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.
Exactly.
This makes it easy to understand elections. You are not going to ever change these peoples’ votes. Your policies are meaningless to them. And it makes being a Republican easy as pie. George Wallace showed the GOP the way to win elections.:
“I was out-niggered, and I will never be out-niggered again.”
That is why trump can be trump. And he will not be the last one.
40 years of division works wonders for the Establishment. the Media and Other “Trusted” sources have succeeded in Divide and Conquer.
Proving Government doesn’t work was the Republican aim and it succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Having Poorer Whites go after even Poorer “Others,” means Poor Whites will never ever believe Government works for them. and government doesn’t work for Poor Whites.
See the American Industrial Wasteland and Flyover Country, Decimated by Nafta, TPP, Big Pharma, Walls St. Obama, the whole Political and Industrial complex. but blame Blacks, Mexicans, Immigrants and use the “Damn Blacks/Others want freebies to kill Society” meme.
St. Reagan “nightmare” aka Republican and Vichy Democrat Dream come true. “i’m from the Government and here to help you.”
The Republican “American” Dream come true.
Trump got elected on that and Biden Black support show the Whites that Democrats equal “Blacks”not White People, so Poor Whites will never, ever, ever vote Democrat. and not Democratic, lol. Republican Lite is not a successful voting strategy, in case anyone is interested of why the last 40 years created such Monsters as Obama,Bush, Clinton, Trump and Hillary.
while we all Pray to the God of Division, St. Reagan. thanks be to Lee Atwater and the Southern Strategy.
An assured polity that has lasted over 40 years. George Wallace was simply ahead of his time. I have white co workers that see no reason for Government since Democratic Government equals Black Gimmes, Minority give aways to everyone else.
The working Class never gets any of its’ taxes back in through food stamps, free healthcare or any other “Government” Help, because it is too “rich” to qualify for any Government handouts, and too poor to afford what is given to really poor. Designed to create and foster the “us vs.Them” divide crafted by Congress/R/D to keep the 99% divided.
i work too hard and make to much money to qualify for any of the so-called “benefits” that exist. all set up that way, aka a feature not a bug of the Congress/Rich laws the Rich buy. yet i can’ afford to go to the Hospital and get medical care. If i was under the poverty level, what could the Government Republican Businessmen get from the poor who don’t work or pay taxes. Even then i still couldn’t afford to pay to out of pocket costs for Medical Treatment that is given via Medicaid to the poorer people.
Eff Government until i get M4A, free schooling, infrastructure, childcare, etc. you know, what the rest of the World/1st World countries get with their taxes… Socialism is only for the Rich, Poverty/Austerity for the Poor. Thanks BE to St. Reagan for allowing the Rich to Rule with an Iron Glove. Society only exists for those who can afford it/Rich folks/the Detritus goes to the rest of us.
that is just the way Government has been set up since St. Reagan and our first Black President” Bill Clinton. 40 years of the working classe spaying taxes to be given to the needy who never happen to be white. The Media enforce this “narrative” and ensure no reality comes to say otherwise.
No, there is only the abyss we are headed into unless the Fairness Doctrine is revived to counter Fox News and MSNBC spiel/con, the lying liars who make untold Billions, thank you Mike Bloomberg, off of selling the War against the “Other.” Clinton/Gringrich’s Contract on America.
Meanwhile the attack on the working class, black, white and latino, et al continues full speed ahead.
the Misleadership Class has done its’ job well to keep things “Us vs.Them” while the 1% hoovers up all the profits and destroys the Middle Class or what was the Middle Class. and the Professional Managerial Class willfully chooses to keep a blind eye, have no clue whatsoever why or how any of these “dumb” whites vote Republican, continuing the War on Americans. Dumb ass voting against their own interests Deplorables voting Republican or Vichy/Centrist Democrats/Bluedogs. like How can they not see what a prosperous economy we have.
amazing to live in such “interesting” times. I know now how Hitler took the Germans for that “Ride to Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz” etc .
takes a long time for the truth to hit home, especially when they don’t want you to know. they just want your money, that’s all that matters to the Establishment.
