Look Out, Are You About to Join the White Underclass?

[Orwellian_Ghost]

"We're starting to hear a little discussion about the white underclass... Mainly because so many middle class folks are terrified of falling into it."




"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."

Middle class also has implications of people's occupations, usually white collar occupations, though it also includes some of the ever thinning ranks of blue-collar workers. But this comes down to describing human beings solely in terms of their jobs in the capitalist labor marketplace, and assumptions about income and whether one takes their daily shower before they go to work or after they come home. By that definition, anyone of working age who doesn't have a steady job of the right type, for whatever reason, is in some sort of "economic underclass." In other words, they are the people that middle class folks feel should damned well be working, if they are over age 18 and have a pulse. ("If I gotta do time in this meaningless workhouse of a nation, you do too!") This underclass includes any people of color seen on the street at midday during the week, single mothers, and paraplegics too, now that the middle class is paying taxes for handicap parking spaces and wheelchair access to the public shitters.

<snip>

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

[Captain Hilts]

1. The "white underclass" has always been there. It's not new at all. nt

[BlooInBloo]

2. Seems to me that "white underclass" embodies the same wrong - in reverse - as "middle class" versus

"black middle class".

It says plain old "underclass" = black is the norm.

[noamnety]

3. That's part of what he's saying

not sure if you're summarizing and concurring or haven't read it - if it's the first, my apologies.

"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.""

[FreakinDJ]

4. you mean these people

[csziggy]

7. Or these people?

The fools that have voted themselves into the underclass.

[FreakinDJ]

8. Easy now - the "Globalist" will be by shortly to scold you

[CAG]

5. If so, the repubs will get to choose their message of hope:

Hey, fellow white people now in the underclass, them _______ put you there!

At blank, each Monday insert "Blacks", each Tuesday insert "Illegal aliens", each Wednesday insert "godless libruls", each Thursday insert "terrorists", each Friday insert "commies", each Saturday insert "french", then each Sunday insert "homosexuals"

[Riley18]

6. So true. They learned to do that from Hitler when he told the people that

the Jews had all the power, money and jobs, and they were to blame for poor economy at the time. Reagan did it when he called someone a "welfare queen", and to this day they worship that old union basher. This county has basically been in a tailspin ever since he was president. I think that is when the average citizen's lifestyle really began to decline. We just didn't see it as clearly because of easy credit, but wages have not exactly kept pace with the cost of living for most of us.