I'd agree that broad assumptions are dangerous in that regard. However my own experiences prevent me from making the opposite mistake, of trying to disconnect the two phenomenon to the extent that you attempt to here.
I'm certainly not trying to suggest it doesn't exist - we still live in a racist society and so it would be strange if some, maybe even most, working class people hadn't internalised some of that. That's a far cry from "deepseated racism" though.
What I witnessed over many years was a large quantity of casual racism, that only occasionally mingled with genuine grievances about homes etc. More often it was to be found in the context of the piss-taking banter that filled much of the day, and often featured equivalent sentiments in regards to sexuality and sexism, or more trivially football teams. I tend to see much of this as simply being a part of a social structure that featured forms of communication, judgement, bonding and attempts to maintain a certain level of conformity, or simply have a laugh at someone else's expense, in a manner that is bound to seem rather harsh and brutal to someone like me who grew up with teachers for parents. I feel that if I try to make too many observations or judgements about such things myself, I will end up saying as much about me and my class as I will about any working class realities. I do not intend for example to make the mistake of thinking that because a form of brutal thinking is expressed in a particularly crude manner by some members of a certain class, that the other classes are any less brutal, its just as likely to mean the other classes simply have a fancier way of dressing this stuff up, shooting their venom through a different orifice. Various newspapers can demonstrate this point to a certain extent at least.
I'd pretty much agree with all of that - and I speak as someone who is from those communities, I'm a product of it. When I was a kid I guess I had some "soft" racist views. I made racist jokes, called the corner shop the "paki shop" and used gay and girl as an insult. But the thing is I never considered myself a racist and in a way I was sort of right - not that this in any way excuses it but I would never have treated someone differently because of the colour of their skin, their sexuality or anything else - the only time I ever did anything like this was when I used to call the bloke who ran the shop "rag head". I justified it to myself by telling myself that even his own wife and kids called him that. These days I'm sure he must have hated it and they probably only did this to sort of conform, to not be seen to be kicking up a stink. I'm obviously ashamed of all that now but the thing is I would have been devastated to find that my "jokes" and so on upset people or made anyone's life differently. I mean, people tell jokes about paedophilia and although they're sick it doesn't mean they're excusing the actual act. My soft racism would never have translated into political or ideological racism and on the few occasions when I heard people racially abusing people I always made a point of standing up to them.
I guess the point I'm trying to make, in a very cack handed way, is that it's not really a good idea to read too much in to racist "banter" because often that's all it is. That's not to say it shouldn't be challenged or that it's acceptable, but in a political sense it's an entirely different beast from ideological racism.
What I did find interesting from my own experiences was that in this group, those who were most likely to sometimes attach their racist utterances to political/economic issues, is that lengthier conversations with them on a 1-to-1 basis tended to indicate that they really were fascists, in terms of a range of beliefs that went well beyond issues of race. Im only talking about a handful of people here, a small fraction of the broader group I was talking about in previous paragraph, and Im not exactly sure what I learnt, but it was an experience. These particular people were not at that time motivated enough to actually do anything beyond rant, but if a time came where their own ability to work and provide for their family was impeded, I would think it very hard to get them to join anything other than the fascist side of things.
Obviously I'm not an arbiter for what the working class does and doesn't think, but as someone who has lived nearly all his life on council estates and moved about a hell of a lot, and who has worked in factories on maintenance for a lot of it (meaning that I got to know pretty much every one in the factories I worked at) that's a long way away from what I've experienced. Obviously there were racist, quasi-fascist and fascist pricks on all those estates, but no more than you'd find in a middle class subburb. What I found was that when there was apparently racist sentiment, it was about poles nicking jobs, certain ethnic groups getting what appeared to be economic resources allocated to them purely because they were of said group (which ties in with the IWCA analysis of multiculturalism by the way), immigrants getting all the housing, pushing down wages and so on, and large infuxes of refugees - on the latter one, when it came down to it, it was about loads of people coming in and using up already scarce resources. These are all, at root, class issues.
I suppose the key really is whether in times of crisis that latter group are able to bring along a good number of the broader group which I've described, perhaps almost by default by way of the tight-knit brutal banter I mentioned. Its especially hard for me to make any assumptions about this since there were a lack of obvious left-wing voices at this workplace, and there wasn't a union or many dramatic work issues which could have revealed the extent of such feelings.
I suspect that your workplace was more the exception than the rule to be completely honest.
