Reddit reviews Worlds Apart: Why Poverty Persists in Rural America

99.9% of the time, i would say you are right. in this case, these specific people are probably disparaging other white people aka "hillbillies".

Appalachia is a disoriented place (a peripheral, internal colony to the larger nation) that is very much divided against itself. in a ridge community of 30 households, there will be 15 tiny churches, few of whom care much for each other. communities on opposite sides of a ridge don't associate, often regarding each other with suspicion. people who live in the county seat consider those "out in the counties" to be backward, while those out in the counties consider those in-town to be pretentious, corrupt and politically connected. some families names are blacklisted by other family names, and they can't abide anyone with that name getting anything.

northeastern capital and their agents / strike breakers did (and still do) a hell of a number on these people. these are the geographies capitalism ravaged long before the suburban randroids and ancappers wanked themselves silly to propertarian dreams and rugged individualist mythos.

source: did community organization / anti-poverty work pretty much right around there.

if you want a very well researched book about this region--it also speaks to the Mississippi delta, which has its dispossession fall much more "neatly" along racial lines--i recommend:
World's Apart: Why Rural Poverty Persists in America