America’s Strange Breed
The Long Legacy of White Trash
Generally, class is included in discussions about race and gender. Low-income is synonymous with Black and Brown communities. The Regan Administration defined Black women as welfare queens. Yet, statistically, White women are the welfare majority. In the 20th century, poverty became both racialized and gendered. Unfortunately, a key facet of poverty is absent in contemporary discussions – the plight of poor White people. We assume that all White people are rich (or at least middle class) and all Black and Brown people are poor (or struggling to get to the middle class).
Our next Tuesday night gathering focuses on “American’s Strange Breed: The Long Legacy of White Trash.” This is the Epilogue from the book White Trash. According to Nancy Isenberg, the book's author, “class separation is and has always been at the center of our political debates, despite every attempt to hide social reality with deceptive rhetoric.”
Please join us for a lively discussion about class, power and democracy.
In case you did not get it or if you lost it, I am attaching here a link to the reading for this meeting -- the epilogue to While Trash:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx-lK4EO8vRhVlhRMlNEUlRmNlhQZVlkZzAxa0o5MDQyVmRF/view