Many poor white people have been denigrated as “white trash.” A lot of people now criticise the idea that poor white people experience white privilege. This seems to be an echo from the past when organized skilled workers were described as a "labor aristocracy" but when you are being squeezed by austerity you do not want to hear that you are somehow privileged. It is a mistake to get into comparative victimology and have some sort of league table about who is exploited the more. Poor white folk and poor black and brown people are all victimised by the 1 percent. They compete for crumbs from the table. "White privilege” is unhelpful to understanding this.
The fact that black people experience compounded deprivations does not minimize the class oppression poor white people experience. It does not have to be one or the other, and black people and white people should not be set against each other as is the method of the alt-right and neo-Nazis. Those hate groups try to appeal to white people on the basis of their skin color.
The largest mass lynching in U.S. history took place in New Orleans in 1891 – and it wasn’t African-Americans who were lynched. . . . It was Italian-Americans. After nine Italians were tried and found not guilty of murdering New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy, a mob dragged them from jail, along with two other Italians being held on unrelated charges, and lynched them all. The New York Times referred to the victims of the lynchings as “sneaking and cowardly Sicilians, the descendants of bandits and assassins.”
Jay Dolan, of Notre Dame University, noted the Irish in America in the 1840s and ’50s “were preferred to the slaves when it came to working on the docks, because, as one official put it, ‘The niggers are worth too much to be risked here; if the Paddies are knocked overboard, or get their backs broke, nobody loses anything.”
Today, 17.3 million white Americans (about twice as many as African Americans) are listed as living in poverty. More than 4 million white children live in poverty. These unprivileged white people live desperately with widespread alcoholism, teen pregnancy, drug abuse and unemployment. Their children can only dream of a college education. Is it a white privilege to be called “trailer trash”?
Class remains the dirty, unacknowledged secret of American politics. We have been conditioned to think of America as a classless society, which is an absolute lie. Class remains a significant and often determinative fact of life. Poor white people are not oppressed because of their skin color. Their oppression has everything to do with their class position in American society.
http://www.concordmonitor.com/The-myth-of-white-privilege-13988254
The fact that black people experience compounded deprivations does not minimize the class oppression poor white people experience. It does not have to be one or the other, and black people and white people should not be set against each other as is the method of the alt-right and neo-Nazis. Those hate groups try to appeal to white people on the basis of their skin color.
The largest mass lynching in U.S. history took place in New Orleans in 1891 – and it wasn’t African-Americans who were lynched. . . . It was Italian-Americans. After nine Italians were tried and found not guilty of murdering New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy, a mob dragged them from jail, along with two other Italians being held on unrelated charges, and lynched them all. The New York Times referred to the victims of the lynchings as “sneaking and cowardly Sicilians, the descendants of bandits and assassins.”
Jay Dolan, of Notre Dame University, noted the Irish in America in the 1840s and ’50s “were preferred to the slaves when it came to working on the docks, because, as one official put it, ‘The niggers are worth too much to be risked here; if the Paddies are knocked overboard, or get their backs broke, nobody loses anything.”
Today, 17.3 million white Americans (about twice as many as African Americans) are listed as living in poverty. More than 4 million white children live in poverty. These unprivileged white people live desperately with widespread alcoholism, teen pregnancy, drug abuse and unemployment. Their children can only dream of a college education. Is it a white privilege to be called “trailer trash”?
Class remains the dirty, unacknowledged secret of American politics. We have been conditioned to think of America as a classless society, which is an absolute lie. Class remains a significant and often determinative fact of life. Poor white people are not oppressed because of their skin color. Their oppression has everything to do with their class position in American society.
http://www.concordmonitor.com/The-myth-of-white-privilege-13988254
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