Biden and Trump, the Duopoly Ringmasters, prove to us all that screwing over the American Working class is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
“Following the Money” is all it takes sometimes to see how easily we got to this space. At least we have foreign countries we can blame and starts Wars to focus upon.
to actually think the American Security state can’t defend us from Russia, Russia, Russia, or Assange’s Truthtelling and being Imprisoned fpr such Truth, when the Russian Budget is less than our Defense Department Budget!! Is American that weak? almost 800 Billion a year on Defense! obviously Russians can do better if they can eff up America and it costs only 1//10th of our Defense Budget.
The Russian are obviously better managed than Americans are. I’m begging to see why the MIC hates Putin, Russia!!
What a sad case our Misleadership Class is, and how wonderfully effective they have been at destroying American. The real enemy is Domestic, not Foreign. We don’t have a Russia Problem, We have an American Problem. Oligarchy wins hands over fists.
wow, what a country!!!!
“40 years”
The most accurate thing in that beyond depressing diatribe.
Dems have had control of the government for 4(actually a little more than 3) years.
And somehow they are on the same side.
geez
Run
I think i saw a logic error that may help explain some things.
you said
“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.”
this does not follow: people don’t want to pay for those they regard as moochers. that they suspect other races of being moochers more than people of their own race is largely a function of what they have been told since about 1865.
it is also true that “racism” is essentially wired in to our brains. we can overcome it with careful education, or the accident of being born into a community of mixed races who get along, or just people who have already been carefully educated to see the dangers of racism.
that will not occur as long as either politicians see advantages to themselves of fomenting racism, or the effects of past racism leave one race caught in the trap of poverty. both of these can be fixed … at a surface level to start with… with public education and public policy.
that was happening in the sixties. the “policy” part of the equation has to do with something like equal opportunity, but it has to be managed and sold in a way that it doesn’t look like unfair promoting of less qualified candidates. something that can be seen in non-racist situations by the “fair haired boy” or “boss’s son” phenomenon.
i think keeping this in mind is more likely to solve the problem than just saying “racist” at everything that moves… much of which IS probably racist… but just calling it racist and hating the racist won’t get you anywhere… except backwards.
Coberly:
What is the matter? Didn’t you soak your groats enough? I did not write the review, the reviewer did.It has been a while since I wrote on the topic. This may have relevance for you and then again maybe not.
“For the poor white man in the 19th century, poverty added the injury of being socially invisible when compared to a man of wealth or prominence. Society not acknowledging their presence created a class of insignificance effectively shamed into oblivion as a class not worthy of notice. Adams did not speak of the black man and Slavery took it one step further creating a stigma worst than that of poverty and more shame inducing. Slaves were economic chattel to be disposed of at the discretion of their owners without observance of their being at a separate class lower than that of the poorest white man. While not as overt in the 20th century, the distinction of black slave versus poor white man has kept the class system alive and well in the US in the development of a discriminatory informal caste system. This distraction of a class level lower than the poorest of the white has kept them from concentrating on the disproportionate, and growing, distribution of wealth and income in the US. For the lower class, an allowed luxury, a place in the hierarchy and a sure form of self esteem insurance.”
Bernard
I am a little worried that i agree with so much of what you say and yet feel that it is a little bit unhinged.
Your are right that the people are divided by quite cynical manipulation by the real Power… which is the people who pay for the politicians of both parties.
But I can tell you I worked as a food-stamp certifier in 1982, and 90% or more of my clients were white. And yes, we did try to prevent fraud, and I think were mostly successful in that we did not see many fraudsters even come in the door.
There was also a lot wrong with the way we did things.. not because it was “the government” or even private cynical abuse. Just ordinary human inefficiency and limits on normal human competence., such as occurs in every business… but probably worse in those too big for the “management” to have any contact with the “clients.”
Take a deep breath. You are being abused, but no worse than everybody else, in every other country. and not worse than you can stand. nor that cannot be fixed… at least to some extent… by ordinary political action…local at first. That is, until Trump and the R’s succeed in turning America into a dictatorship of the very rich
And the answer is not to make sure you get your fair share of welfare We may need welfare, but that is not something to base your life on.
Run
i knew you had not written, but only quoted, the expert i quoted in my turn.
still, you “wrote” it here, so i stand by my “you wrote…”
if that’s enough to justify insulting my groats so be it.
your (i assume it is “your”) analysis is correct enough, but it leaves you nowhere. i wish you would think about what i said. as it is all you do is play into the “you gotta hate…” which is the first technique of tyrants.
seems to be working very well for them now.
for what it’s worth, even Lincoln had to learn the hard way (lost elections) how to deal with racism. i don’t know if he knew that the slave power would be so stupid as to succeed, but in hind sight it surely looks like they were spoiling for an excuse since Jackson shut them down in 1830.
