We “urban” elites just don’t get it
Priya Jain says the “White Working Class” can kiss her brown ass.
I have read dozens of longform pieces this election season about the plight of the white working class. I’ve skipped over many more because I’m fucking done with it. The white working class was not under-covered. The problem is not that we don’t understand the white working class. The problem is that they’re not the only people here.
I am sick of being told, as I have my whole life, that middle America is the “real” America, and we “urban” elites just don’t get it because we don’t live there. As if that were our choice. As if we could just live our brown lives, our black lives, our queer lives, in the middle of Trump country. As if that were a safe thing to do.
As if they would welcome us.
I am done being told that I can’t make the occasional snide comment about rednecks but that every time I travel to a red state I have to politely endure being degraded as a woman and as a child of immigrants, listen to jokes about mincing gays and ching-chong Chinamen — and if I complain about this, if I say, you’re being fucking offensive, I am told that I’m too PC and am forcing my libertard vagenda on salt-of-the-earth red-blooded Muricans and in this way Trump is once again my fault, a monster I brought on myself.
No, I’m not going to read your shitty piece on the white working class because I have to figure out right now whether my family is safe, whether we’re still considered the good kind of brown and if so, how long that will last before they start coming for us, too.
This is a KKK-approved administration coming in, don’t forget. It’s headed by the pussygrabbing bully who still wishes the Central Park 5 had been executed, innocence or no innocence. It has Steve Bannon in a top job. None of this is normal or acceptable. To the extent that the white working class voted for Trump, fuck the white working class.
I was also bullied and taunted by the WWC because I was “different”. I was left traumatised and depressed. Going through high school in the outer Eastern suburbs of Melbourne was a nightmare. It was racist, sexist, misogynist, xenophobic, insular, close-minded, anti-intellectual, self-satisfied and, in different kinds of way, violent. Moving to the inner city and discovering a culture that prized diversity and creative expression was eye-opening and liberating. It’s understandable that people such as myself develop a derisive attitude to that demographic we escaped. They never wanted us: they hated us and they hurt us. Nevertheless, I think that a left wing narrative that can be constructed to appeal to these people is necessary. Priya Jain doesn’t have to do it. No one has to do it. Hopefully some will, though. I think I’d like to try.
I’ve just read yet another such piece, this one by Matt Taibbi – he goes on and on and on about the snooty intellectual elites and how everybody else hates them, with so much contempt of his own that he seems to want to lobotomize everyone who’s ever read a book. It’s some obnoxious stuff. There’s a lot of truth in it, but it’s still obnoxious.
What some of those pieces aim to do is shame us into placating the bullies in exchange for not being shat on (or votes). We should all be modern Neville Chamberlains and not call bigoted assholes what they are.
Unfortunately they might be right, but I sure as fuck won’t. I’m white working class and I’m not like them. If more of those cheated by the promise of college join said working class we’d be better for it.
And he entirely fails to explain why that means we should just grin and bear the misogyny and racism and bullying.
Blood Knight – yes, exactly.
So what should we do to make these people feel understood? Do we give a nod to their racist, sexist attitudes and language? That’s what the Alt Right has done and they won them over. Can anyone do that in good conscience and not hurt the victims of that bigotry at the same time? Why are they so much more pissed off than poor black and brown people who not only have to deal with economic hardship but discrimination as well.
If the problem is jobs why didn’t they vote for the candidate that has real world solutions for the current state of our economy? Manufacturing jobs are never coming back but clean energy and infrastructure jobs would pay well and a $15 minimum wage would make a crappy retail job a little more palatable.
I’m so tired of this blaming the so called urban elites who actually want to implement policies that help all people not just themselves. The very basis of the liberal ideology of diversity and equality is abhorrent to these angry white people. They don’t want it, they don’t understand it and they are contemptuous of people who hold those values.
Decent people of good conscience cannot give truck to those attitudes just to court votes. The only way to solve the problem is to make sure racism and sexism become more and more socially unacceptable.
*applause*
It’s also not like mining Trump people for votes is the only way to go. They were 25% of the electorate. Hillary got 25%. It leaves 100 million votes unaccounted for. Let’s try to claim some of them.
It’s hard for someone living in middle America (like me) to recognize these voters that are being ignored, according to the pundits. Oh, yes, they THINK they’re being ignored. They think because they have to pay taxes that might go to something they don’t approve of, like saving the snail darter (if I have to hear them complaining about that any more, I think I’m in great risk of punching someone) or letting people of color (not their choice of phrase) sit around and have kids while watching TV and eating bon bons (or fried chicken) all day.
Meanwhile, the farmers around here spewing this garbage are collecting money from the government for farming, working on a highly mechanized farm for planting and harvest, and making good money in the city, thereby being able to eat, drink, drive, and dress better than almost anyone else…all the while basking in the love and sympathy they get because most people think farmers are the Joads, and that family farmers are the norm, and that the government is sticking it to them.
They brag about their guns, proudly sport their Confederate flag (this state was admitted as a free state, and was never part of the Confederacy), and complain the moment someone says anything in Mexican, or even dares to look Mexican in their town. They proudly voted Trump, and I have to live and work beside them until I retire, if there is anything for me to retire from once the Republicans are done looting the commons and converting public property into their own private property.
This is an ugly bunch of people, and I’m tired of all the analysis that determinedly ignores that.
Noele, the first thing would be to convince the WWC that social insurance is in their best interest. Right wing rhetoric has been very effective in making the working class turn against the safety net: think of Reagan’s “welfare queen”. We have to de-stigmatise welfare, and in the face of increasing automation, consider ideas such as the citizen’s wage. We have to invest in education, training and infrastructure. We have to transition from fossil fuel energy to renewable energy: that could mean thousands of jobs. We need to get the WWC to understand their own interests in regards to climate change. There’s no doubt that racism, sexism and xenophobia are exacerbated under insecure economic conditions, and a bleak sense of the future. That’s not to take away culpability from racists, etc, but it’s to go some way toward making it easier to address.
This video is great: http://www.upworthy.com/if-you-think-only-poor-people-need-welfare-wait-till-you-see-what-really-rich-folks-do-with-it
Unfortunately you’re (probably) going to have to convince some of them to vote for your favoured candidate next time.
“….fuck the white working class”.
Sooner or later Trump will probably do exactly that.