51吃瓜

I grew up in southern Bavaria in the 1960s. I started formal education at the age of six at the local Volksschule 鈥� the people鈥檚 school. Quite frankly, I don鈥檛 remember much about this time. Among the few things I do remember is the warning my parents gave me on my way to school to keep away from the Rs. The Rs were a couple of kids from the same family, one of whom happened to be in my class. They came from the 鈥渂ad鈥� side of town, the Glasscherbenviertel. In my hometown, this was an area located behind a horse and motorcycle race track, a place where respectable citizens wouldn鈥檛 want to be caught dead. Those who lived there were dismissed as Grattler 鈥� uncouth, unsavory characters better avoided. And avoid them we did, if only not to run the danger of getting beaten up.

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In our little town, the Rs were the epitome of what across the Atlantic is referred to as “white trash.” At the time in Germany, there was hardly anyone who looked 鈥渄ifferent,鈥� so “white trash” would have made no sense whatsoever. They were German trash, and everybody knew it. In my immediate neighborhood, there was a woman who had three 鈥渋llegitimate鈥� children, all of them girls, all of them with a reputation of being tomboys. My parents, of course, told me I better keep my distance. I did, if only to avoid being bombarded with stones 鈥� the weapon, at the time, of the weaker sex 鈥� and, of course, out of fear of being associated with German trash.

America鈥檚 Outcasts

These are some of the reminiscences, images and thoughts that recently crossed my mind while parts of Nancy Isenberg鈥檚 鈥淲hite Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America.鈥� Released in 2016, a few months before the presidential election, the book is as pertinent 鈥� if not more so 鈥� today as it was at the time it was published. This is the story of the , the vagrants and 鈥渃rackers,鈥� the rednecks and the 鈥渄eplorables鈥� who 鈥渉ave remained vilified, shunned, targeted and kept apart, both physically 鈥� in poorhouses and trailer parks, through eugenic science and discriminatory public policy 鈥� and in the nation鈥檚 cultural imagination, where they have inspired mockery, kitsch and unceasing grimaces.鈥�  

For anyone who has ever watched an episode of 鈥淭he Jerry Springer Show鈥� knows what I鈥檓 talking about. With 28 seasons and around 4,000 episodes, it was not only one of America鈥檚 most successful TV series but also an export hit that exposed the rest of the world to the other side of America in the crudest way. The show was so successful because it systematically brought out some of the worst in human nature while at the same time the 鈥渁udience’s need to feel superior.鈥� It reinforced age-old stereotypes that dismissed a part of America鈥檚 white population as 鈥渋ncestuous and sexually promiscuous, violent, alcoholic, lazy and stupid鈥� 鈥� stereotypes, as , that 鈥渞emain with us until today.鈥�

A case in point is the methamphetamine epidemic that the American Drug Enforcement Administration in 2003 as 鈥渢he most dangerous drug problem of small-town America.鈥� In fact, what distinguished meth was that the drug was most prevalent in rural areas in the country’s heartland, where it was 鈥渂urning a hole,鈥� as magazine put it, 鈥渢hrough rural America.鈥� What also distinguished it was that, unlike, for instance, crack cocaine, which is predominantly associated with inner cities and people of color, meth was largely characterized as a white-trash addiction. As Frank Keating, the former governor of Oklahoma, , meth was 鈥渁 white trash drug 鈥� methamphetamines largely are consumed by the lower socio-economic element of white people. And I think we need to shame it, just like crack cocaine was a black-trash drug and is a black trash drug.鈥�

The same applies to a certain extent to what Joshua Wilkey, in his blog , has called the 鈥渨hite-trashification of the opioid crisis.鈥� Wilkey鈥檚 charges the political establishment in Washington with not giving 鈥渢wo shits鈥� about the crisis, at least as long as it affects primarily the rural poor in depressed areas such as the Appalachians. At least two reasons account for this: first, the notion that addiction 鈥渋s simply the result of stupid people making poor choices鈥� and, second, that since the crisis 鈥渓argely targets poor and rural areas, there’s less urgency on the part of urban elites to advocate for solutions.鈥� To put it more brutally, white trash just doesn鈥檛 matter, if only because it does not conform to the dominant narrative 鈥� in which whiteness represents the 鈥溾�� 鈥� that serves as the justification for white socioeconomic dominance.