This has been the case for a long time in the US. It’s not about moochers or cheaters, it’s about race. Most food stamp recipients are white. Most Medicaid recipients are white. It has nothing to do with people getting freebies or mooching. It is about people of inadequate reflectivity getting anything.
The only reason the New Deal was possible was because its programs were structured as far as possible to minimize benefits to the more light absorbent sorts.
Kaleberg
i am glad you are able to speak with such authority.
reminds me of a book i am reading in which the author tells us “African Americans remember that Frederic Douglass was denied entry to the White House for Lincoln’s second inauguration.”
This would have surprised Douglass as well as Lincoln when they met at the White House after the inauguration and Lincoln asked Douglass how he liked his speech. Douglass said “it was “sacred.”
I guess you can’t keep hate alive without telling a little fib from time to time.
But you must be right about light absorbtion: “They got to be good-lookin’ Cause they so hard to see!”
well, i got so irritated with the “America is a racist country” fundamentalists I forgot that I have been saying “of course it is; so is every other country in the world in history.”
but the way to fight racism is not to shout “racist” at the racists, or turn over their statues, or even to make racism against the law. it’s to create conditions that gradually get people used to the idea of working together toward a common end (like a living wage).
you can’t kick it to death. you can plant the seeds to keep it under control.
Lincoln knew that. Roosevelt knew that. The politicians who use racism, both ways, for their own interests know that, but they find it much more profitable to stoke it… it being so easy to stoke… both ways.
Coberly:
Barack made it easy for mostly Republican states to incorporate Medicaid by funding 100% of its “expansion” to 2020 and then drop back to 90%. No one said they had to include minorities as that was not the priority. The basis was 138% FPL, that was it. No work requirements, etc. No race requirements, etc. It was those states who had much to gain from its implementation which rejected it because it would have helped minorities along with the poor and under 138% white majority to the point where they left those between 100% and 138% stranded from going on the exchanges. This fits with the authors and the reviewer’s commentary. The states rejected it because it would help minorities and with no distinction of race. Those of the white race supported the rejection of Medicaid which drastically impacts rural doctors and hospitals. The author and reviewer are correct and they pointed to the people making the choice.
Other countries doing it does not give cause to their doing it.
Run
I just do not see the logic of that. We have one person above apparently unhappy because he is “not poor enought” go get benefits going to minorities, and when i point out that most benefits go to white people, someone else chimes and says that’s because benefits were carefully designed to not go to dark skinned people.
as a former worker in the benefits industry i can tell you we did not make racial discriminations. more beneficiaries were white because the local population was mostly white. but black people got benefits in rough proportion to their percent of the population.
there is definitely a rich-poor divide in the country. there is also plenty of racism to go around. but pointing out that there is plenty of racism in other countries and has been forever is not to “give cause” to our doing it; it is to try to point out that “America is a racist country”, which appears to imply that America is especially racist, … even when the authors have to lie to misrepresent both history and more recent efforts to correct the effects of racism… is misguided and counterproductive
So, we have racism in America… granted, (but hardly as pervasive as claimed by those who have bought the America is a racist country idea). The question is whether shouting racist at everyone, or taking down the statues of racist war heroes is going to do any good, or just give the hard core racists a “legitmate” complaint.
So, once more for the road: the “answer” to racism is to gradually create conditions which more or less force white racists to work alongside black people (who don’t like them) toward a common goal (like a decent paycheck, or a decent neighborhood, or a democracy not dominated by the crazies and the people who use racism to maintain their power.
the only trouble with “gradually” is that it can become an excuse to mean “this side of never.” we need to be smart enough to tell the difference.
and once more this: your argument seems to be (still) that an act of the government that “without discrimination as to race” tries to help the poor, is rejected by the Powers, and that rejection is accepted by the white majority is because they are racists… seems to simply avoid thinking about the possibility that that white majority accepts the rejection of the “help the poor” measure because they see “the poor” as moochers.
i do not overlook the probability that they also see the poor moochers as mostly black. but the that doesn’t mean the white majority are refusing to help the poor whites because they would rather see nine white men die if that hurts one black man.
some confused thinking going on here.