Book Review; Dying of Whiteness

Hey, I am stealing one (or at least a partial) from another blog. It is on target as I would say and it will provoke comments or at least some thinking about the issue.

Dying of Whiteness, How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland

Lawyers, Guns, & Money, Erik Loomis (Blog writer and Reviewer)

I have not read this book; but it appears to be interesting enough to read. A couple of paragraphs in the review caught my attention and are worth repeating. The commentary (below) is right on the money

Erik Loom: “Donald Trump is absolutely incapable of managing any crisis. We all know this. But a lot of people are wondering whether this will finally be the disaster undermining his support among the base. Reading Jonathan Metzl’s Dying of Whiteness is a good way to cure yourself of this delusion. Metzl, a doctor at Vanderbilt, has received a lot of publicity for his book and for good reason. It is a straightforward exploration into the heart of Trump’s America, where people know that guns kill, where they know that they have terrible medical care, and where it simply doesn’t matter to them because at least the Mexicans and welfare queens are not getting any benefits either.

It’s really this straightforward. Metzl goes to hospitals where people simply tell him they would rather die than have Obamacare go to the undeserving. For these people, very much working class whites, race simply means far, far more to them than class. Moreover, it means more to them than their own lives. They are comfortable with their own death. They are not comfortable with Guatemalan migrants receiving health care. And it’s certainly no better with guns. Metzl visits one of the leading areas of gun suicides in the country–southeast Missouri. Even though people are dying left and right from guns–suicide for sure, but accidental shootings and intentional shooting too–these people just won’t see the guns as the problem. Or even if they secretly do, they know they can’t say so publicly for the stigma that would come of it.

I’ve long stated that ‘class not race’ analysis is inherently racist, which makes me something of an outlier among labor historians. And I honestly don’t see how anyone can really argue that the white working class is dying for a socialist who will unite all people by class. These people may indeed have some class consciousness, so long as it is white-only. But even if they support unions or higher taxes on the rich or whatever, they aren’t voting that way. They are voting to kill themselves through rejecting decent health care, by freaking out that anyone will take their guns even as those guns kill their parents and spouses and children, and by decimating the social safety net even if it means their own children get a poor education.”

Erik Loomis starts his commentary with exactly what I said in my previous post. Trump is totally incompetent, he has no clue as to how to approach an issue, a catastrophe, and create a plan other than bully his way through it with a BS commentary. His speech pattern is horrific and that of a 10 year old and I insult 10 year old’s. Trump needs adult handlers to guide him, other than his Nazis on staff. Metzl reaches the right conclusions which I see in Michigan also, people would rather die than have healthcare for all if it involves minorities or immigrants. They will vote against themselves to avoid the issues and will suffer through the loss of benefits.