White Trash

Deborah Eisenberg’s White Trash is a 400 year history of the poorest people in America.  I just finished reading it, and it was depressing.  The earliest settlements in New England and Virginia contained marginal people, and their “betters” usually blamed “those people” for their condition.  If they were poor, it somehow had to be their own fault.

In the early 20th century the eugenics movement actually pushed for the sterilization of marginal people, and “scientific” studies blamed “breeding” for the persistence of poverty.  

Groups like the Industrial Workers of the World and the CIO tried to unite all classes of workers, but in recent decades “identity” politics has largely replaced class politics.  One could argue that Trump made a class appeal, but he appealed almost exclusively to whites, not to the lower or lower middle class across racial and ethnic lines.  The Clinton campaign, of course, was noted for its direct appeals to various ethnic, gender, and racial subgroups.

I’m old enough and Marxist enough to still think in class terms.  I’ve always been opposed to affirmative action plans that are based on race or ethnicity.  To me, lower income blacks, Latinos, Asians, and whites have a common interest against the guys in suits who own the stocks and run the corporations.  

Unfortunately, the people on top have always been successful at pitting racial and ethnic groups against one another.  Just look at politics in states like Mississippi or Alabama.