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MatthewCollinsSecondPaper 6 - 22 Jun 2012 - Main.MatthewCollins
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="SecondPaper" |
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On "White Supremacy" | | | Digging Deeper
Of course it would be pandering to my own preconceptions to end there. The existence of poor whites does not alone undermine white supremacy, nor does the fact that so many white people are subject to the derogation and subjugation of the ruling class. 24,140,297 people are nonwhite and below the poverty line, totaling 8.2% of America. Using race as denominator, 23.8% of nonwhites are below the poverty line compared to just 10.6% of whites. | |
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< | I do not believe that such denominators do enough work to undermine my first notion. There are nearly as many poor whites as poor nonwhites -- if whiteness was supreme, the numbers should be far from comparable as the nonwhite class includes many immigrants as well as those recovering from the history of slavery and segregation (itself a relic of overt white supremacy, to be sure). | >
> | I do not believe that such denominators do enough work to undermine my first notion. There are nearly as many poor whites as poor nonwhites -- if whiteness was supreme, the numbers should be far from comparable; the nonwhite class includes many immigrants as well as those recovering from the history of slavery and segregation (itself a relic of overt white supremacy, to be sure). | | | However, figures from Tom Hertz cut against this interpretation of census data. In particular, Hertz finds two figures relating to social mobility and race in the United States: (1) 62.9% of blacks born in the bottom quartile between 1942 and 1972 stayed there (as compared to just 32.3% of whites) and (2) controlling for many human capital measures, being black had a negative, statistically significant correlation for social mobility for children born in the same time period.*** | | | But while the culture embraces nonwhites it has little interest in these peoples’ unique perspectives – it simply wants a new face on the same worldview. In 2004 Henry Louis Gates commented how the majority of Harvard’s black population was African or West Indian (and of course our first black president is half-white/half-Kenyan), while our most prominent Hispanic politician opposes the DREAM Act. "Diversity" initiatives are most interested in finding those of different races who are willing to and do act like the ruling class. A subgroup with a culture and history of its own embedded so far in its collective memory – as African-Americans have – is the least likely to give. And the least likely to get much accommodation in return. | |
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< | What makes poor whites “trash,” then, is that they don’t take advantage of what’s been handed to them. Without ever facing de jure discrimination, they’ve been allowed all this time to be one of elite class but haven’t put down their hunting rifles and Kid Rock CDs long enough to do so. But poor whites with no motivation to leave their community – poor whites who are raised to look at the supreme culture as an enemy, not a community easily joined – have much in common with the nonwhite groups struggling against the supreme culture. It should come as no surprise that Kid Rock has a collaboration with Ludacris. | >
> | What makes poor whites “trash,” then, is that they don’t take advantage of what’s been handed to them. Without ever facing de jure discrimination, they’ve been allowed all this time to be one of elite class but haven’t put down their hunting rifles and Kid Rock CDs long enough to do so. But poor whites with no motivation to leave their community – poor whites who are raised to look at the supreme culture as an enemy, not a community easily joined – have much in common with the nonwhite groups struggling against the supreme culture. It should come as no surprise that Kid Rock has a collaboration with Ludacris, the escapism of which is its greatest allure. | | |
*All data pulled from the U.S. Census Bureau’s “American Factfinder” website. |
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