Nancy Isenberg, "White Trash, The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America"

[betsuni]

Land ownership as horizontal mobility, not upward mobility. "Land is still extremely important. Class has a geography. If we think about the way most Americans live, and the other measure of class that I highlight, is home ownership. If you're poor, the same way they had different names for the poor, they have different names for what they live in: a shack ... or if we talk about 'trailer trash.' What we live in today, we live in class zone neighborhoods. We have taken into account the importance of racial segregation, and we know that history, but we also live in neighborhoods that are divided by class."

[underthematrix]

1. Thank you for posting this clip.

I'm reading the book right now and it's really eye opening. I like her example of my Fair Lady as a metaphor for class mobility. While I haven't gotten to the point where she references the play/movie in her book, it is one of the metaphors I thought while reading the first two chapters.

I hope many people will read it because I think it's difficult to make change unless you are grounded in history and context.

[betsuni]

3. You're welcome! I'm putting the book on my to-read list. (nt)

[Person 2713]

2. Heard her on a tv show this week. A lot of points about beyond race, the further segregation

by class , all the while the mantra of "we are all middle class", when there isn't this big "we" just finer class division