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An Apologetic for Racism
I need to qualify this review. It is not that some of the qualitative data in here, about the white working class, is not useful; it is. However, too often this book seems to function as an apologetic for out and out racism. For example, the author provides quotes from those in the white working class as they denigrate minorities who now live in their neighborhoods. He claims that this is not racism, per se, but a collection of sincere expressions of how their lives are being transformed. Get this: racism can be sincere. That doesn't make it any more legitimate or moral. The author also fails to accurately frame the problems faced by members of the white working class, in relation to those faced by minorities. In the United States, at least, minorities still are proportionally more economically disadvantaged overall as compared to white working class Americans. That this information is simply exempted from this work is abominable. In its absence, the claim that the white working class is a particularly oppressed group can take hold, when in reality, in relation to minorities, it is simply not true. This is not to say that many of these people don't have hard lives, and aren't worthy of compassion. They absolutely are, and we must find public policy solutions to help all of our citizens. My fear is that a work such as this legitimizes an incorrect (and frankly, immoral) notion that working class whites are the primary victims of our society. The facts do not bear this out.
October 2016 · Kindle Store · verified purchase