Class is NOT the New Race

Michelle Obama's photo on the cover of Vogue has been the talk of the morning talk shows, where one host complimented her as "your everyday working woman" who really represents "the working class mom" in the US today. Michelle Obama as "Working Class Mom"? While the price tags on her oft-cited J. Crew clothes may be a far cry from that of previous first ladies, is it really representative of the wardrobe of working class families today?

I admit I too thought the Obama daughters' inauguration day coats were cute, and I have a daughter, so I checked out the J. Crew website. Here is what I found...

Cotton ruffle cardigan $68.00; garden party dress $98.00; jeans $98.00; twinkle ballet flats $128.00; trench coat $168.00; and cotton organdy dress $198.00.

How many families can afford these prices?

The median household income in the country today is $48,000. The mainstream media continues to distort the reality of class, painting a fairly pretty picture of what it is like to be working class. We hear very little about the tremendous gap between the very wealthiest households, and everyone else. Income inequality has grown steadily throughout the 80s and 90s and the top 1% of households in the country today has a net worth greater than 90% of all households combined!

While there is little left we can actually afford to buy today, we especially can't afford to buy the argument that race is no longer salient. Headlines like "The End of White America?" and "Race Over" abound (The Atlantic, Jan/Feb 2009). In "Class is the new Race," Joel Kotkin states that Obama's "ascension to the Presidency...means[s] race is no longer the dominant issue in American politics. Instead, over the coming decades, class will likely constitute the major dividing line." (Newsweek, January 26, 2009, pp. 64)

It is about time we started talking about class inequality in the US, but it is not an either or division. We have ignored the reality of increasing class inequality for the past 30 years, but let's not make the same mistake now with race. Class and race intersect. We are all impacted by both class and race dynamics. Even in the face of legal and political gains, there is no evidence to suggest that the racial economic divide is decreasing. And the reality is that during economic downturns, minority communities suffer first and worst. Economic gains made by people of color are generally only very recent gains, and thus most tenuous and vulnerable. They are much less likely to have inherited wealth from previous generations to soften the blow during a crisis. Consider the statistics:

·The racial gap in median family incomes gap narrowed only slightly over the past 50 years
·Black households are twice as likely as whites to have a negative net worth or none at all
·Less than 10% of whites but almost ¼ of all Black and Latino households live in poverty
·The unemployment rate for blacks remains twice that of whites, unchanged since the early 1970s
·From 1970 to 2007 the gap between home ownership rates for whites and blacks actually grew, and is now being compounded by the current foreclosure crisis.

I applaud the current examination of class inequality. Maybe the vast majority of white families who have seen their standard of living decrease in recent decades, who are now losing their jobs, and homes, and healthcare, will finally see their interests are aligned with people of color. Arguing that either race or class is more salient is pointless and divisive. A very, very small number of people have reaped most of the benefits from our failing economic system, and it is about time the other 90% of us started working together to demand better.

Comments

[ShiraTarrant]

Thank you SO much for breaking down the issues and providing valuable, supporting data. I plan to use this post -- and the comments -- to launch a discussion in my university class on the economy.

[jdmba]

How is it that this excellent post gets only 3 comments, yet an article about sentence deconstruction has pages??? What is this?!?!?

I don't know if I'm more frustrated with this site than with those who frequent it.

It's time for the Technology Age to dawn on more people of color.

[tembi]

This piece acknowledges a lot of the frustration and fear that many African American and their allies have about the "post-racial" discourse resulting from the Obama presidency. There is so much that can be said here, but suffice it to say that: 1) any person that still views race as one of the dominant social forces organizing American society is not paranoid and certainly not living in a time long gone. You don't have to read Richard Wright or go back to the 60's to feel the weight and presence of race in virtually every aspect of modern American society. 2) class- and especially "wealth" has been consistently demonstrated by Oliver & Shapiro, Conley and a half-dozen others to be one of the most race-based phenomena that exists in America. You can not talk about class and not talk about wealth and have a real conversation. It is simply bait and switch for us to highlight one and ignore the other. My sincere hope, is that whatever "lightness" of the moment around "race" simply allows blacks and white to interact like human beings. If all the talk about this "post-racial" nonsense simply allows us to get to know each other and interact a little more freely, i would be cool with that!

[Shelly Plasco]

I agree with everything you say, but to me this doesn't negate the positive impact of our new black president .
Your quote"a very, very small number of people have reaped most of the benefits from our failing economic system, and it is about time the other 90% of us started working together to demand better. ", is worth noting, and now is certainly the time for this to happen. As the United States, hopefully lifts itself out of this recession/depression, hopefully everyone will equally follow along. I believe President Oboma is trying his best to do this. We must all work together. Those who do not put in the work, will not benifit.

[Nommo]

That is what the Black folk have been waiting for. In recognition of our stake in this nation, our long history in this nation, it is almost unfortunate that what it seemingly takes for white America to realize that is their impending tumble over the economic cliff. Frankly, the failure goes back over generations, excluding Blacks from the employment, unions, from financial services taken for granted in other communities has kind of turned and bit. There is almost a morose humor in the fact that the outsourced jobs, are all being performed by non-whites, are jobs that too often were denied to Black citizens simply because...

What if Black people decide, collectively, that now we want nothing to do with this forced unity?