Dear White America: Your working class is literally dying—and this is your idea of an answer?

[applegrove]

Dear White America: Your working class is literally dying—and this is your idea of an answer?

by Chauncey Devega at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2015/11/06/dear_white_america_your_working_class_is_literally_dying_and_this_is_your_idea_of_an_answer/

"SNIP..............


White America — its poor and working classes in the throes of depression and hopelessness about the future, and killing themselves, intentionally or otherwise — must now summon up in itself the very same “personal responsibility” that the right so often uses to disparage the suffering of the black and brown poor. While globalization is most certainly pushing the white poor and working classes even further into a category of expendables, this same group of people must acknowledge their own complicity with such an outcome.

............

Poor and working class white Republicans, who vote for policies that hurt people like them, have contributed to this problem. White conservatives in the South, who flocked to the Republican Party because of anger about the civil rights movement, have caused this problem. Poor and working class white Republicans, who use the financial prosperity and success of the rich and upper classes as a barometer for how they should vote (a choice made even more absurd in a country where inter-generational upward mobility has been basically non-existent for decades), are a cause of this problem.

And white poor and working class people (as well as white folks en masse) — who do not realize that white elites have systematically lied to them by using the politics of racial resentment to focus their attention on “black crime,” “illegal immigrants” and “welfare queens,” instead of properly on the destructive power of neoliberalism — are among the primary conspirators in their own destruction.

........

But, I am very worried. The anxiety and the pain and the loss that is being felt by working class and poor white people should occasion a moment of transcendence, one in which they realize that their elites have lied to, tricked, hoodwinked, and bamboozled them. I dream that this moment of white pain and suffering could be the impetus for new alliances across lines of race and class. There, Lani Guinier’s vision of what she describes as “political race” could be made real: Collective and shared self-interest could trump individual, provincial and superficial, albeit very real, differences of perceived “racial” identities, and the arbitrary value assigned to a person’s melanin count—or lack thereof.



................SNIP"

[applegrove]

1. Christie, Bush et all are all of a sudden trying to appeal to those affected by drugs, their base.

With empathy only now. To get votes. So they can continue the charade.

[randys1]

2. This white America believes were it not for Blacks and Latinos, they wouldnt be poor.

[LiberalArkie]

9. I was getting ready to say something about the damn redneck girls and guys I knew

in school and later on in life they were reasoning that the reason they were still working at a tire store was because all the good jobs had to be given to the blacks etc. And then I remember that a documentary was made about those dumb as hell people who only went to gym and had a free pass because of football. The documentary was called Idiocracy. You have more than likely see it.

[randys1]

10. Idiocracy is so funny, yet it is teaparty

I want to stop attacking the American Taliban, because it is not good for my health to be so angry all the time, but how do I do that?

[LiberalArkie]

11. I don't worry about them so much, sooner or later they will go too far. We have to keep trying

to make sure that there is someone out there to keep trying to pull the Democrats to the left. The Rovian philosophy was lapped up by both parties and the Democrats really thought that America had moved to the right. It had not, but everyone thought so. It is important to make sure that kids get out to vote. I really think that Bernie will manage to drag Hillary to the left some. And I think that might be his strategy. It we can move just a little bit each election and start electing local people, things will work out.

Hell even Boehner gave up on them. That was the best indication that even the guys at the top recognize there is a problem.

I doubt that the Kochs or any of the money people really want all 3 branches controlled by the tea party.

[randys1]

12. Totally disagree with your last comment. Koch's own teaparty and very

much want all power.

They are old fashioned racists and just really bad people.

The ONLY reason they donate to cancer research and the construction of hospital wings is so THEY can benefit from all that.

They and their close friends.

THey do not give a shit about you, or even less than that.

[LiberalArkie]

15. I totally agree, Hey I have to believe that there is someone sane out there controlling stuff. Geez

[smirkymonkey]

3. +1000

Good article, but thinking that working class republicans are ever going to see the light is, I'm afraid, a pipe dream. They will never give up their hate and intolerance. It's too much a part of their identity.

[LiberalArkie]

5. Moe than likely correct. But the more that these articles get out there maybe a few might

realize how they have been played.

[smirkymonkey]

8. I hope so. It does happen.

I am sure there are some rational republicans out there.

[LiberalArkie]

4. Don't take this wrong applegrove, But Bern managed a quote that I think was the most profound

thing I have heard. I thank him for that.

“They told white workers who were earning pennies an hour, ‘Hey, you think you’re in trouble, but you’re better off than the blacks,'” he said. “And they told straight people, ‘You’re better off than those gay people.’ And they pitted men against women. It’s always playing one group against another. That’s how the rich got richer while everybody else was fighting each other. Our job is to build a nation in which we all stand together.”

[applegrove]

7. You are welcome to post anything Bernie in my OPs. We need a strong nomination race. Lots of

talk about the real issues facing americans. That way some of the emotionally 'starving' voters in the above article may finally see the Democrats for what they are: protein to the GOP's crack cocaine.

[hifiguy]

6. The ultimate product of the reichwing's noise-machine and

dumbing down of the populace - self-liquidating sheeple who go to their graves believing in the lies they are fed rather than the truth of their own lives.. The tenth-percenter dream come true in all ways. And it is a truly remarkable accomplishment.

[bvar22]

13. The destruction of America's Working Class is not exclusively the work of Republicans.

The "Centrist", Free Trading, de-regulating, Wall Street A** Kissing, conservative Democrats also own a big piece of the responsibility.

[applegrove]

14. Reasonable taxes and programs could have mitigated the damages trade causes. Republicans have won

tax debate amongst the base. That has hurt people more.

[CTyankee]

17. They've won because the working class has essentially given up on government...

they've been programmed to believing that government programs are the problem and they hate even having to depend on them. So the RW has succeeded. It's just astonishing. They blame government programs and they blame themselves for being on government programs such as Obamacare. So they will march to the polls and vote for republicans who will continue to reinforce their beliefs (and their poverty) and it is all such a horrible waste of people and a defeat of the human spirit.

[applegrove]

21. Oh yeah and a huge wast of talent and money and energy and psychis. The resources

used to fight against and for the GOP war on the middle class and good information could have all been directed at the Middle East and building a kick***ed country. Just a waste....brought to you by rich people who don't know the meaning of waste or wasted lives.

[dreamnightwind]

16. Yes, apparently our solution is to support more corporatism, OP ignores that

[TBF]

18. Awfully ironic when supporters of third way candidates

post such things. It's not just republican economic policy that is at fault here.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

20. The OP author is not the original author.

Chauncey DeVega focuses almost exclusively on race in his writings, and casts every issue in terms of race.