Tag Archives: white working class

The White Working Class of the Rust Belt

Politics, Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

I should clarify an earlier post:

Why should I help try to bring back to the progressive movement the same “White Working Class” demographic who voted to fuck over their own “lazy” unions?

  • Wisconsin and Michigan voted for Trump, right after many of the same bothered to vote for Bernie in the primary.
  • Wisconsin voted for Scott Walker, Michigan voted for Rick “toxic water” Snyder, right after they both voted for Obama twice.
  • Wisconsin and Michigan voted for GOP rabidly anti-union majorities in both houses of their legislatures.
  • Wisconsin and Michigan both voted to gut collective bargaining rights, union security agreements, the right to strike, and many other union-secured benefits.

Wisconsin and Michigan are both majority White Working Class. Black people are leaving Detroit because of the many ills which have befallen that metropolis, so Michigan is becoming even more White Working Class than it has been since before the Great Migration of the early 20th century.

Both states’ GOP leaderships have made it a goal to get more on a parity with Texas and other Southern “miracles” which have ditched state income tax and are further ahead at being “at-will” in their employment security.

And yet you want to bring this demographic back in from the conservative cold.

Do they even want to be saved?

This is irrational voting behavior. This is an ungrateful, suicidal demographic which is inflicting pain upon itself. The White Working Class of today would make the likes of Wellstone and La Follette spin in their graves.

This is also a fool’s errand to try to win back with class consciousness.

I just hope that you’re only asking White people to do this work. Don’t ask Black and Brown people to do this. We are already toxic to the White Working Class in the Midwest. Milwaukee’s own Black sheriff is a bloviating, trigger-happy Uncle Tom with an armed force at his disposal, so he’ll be the last to leave.

Maybe the White Working Class will come back to the Progressive Movement and the labor unions after all the Black people leave Milwaukee and Detroit. Maybe they’ll come back when Wisconsin and Michigan are both 99.9% Euro-American and the “swart gevaar” is ancient history.

Don’t ask me to do this. I am Black, and I will not be listened to.

#WhiteWorkingClass #WhiteFolkWork #ClassConsciousness #racism #ClassWarfare #1u #p2 #FeelTheBern

As a reminder:

Twice on video, I’ve seen White people bash another White family on WalMart premises for receiving welfare benefits. The first family was loading their food into a van in the WalMart parking lot at night when the guy rolled up to them and recorded the family on video while he yelled at them for using his “hard-earned money” to buy food. The second family was a father in the checkout lane being bashed by a woman behind him in front of his toddler daughter, for the same reason (“you’re just gaming the system, ain’t ya?”).

You know what? That HURT me to watch.

Because if that’s how White Americans treat worse-off White Americans at WalMart in front of their children for the temerity to receive SNAP and TANF, imagine what mendacious coarsities those same individuals express among their kinfolk about African-Americans who do the same.

#classism #bigotry #welfare