White Privilege

At the same time, the trope poses a challenge to the notion of white privilege, for white trash is a term that racializes whiteness by denigrating those as such 鈥渋n race specific terms.鈥� One way to get out of this quandary is to relabel a clearly derogatory racialized as 鈥減seudo-racialization.鈥� For the guardians of this type of wokeness 鈥� largely derived from critical race theory prevalent today in American academia and the chattering classes 鈥� this might sound reassuring. It shouldn鈥檛, at least if wokeness is taken seriously. It should not be forgotten that wokeness is as 鈥渁 state of being aware, especially of social problems such as racism and inequality.鈥�

The derogation, denigration and disparagement of, if not outright contempt for, America鈥檚 white underclass, mocked and dismissed as white trash, certainly counts for an egregious example of inequality alongside a range of dimensions 鈥� economic, social and cultural. White trash is the Lumpenproletariat of our globalized world, structurally irrelevant and, therefore, largely ignored 鈥� at least as long as it doesn鈥檛 become a threat to society as it did during the meth epidemic.

Worse still, as the notion of pseudo-racialization implies, the distress and despair of the white underclass are easily dismissed since its problems fall through the dominant grievances grid that today is almost exclusively informed by and defined in racial terms. What Ernesto Laclau has once called the 鈥渋nternal antagonistic frontier鈥� that informs today鈥檚 hegemonic wokeness discourse runs between whites and everybody else. In this discourse, whiteness is automatically associated with privilege and entitlement. The white maligned underclass might be underprivileged or worse, but, being white, it is automatically subsumed under notions of privilege and entitlement for no other reason than that one so happens to be white.

The case of Oumou Kanoute, a black student at Smith College, which was in The New York Times, illustrates the point. Here even , in her recent defense of critical race theory, had to acknowledge that something went horribly wrong, that this was a case of 鈥渨oke overreach.鈥� Smith College is one of the most prestigious 鈥� and expensive 鈥� liberal arts colleges in the US. Students attending the college are the epitome of entitlement, given the prohibitive cost of tuition and board that easily amounts to nearly $80,000 a year. An in The Guardian from 2016 hit the nail on the head when it pointed out that 鈥渁t the best colleges there are very few low-income students, except for a few lucky enough to grow up in New York City, Los Angeles or Boston.鈥�

As The New York Times account rightly put it, the Smith College incident is a story of the clash between race and class. Once again, class came out at the short end of the stick, resulting in the destruction of the reputations of a number of employees, all of them white, all of them part of today鈥檚 easily dispensable service class 鈥� janitors, security guards 鈥� who were labeled as racists and as carriers of white privilege. Yet, as a in The New York Times put it, 鈥渢he narrative of racist harassment of a minority student at an elitist white institution turned out to be comprehensively false.鈥� Does it matter? Apparently not, for as the initial report by The Times put it, the whole story 鈥渉ighlights the tensions between a student鈥檚 deeply felt sense of personal truth and facts that are at odds with it.鈥� In short, something must be true because you think it is true. This might explain why even after an investigation exonerated the employees of racial bias, they received, unlike the student, from the administration. The white underclass apparently is not worthy of recognition.

Dispensable Service Class

The incident happened in 2018. In the meantime, Oumou Kanoute has on to Columbia University, another elite university. The fate of the targets of her accusations is largely unknown. But then, who cares about janitors and security guards? This is hardly a rhetorical question. According to from the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2019, the white poverty rate was 9%. This amounts to more than 17 million Americans. Poverty rates were disproportionately high (around 15%) in West Virginia and Kentucky, two Appalachian states, which were also among the top states when it comes to .

The impact was devastating. In 2017, the opioid-related in Appalachian counties was more than 70% higher than in the rest of the country: 24 versus 14 deaths per 100,000 residents. At the same time, the rate of Kentucky鈥檚 neonatal abstinence syndrome was more than than the national rate, West Virginia鈥檚 more than eight times.

