|
|
|
|
|
|
by zd123
1838 days ago
|
|
|
I would agree with most of what you say above, in my life I have seen the disadvantages you highlight for the white working class (many kids I went to high school fell in this category). To be clear, I am not claiming disadvantaged white folks don’t have it rough. However, my point is when we take folks from a similar socioeconomic background, being white does confer an advantages in a lot of cases (in western, white majority countries). I would say the majority of the disadvantages for working class whites is not due to their race. Whereas on the other hand, certain ethnicities do have disadvantages due to their precisely their race. Both are disadvantaged but for different reasons imho. Personally if it were up to me, I would exclude poor working class whites from any notion of privilege as they clearly aren’t. I also think they need more representation in the work place (ie being included in diversity targets rather than excluded). IMO we need a better term that’s more nuanced and can capture the disadvantages of these groups, but I dont know what that term would be. |
|
|
This is exactly the point I'm refuting. In all of the working class neighbourhoods I've lived in, poverty seemed to have a greater adverse affect on white people than other racial groups.
Being poor while Indian, for example, doesn't seem to be so closely associated with family breakdown/fatherlessness, drug abuse, malnutrition/bad diet, chronic unemployment, trouble with authority and just this constantly bleak outlook on life in an unbreakable spiral of poverty.
I'm not trying to say that they have it easy. They work bloody hard for what they've got and are an integral part of society. Still, despite their life being tough there's at least light at the end of the tunnel in the form of hope for the next generation. I would much rather be poor and brown than poor and white.