We all know that the US was founded on the grave of millions of Native Americans that the settlers committed genocide against and prospered by enslaving millions of Black people. (Sorry immigrants, we’re not a nation of solely us.)
All white people today, all members of the upper and middle-class today, have generational wealth (that’s either directly inherited or obtained through social capital) because of the never-ending raping and pillaging of both Black and Brown people—that includes stolen land and labor (and the exploitation of Black and Brown documented and undocumented immigrants). One of the best sources I’ve found that break these things down to a tee has been PBS’ Race-The Power of an Illusion three-part documentary:
Many middle-class white people, especially those of us from the suburbs, like to think that we got to where we are today by virtue of our merit - hard work, intelligence, pluck, and maybe a little luck. And while we may be sympathetic to the plight of others, we close down when we hear the words "affirmative action" or "racial preferences." We worked hard, we made it on our own, the thinking goes, why don't 'they'? After all, the Civil Rights Act was enacted almost 40 years ago.
What we don't readily acknowledge is that racial preferences have a long, institutional history in this country - a white history.
That “may be sympathetic to the plight of others” is doing a lot of heavy-lifting there, but we get the point. Few people talk about these because it inconveniences their goals—usually the accumulation of money and power. Many politicians and pundits recklessly mention the plight of the middle and working-class because it is a racist, classist, and ableist dog-whistle. I’m not the only one that thinks so:
Some of us have suspected for some time now that advocating for the poor can be perilous to one’s career. It’s why many advocates against poverty switch to education: it’s more sustainable and lucrative. We can pretend that education is the great equalizer because the donor class right-leaning sensitivities are more receptive to messages of empowerment, prosperity gospel, and hard-work even though they are poor tools for upward mobility:
Everyone agrees that talent and hard work should play a role in determining success in life. Yet social mobility’s enemies are powerful and plentiful: extreme inequality, exploitative employers and detached elites, vowing to work for the many but pursuing policies for the few. And then there are opportunity hoarders – privileged families stopping at nothing to prevent their children sliding down the social ladder and being overtaken by upstarts from below. It is easy to trample over the prospects of the less fortunate when fighting for your own family and friends.
Unless we’re doing the bidding for some billionaire, celebrity, or multi-national company that’s donating a pittance to cover-up for the numerous nefarious ways they exploit people in the States and in foreign lands, poverty is a career dead-end street. No matter where we stand, or how powerless we are, we all enjoy a lot of privileges at the expense of women, poor(er) people, Black people, Brown people, disabled people, immigrants, marginalized people across the world. If you don’t center poverty in your stump speeches, then I don’t want to hear it.
The only candidate to greatly center the poor and mention this disparity has been Julián Castro.
We all know how and why that ended for him. I wrote about it. He’s since endorsed Elizabeth Warren—someone who’s been mentioning the middle class a little too much for my liking.
And, since classism and racism are inextricably linked, we mustn’t forget that most Black and Brown people are poor even though the majority of poor people in the States are white people, but Black and Brown poverty looks nothing like white poverty. Native American poverty is never brought up by mainstream pundits. You can’t do Black and Latinx (or Black Latinx) outreach without bringing up poverty, without centering poverty, without having a plan to combat poverty beyond a colorblind, socialist rising-tide-lifting-all-boats movement. You can’t. That’s why politicos need to get on board with reparations for African Americans. They need to get on board for a non-Yang UBI because giving money directly to the poor works. Poverty also afflicts women and children the most. Investing in women by cutting out the middleman is a must:
Disabled folks should also be centered in your work. Julián Castro did just that, but alas.
The hate for Brown men and women in this country is nothing but self-destructive—especially toward those who are “too good” and trying to do right. (And they say we’re the ones who are uncivilized.)
Poverty and disability tend to go hand-in-hand:
Despite the dearth of formal analysis, it is clear that in developing countries, as in more developed areas, disabled people (and their families) are more likely than the rest of the population to live in poverty. It is a two-way relationship -- disability adds to the risk of poverty, and conditions of poverty increase the risk of disability. Disability in developing countries stems largely from preventable impairments associated with communicable, maternal and perinatal disease and injuries, and prevention has to remain a primary focus. An increasing emphasis on community based participatory rehabilitation reflects growing recognition of the inadequacy of past official programs, particularly involving specialized and exclusionary institutions.
Having chronic conditions, those we can and can’t see, on top of being poor is hellish. Making the lives of the disabled better is a must. The disabled are constantly brutalized, marginalized, and worse, erased so we all pretend not to know that they are often brutalized. We must do everything in our power to fight against all of that. I recently tried to open a bookstore and mentioned I wanted to have an elevator or ramp so disabled folks can get to the second floor, but I didn’t get a response. My contact was very responsive prior to that. In fact, the real estate agent didn’t get back to me till months later, but that was because he wanted to rent the space to me—he mentioned nothing about the elevator. Eventually, my two-stories bookstore plan turned into one story because supposedly the law didn’t allow us to construct a second floor like we originally planned. I knew it was bullshit. The bookstore didn’t work out either because banks rarely give out loans to Latinx folks, but that’s for another essay.
The bottom line is that we need to center the middle-class less and the poor more. We need to discuss how poverty is concentrated in marginalized groups: women, children, Black folks, Brown folks, members of the LGBTQ community, immigrants, Native Americans, disabled folks…
That’s how we truly move society forward for all of us.