Ya know, I suppose this is a good enough spot for the column I'm gonna link to here. But I do wonder if it wouldn't be better placed elsewhere. Maybe not.

Although it's a general discussion of class and status in America I would imagine that members from elsewhere can 1) benefit from the education if they aren't acquainted with how things work over here. 2) They understand perfectly well because that's the way it works where they're from as well.

But the discussion seems like one maybe we should have.

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2009/07/americas-white-underclass.html
Joe Bageant. Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches From America's Class War. 18 July 2009.


"White underclass" is a term I've used often in my writing, and most American readers seem to know what I mean. They've got eyes and live in the same nation I do. But in a sudden burst of journalistic responsibility, I decided that if I am going to throw around the word underclass, then I should offer some clearer, perhaps more scientific definition.

... Yes, eight to eighty, crippled blind or crazy, Americans generally agree that every man or woman in America should have a full time job, except those women who manage to snag a wealthy man. They are exempt, as are the middle class commissariat's own beer guzzling spawn keeping the pizza delivery and the all-night video arcade businesses thriving in college towns across the republic.

QuoteAmericans generally agree that every man or woman in America should have a full time job, except those women who manage to snag a wealthy man.

I don't.

A couple doesn't have to be wealthy in order to make the choice to have one parent stay home and be a full time parent rather than over-employ child care.

Or, better yet, homeschool the kids.

Likewise, there ARE actual disabled persons (albeit FAR fewer than those drawing benefits I expect. My own wife spent long stretches of her adult life emotionally unable to handle the pressure that would come from most work environments (she still doesn't drive though we are working her into that) and having never worked for very long, she doesn't draw any disability (having no fund to draw upon).

Not that I completely disagree with the GENERAL view expressed in the quote (as i write this not having yet followed the link and just basing it on the quote here) but I think the word "all" is quite an overstatement, even if it is the most popular position.

I reposted this to one of my sociology class forums, the full article is a fascinating read. Thank you Nichole.

And, of course, now reading the piece I see my remarks are a wild tangent to what the man was saying.

Ah, well.

He makes some good points. It seems to me one could invoke the Court definition of porn here - "I can't define the white underclass but I know it when I see it"

The only thing I quibble with him on is his conclusion that we need to "fix it"

I do not believe there ever has been or ever will be a human society without an underclass and it hardly matters what race they are unless they are exclusively one race.

And I see this as a card carrying member of the underclass.

QuoteAmericans generally agree that every man or woman in America should have a full time job, except those women who manage to snag a wealthy man.

Not exactly.  Freedom comes with responsibility. Everyone can use their attributes to benefit themselves and society. Be you an artist, childcare giver, homemaker, small business, volunteer or whatever.  Many disabled people find a outlet for their talents. To say someone has to be employed is a corporate slavery. To say we have to consume any more than we need to survive is marketing. Americans have fallen to the the propaganda of a controlled environment to benefit the elite.

I got the sense that Joe Bageant would agree with you, Lisa.

Becca, you're quite welcome. I was quite impressed with the opinions he made myself. It was one of the feeds Alternet sent me and I went to his own blog to link it here. Gotta love that blog name, no?

I tend to agree with you as well, Laura, that there will generally be an underclass. I think my only disagreement with that idea would simply be one of acuteness.

Since the 80s and the policies enacted first by Reagan's admin, but pursued by each administration since, I do think that the white underclass, well, the underclass in general, has expanded far beyond what had been the case between the early 1950s and the great inflation of post-OPEC-founding.

The gap between the classes in USA has reached yawning chasm/Grand Canyon size and it's expanding. I think there's no doubt that if that continues there will be a readily discernable white underclass and that it will not be just white. 

Um, why work full time if you don't have to? I work just over 1/2 time and make more than both my parents combined at the peak of their earning. 

Nichole honey, I think those policies were not as much about expanding the underclass (though they have had that result) as shrinking the middle class (you know, that class that everyone in the good old USA belongs to, even people I know who make $150K a year swear up and down that they are 'middle class') which held too much political power. 

What some might say, is that where in other places you are born to that - or to the manor - the traditional American myth is that you choose and work to become what you end up being.  That anyone can 'pick themselves up by their bootstraps' and such. 

And, you have to add in the factor that class is often about more than money - which is kinda a very rare American deal.  So that people I know, and on occasions have been one of, have people who make a lot more money tell us they 'envy our lives.'  But those lives are lived out of choice, rather than necessity. (That and often its because they think they know what we do, rather than what we really do, but even then...)

And I think the 'having one parent stay at home with the kids deal' is also treated differently, as anyone who has ever raised kids will tell you that its a job too. Which, unless you are Nadya Suleman is also taken to be something that you do for a while, but not forever.

QuoteUm, why work full time if you don't have to?

The idea is not to work but get paid for doing things you like. Then time does not matter.

Or, as we say out here in La-La Land - "dude, you have to follow your bliss."

Quote from: lisagurl on July 19, 2009, 10:16:00 AM
The idea is not to work but get paid for doing things you like. Then time does not matter.

Yeah, I'm a white underclass dropout lol