The , recently published in a medical journal, of a physician who grew up in eastern Kentucky provides a first-hand account of the misery and despair the epidemic has wrought. Eastern Kentucky, a coal-mining area at the foot of the Appalachian hills, is among the poorest in the United States. Isolated and on the margins 鈥渂oth geographically and culturally,鈥� the region and its opioid crisis were long ignored by the national media.

It was not until 鈥渋t had spread to more affluent and valued parts of the country, almost 15 years later鈥� that it would gain national attention. This is despite the fact that the region is overwhelmingly white. Magoffin County, for instance, which is the focus of the physician鈥檚 account, in 2000 was roughly 99% white. But then, who gives two shits about poor white trash 鈥� except, perhaps, to make money. Otherwise, why would Amazon a 鈥淔unny Kentucky White Trash Tee Shirt鈥�?

In late 2016, an on America鈥檚 poor white underclass noted the 鈥渂arely suppressed contempt鈥� that 鈥渉as characterized much of the commentary about white woe, on both the left and the right.鈥� In support of their observation, the authors cite a that appeared in the National Review, the flagship of the traditional conservative right, heaping scorn on low-income white voters for supporting Donald Trump in the primaries. Among other things, the author sneered:

鈥淚f you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or my own native West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol addiction, the family anarchy 鈥� which is to say, the whelping of human children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog 鈥� you will come to an awful realization. 鈥� The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. 鈥� The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles.鈥�

In 2016, Trump won an overwhelming majority in eastern Kentucky. In Magoffin County, for instance, he won roughly 75% of the vote. Four years later, Trump once again carried Kentucky by a wide margin; the same was true for Magoffin County. And yet, in his four years in office, he had done little to nothing to improve the lives of America鈥檚 poor white underclass. To be sure, at one point, Trump had claimed he would revive the coal industry so dear to states like West Virginia and Kentucky. He didn鈥檛, and, like any good populist, once in power, he largely ignored the plight of those whose pain he had earlier purported to hear. As , America鈥檚 poor, independent of race, by and large don鈥檛 vote and, therefore, can be dismissed. They don鈥檛 count, in more than one sense of the word.

Farewell to the Proletariat

Unfortunately, the left on both sides of the Atlantic has, to a large extent, bought into this trope. Instead of fighting for every vote, the left has written off significant segments of a potential electorate which, at one point, was part of its natural constituency. Yet in the late 1970s, at least in Western Europe, the left abandoned the concerns of blue-collar workers in favor of new 鈥減ostmaterialist鈥� priorities, promoted by the 鈥渘ew middle classes.鈥� A paradigmatic text was Andr茅 Gorz鈥檚 manifesto from 1980, 鈥淎dieux au proletariat鈥� (鈥淔arewell to the Proletariat鈥�). In the decades that followed, the left increasingly adopted what has come to be known as identity politics, centering upon questions of gender, ethnicity and race.

There is nothing wrong with identity politics 鈥� as long as it is inclusive. Following , the potential of progressive politics crucially depends on the establishment of an alternative 鈥減owerbloc鈥� that not only unifies different claims and struggles, such as the #MeToo, Black Lives Matter and Fridays for Future movements, but is also able to effectively challenge the dominant power structure and the hegemonic narratives, such as neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus. Identity politics on the left these days focuses on minorities, such as LGBTQ and particularly race, in the process sidelining, excluding, if not outright dismissing questions of class. As one who identified himself as a 鈥渨hite man living paycheck to paycheck鈥� put it in The Atlantic, 鈥淚 think that most of us would acknowledge that minorities have it rough, but at least someone seems to care about them.鈥�

In the end, a strategy that focuses almost exclusively on an anything-but-white identity politics 鈥� if it is at all a strategy 鈥� is only going to weaken any genuine hope for a more equitable politics. At the same time, it is likely to provide fertile ground for the exploitation of resentment and anger by cynical populists such as Donald Trump well versed in the deceptive appeal of symbolic politics, like feeding into delusions of white superiority, while doing nothing concrete, like raising marginal tax rates on the rich to pay for universal health care, for the 鈥渙rdinary people鈥� they purport to represent.  

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The views expressed in this article are the author鈥檚 own and do not necessarily reflect 51吃瓜鈥檚 editorial policy.