Thoughts on the White Working Class

A few disorganized thoughts on the white working class, in the news in three diverse stories: the still- increasing virulence ostensibly over the healthcare bill and now a second arrest for death threats to a Member of Congress; the West Virginia mining disaster which killed at least 25 miners; and the return of talk about Barack Obama's problems attracting white working class support.

First of all, I grew up in the white working class (not all that far from those West Virginia mines, and with a grandfather who worked in western PA mines), although in a different time. But I've seen what has happened over time, and rather than rehash what others are saying, let me contribute a few thoughts of my own.

The working class--also known as the lower middle class--joined in the rising American prosperity after World War II, mostly due to three factors: lots of manufacturing jobs; strong unions, particularly in manufacturing; federal government programs, from Social Security and Medicare to FHA mortgages and the GI Bill of Rights that put college in play for veterans, and the various federal and federally guaranteed grants and loans that made college possible for children of the working class, like me.

Manufacturing jobs have been disappearing from America since the late 1970s. That's when the steel industry and Pittsburgh were hit hard, and that has spread, until the biggest product of the U.S. is waste. Real wages have declined, unemployment risen. This happened during the Reagan administration and onwards, with some progress made for working incomes in the Clinton years, but the trend towards lower income at the lower annual income percentiles reasserted itself in the Shrub years. Beginning with Reagan, union power diminished along with manufacturing.

The winners in these changes were Wall Street and the biggest corporations. They shipped jobs overseas where workers were paid much less, with appalling conditions and unsafe workplaces. They intimidated workers to reject unions, and were helped by Republican governments. So the rich got infinitely richer, and then got tax cuts on top of that. The white working class was competing with lower paid workers in other countries but in their daily lives seemed to be mostly in competition with minorities previously kept out, including immigrants.

Now the white working class is angry--that is, their anger is being encouraged and channelled in a particular direction. Cultural differences with "liberal elites" are emphasized. But these days what is mostly emphasized in the "white" in white working class. It's the usual sinister divide and conquer strategy, because the total working class is being destroyed economically, not racially, by corporations and the same Republicans who are whipping up racist frenzy, sometimes with their Confederate code words, and often these days, without even that pretense.

JFK and RFK could appeal to the white working class partly with their eloquence and policies, but partly because they were white, and even though wealthy they were not so far from their immigrant roots, as the white working class at that time was not so far from theirs--they might be second or third generation Americans at that point. And unions were strong.

Unions weren't ever perfect or without abuses, but they did keep the working class together and focused on their own interests, which included advocating for safe working conditions, like those that don't exist in that non-union mine. Also it is true that some whites have personally paid a price for the redress of past racial discrimination, that they personally had nothing to do with. That's also true of some men, when women benefited from preferential hiring, etc. There's really no point in denying that this has happened, and even if it didn't happen a lot, once was enough if it happened to you.

White males by some statistics have borne the brunt of the current unemployment. But that's part of this longer trend. The reason that white working class anger is being expressed now is that it is being exploited and given a vocabulary. Most of the cause behind it falls to the responsibility of the same corporations and Republican pols who are exploiting it.

But they are able to exploit it partly through the power of persuasion enabled by their funding, and their ownership of corporate media. But partly, they are using the still potent hot button of race. This has everything to do with a black President in the White House. There's no getting around it. It has pretty much nothing to do with President Obama's policies, which are exactly the kind of policies that benefit the working class, and that the working class applauded in the days of FDR, Truman, Kennedy and LBJ. It's all about diverting frustration and fomenting anger fueled by the incendiary reactions of race hatred.

This has become the frenzy of the Republican right in primary election season. The Governor of Virginia may have pushed it too far with his celebration today of the Civil War, praising the Confederacy and never mentioning slavery. But maybe not. Maybe there is worse to come.