or stuff would have mattered, because there were alot of multi-millionaires who didn't have formal education. There was also people who made more money than my pops but had college degrees (You have to remember, that generation values a Bachelor's alot more than we do) so they also kind of looked down on us. I always had upper and lower class friends because of sports. Our high school basketball team was made up of kid's with parents on welfare to the son of the high school principal to the 3rd richest man in town's nephew.
Sorry for the long read. Hope it answered your questions. If somehow I didn't cover something, feel free to ask.