The Working Class Is Unnecessarily At War With Itself
We need people in government who can implement a healthy and livable environment.
Recently a working-class white guy on the Internet said some things in favor of the poor and workers against the rich financiers and corporations, the real elites who proportionately pay less in taxes yet control the two major political parties and most U.S. economic, social, and global policies.
This dude said he’d never “punch down” when it comes to blame for the country’s failures. I was with him so far. It turned out he was a Trumper. Why? the questioner asked. His answer was now slippery and unclear. But I could read between the lines—it was about the “other.”
You know, Blacks, migrants, LGBTQ people. Those who don’t fit into the paradigm of what Trump and now most Republicans say are true “Americans”: white, straight, and Christians (who also love guns, hate women’s choice, and don’t believe in climate change).
Many Trumpers claim these “patriots” are also white working class. But I will say here and now—there’s no such thing as a “white working class.” In this country, the working class is white, black, and brown.
They include citizens, legal residents, and undocumented. They have many religions, and some have no religion. They are straight as well as on the spectrum of queerness. They are men and women, abled and persons with disabilities. They are Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Libertarians, Socialists, and Independents.
What unites them is they must “sell” the sweat of their brow, their labor, to make a living. They run the gamut of extremely low-paid farmworkers to highly skilled construction workers and truck drivers.
They work in manufacturing but more likely as janitors, housekeepers, and in warehouse or foodservice jobs. Some are unionized. Most are not. They are chained to a relationship—their ability to work goes to the highest bidder among persons or companies who can afford to pay. They are forced to compete for what jobs exist, often driving those “bids” to the lowest levels.
Because of the technological shifts in society this class also includes people who work in mental-dependent and tech jobs, behind desks, in offices or at home, who must also sell their capacities to survive. They are manual laborers and video game creators, garment workers and journalists.
Yet, in this country, social class is not taught; most people have no idea what “class” means.
Then with race, migrant status, gender, or religion thrown into the mix, people are confused and divided by skin color, heritage, belief-systems, or sexual orientation. In other words, the essential uniting aspects are being trumped by the non-essential dividing aspects (pun intended).
Today the working class is at war with itself. And who’s responsible? The very wealthy and powerful that young man claimed held the keys to power in the U.S.
Now when it comes November’s elections, I understand why people would vote for Kamala Harris, a woman who happens to be of Black and South Asian descent, and who holds mostly progressive ideas such as reproductive rights for women. This against Trump any day. But she’s also confronting issues arising out of class, especially as we careen toward an economic crisis to end all crises, no matter who’s president.
Now Trump by all measures was bad on both the economy and social issues. Just the same the working class as a whole—not fragmented by “this and that”—is demanding real answers to real problems. Answers Republicans don’t have, and Democrats have muddled over.
We need people in government who can implement a healthy and livable environment in work, in health, in education, and public safety. We need a clean and regenerative planet. And we need enduring peace in the world, including in Gaza, and anywhere else where colonization and genocide continue to persist.
So, okay, keep Trump out. But keep on fighting. Harris cannot be given free reign.
The next time you see an Indigenous Undocumented Mexican mother and her two small children selling fruit or flowers at a freeway entrance, remember they are as much part of the U.S. working class as anybody else.
They are contributing to an economy that benefits us all. And when that economy fails don’t look at them—look at the billionaire class that enriches itself at all costs while their cronies in Congress refuse to raise the federal minimum wage or provide a basic living standard.
We let go of one chain, then pick up another. What we need is to remove all chains as we advance humanity forward from want to wellbeing.
Luis J. Rodriguez, also known as Mixcoatl Itztlacuiloh, has 17 books in all genres. He’s cofounder of Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore and founding editor of Tia Chucha Press. From 2014-2016, he served as Los Angeles Poet Laureate.
Right on Luis! Very nice summation of our reality in this living space, and the complexity of our cultural challenges. At the least, we need political direction that supports our class interests, so many of us still believe that the ruling class interests are beneficial to all workers, and we become frustrated in the politics without identifying who or what is disabling our success. Muchisimas gracias!