Rodney Foxworth: Of the Black Man’s Burden and White Pathology

Bageant’s essay compares unfavorably to a statement that appeared in The Nation no longer than a few months ago, in which the staff had hopes that Americans would soon realize their mistake in re-electing George W. Bush. Of course, the pessimist within me responded: what you mean to say is white Americans need to realize their mistake. As I saw it, and still do, black Americans did their part in seeing to the defeat of the second Bush. The left never voices this assumption, and diverts attention from a true problem: as Richard Wright alluded so many moons ago, there is no Negro problem, merely a white one, but it seems “we” choose not to acknowledge this. According to Bageant, doing so might alienate “most of blue collar America.” This may be true, but whose fault is that? The fact is, his description of “white trash labor” differs little from large portions of black America, and this says nothing of the Native American: in his observation of the admittedly strenuous lives of the invisible white-working-poor, he gives no concrete reason to justify their allegiance to conservatism and self-defeatism; it is not as though black laborers aren’t living very much the same lives. Bageant refuses to ask the better question: why do white working class people vote against their own economic interests? His suggestion that white trash laborers view those “receiving a government assisted leg up” as cheating them, is coded word for, well, it need not be stated here. [more]