Even with the observations I make here, I am VERY thankful for White Trash. Every word she spoke was insightful with respect to how she did connect the dots… My hope is to expand and give her work greater context.
This is one step up from the notes I take when reviewing a source. She did a phenomenal job and I don't have more to add on her view in a public and unpaid venue. 😉
Tees up a great opportunity to discuss race and Ms. Isenberg seems to miss it (30:22) He says it applies to today and she starts on the past. Biggest problem we have in making progress on these subjects is that most people reference it as a past problem, and not a now one.
(31:36) During the Civil War, class and race… Please show me where that was in the Confederate papers of separation. It was about the continued enslavement of a particular race, Black people. She discusses it as if it was all about white people and citing the number of white people who were tenant farmers (sharecroppers) and getting government assistance, is disingenuous. I may be able to keep drawing on context here, she wrote an important book about “white trash”. But to fail at the greater context of African enslavement, even in passing, is wanting.
(32:47) Contest between African freedman and working-class whites because of the tyranny of low expectations, hence the white-lash on their high success rate. A great CNN resource can be found here about the many riotous traumas Black towns have lived through that are recorded. I still don't excuse the murderous violence committed on these Black people knowing the cause, because they didn't meet those rioters low expectations of their success. Someone in that community needs to look at the often bloodthirsty violence
(35:49) “…have to look at race and class together” is another need for white people to not have to sit with the driving force in which they identify and to center whiteness. Please see my immediate last post regarding all groups that are marginalized in this system being in the Black community. The only group that isn’t in the white community, is Black people. Please stop beating around the bush and adding to the cart. Just plainly deal with anti-Blackness (racism) and we will make progress! At some point, they have to understand that fixing this stuff for us will fix it for them. But spending time on them, as always been done, does not fix it for us - it never has.
There were a couple of awkward moments, like when she didn’t align with the male speaker and spent a lot of time nodding when he was speaking the next time (almost a way of apologizing for disagreeing) and the Obama, “mongrel” clean up moment.
(38:50) Actually, that miscegenation point she made used a trope. Through Blacks and poor whites living in the same areas, versus segregation, white women would be subject to sex with Black men? In actual fact, Black men and women were (and probably still are) victims of white sexual violence at a much higher rate than white women from Black men. That is a trope that has lost a lot of men of the global majority their lives. I couldn’t let that one go unaddressed. Please see Dr. Tommy Curry's work on this topic.
(44:44) The role of work. Take any of Resmaa Menakem’s courses to understand the plantation system this society is, how much more labor itself? The dynamics one sees on a plantation, not just from the enslaver’s point of view, but how the enslaved existed and lived is the model of this system. And on the “lazy and indolent "comment from the questioner – some rich people I know prefer to have a couple money related meetings a week and do with their life whatever else they want the rest of the time. Making money while laying on the beach comes to mind.
(47:29) Being the breadwinner conversation and the connection to self worth reminds me of one of the thoughts I have when I watch this video where an elder describes the financial construct of his marriage. I know of many people who measure themselves by some version of this. Let's stop making rules for other people and build a sustainable society that holds all.
(51:00) People are beginning to realize the need for coalition (again).
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