Joe Bageant--The White Underclass

[eridani]

http://www.alternet.org/politics/141405/look_out%2C_are_you_about_to_join_the_white_underclass/

"White underclass" is a term I've used often in my writing, and most American readers seem to know what I mean. They've got eyes and live in the same nation I do. But in a sudden burst of journalistic responsibility, I decided that if I am going to throw around the word underclass, then I should offer some clearer, perhaps more scientific definition.


So I started writing this with a pile of published research papers before me. Now they are in the trash can by my side. Looking down on them, I can see the gobbledygook titles, the stuff of which government policy and political platforms are made. They run together in slurry of the language of our society's commissars: Concerning-Prevalence-Growth-and-Dynamics-Concentrated Urban Poverty Areas- block-level vs. tract-level segregation-800-tract-tables-urban abstracts-Defining-and-Measuring-the-Underclass-from-The Journal of Policy Analysis and Management-statistical-summary-of…


What I find is that nobody in social science seems to agree on the term, or, being firmly placed in the true white middle class themselves, even agree if such a thing as a white underclass exists. You can't smell the rabble from the putting green. To others, some blacks for example, the term white underclass is an oxymoron, or maybe yet another new white social code word to be deciphered. I can't blame them for their wariness. You have to be an American to even get these code words. For instance, for all practical purposes and to most Americans, regardless of race, the term "middle class" means "white." Plain and simple. We all know that, even members of the "black middle class."

[Mopar151]

1. The broken class?

Trouble is, cliches become VERY hard to avoid....
"Double-wide neighbors" "_____ trash" "Snopes" "Inbreds"

[ret5hd]

2. Snopes?

[DavidDvorkin]

3. From the original use of that name

in Faulkner.

[bemildred]

4. Yep, Snopes. nt

[Wednesdays]

5. K&R

:kick:

[Hydra]

6. I've always liked the term, "Working Poor"

That's my strata. As the writer says, I hope more middle classers end up down here in Hell- they think they're immune.

[Igel]

7. They're not really working poor.

Some are. Most don't fit my loose definition of the term.

Mostly they're uneducated and poor with families that seriously don't function, and pass along the lack of education to their kids. So their kids grow up uneducated, poor, with families that seriously don't function. Essentially they've given up and are angry, and have decided that since they can't get ahead the system's rigged against them, so not getting ahead isn't their fault. Many blame the schools for being inferior, even if the schools have students from neighboring areas and *those* students do ok.

The "persistent poverty" found in a disproportionate number of black communities finds its color-blind equivalent in the white underclass. Same dysfunctions, same high unemployment rate, same high criminality rate, same drop-out rate, for all the same reasons. That's one reason for the reluctance to talk about them--it shows that a lot of the problem is no longer racism and exclusion, but the likely consequences generations later of racism and exclusion. A number of pockets of white persistent poverty are what's become of old segregated Irish or Latino or Portuguese neighborhoods. Not all of them are identifiably former ethnic neighborhoods.

There's a turn-over in society, but middle classers very infrequently fall into the underclass, simply because they haven't inherited the attitudes and culture that make membership, the persistent poverty, intergenerational. Similarly, it's very hard for members of the underclass to escape--even if they are broken up they tend to re-collect, they tend to still pass along the traits to their kids. Some make it to college before finally finding their inner victimization. I saw one kid who somehow stumbled into grad school in spite of his best efforts, and finally just said that he didn't belong there. True, the culture, the attitudes were wrong, and he felt perpetually underprivileged because he didn't grow up with piano lessons or summers in Europe. Still, he belonged there, his grades showed it, but he had no will.

[Hydra]

9. *Laughs*

I think you missed something. I'm one of the working poor. I make less than 20k on a good year and take care of a disable relative. All of my efforts to get out of the trap have been firmly stepped on, from attempting to pursue an IT career to returning to college.

And I doubt I'm the only one.

[handmade34]

10. confusing term

'working poor' -as if its an anomaly and most often when a person works they are not poor, or even wealthy. My observation in life is that many 'weathy' do not necessarily work. How rich or poor a person is, does not usually indicate a good or bad work ethic or even a good or bad moral character. We have a long standing economic system that some people have learned to exploit and do so freely. Since we as a society still have not learned the value of the 'common good' and 'what you do to the least among us...' we do have an underclass: white, black and all colors.

[handmade34]

8. good essay

"I could be wrong, I often am, but there seems to be a connection between poverty and money"
"Others just don't care ...they prefer swinging a bigger hammer...doing real work, like America used to do... without kissing ass, which is why they are called the "permanently jobless."
"Screw the hairsplitting...Just fix it"