In White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy, MacArthur fellow and activist-pastor William J. Barber II makes the logical however nonetheless stunning level that, though poverty has a disproportionately excessive affect on Black Individuals, there’s a vastly higher variety of white folks dwelling in poverty, main lives of unacknowledged despair in plain view. But we regularly equate poverty with Black communities, and in consequence, poverty and all its ills are seen as a “Black downside.”
Barber argues that this equation relies on 4 racist myths that intentionally divide poor white folks from poor Black folks, and forestall them from uniting in opposition to the insurance policies and buildings that favor the wealthy and highly effective. These myths—amongst them that every one white folks share widespread floor, no matter financial and social standing—each justify and perpetuate our malign neglect of the poor. His examination of every fantasy, from its trigger to its impact, exposes that what we have been informed have been basic truths about poverty have been really canine whistles and racist tropes.
However, necessary as this lesson is, Barber’s strongest message is that if these myths are dismissed, and if poor white folks acknowledge that they’ve way more in widespread with poor Black folks, they might unite to demand dwelling wages, entry to well being care and protected housing. Barber calls this union a “ethical fusion,” and his descriptions of the ability that’s unleashed when Black and white poor folks uncover their widespread floor are probably the most hopeful and highly effective passages in White Poverty. For instance, a queer, poor, white lady named Lakin gave testimony at a Black church concerning the debilitating isolation of white poverty and the worry it engenders. By exposing the injuries of white poverty, Lakin created an area for empathy and understanding—and motion.
White Poverty resonates like a robust sermon. Like Jeremiah, Amos and different Previous Testomony prophets, Barber condemns the injustice perpetrated on the poor. And in addition like them, Barber presents a hopeful manner ahead to a extra simply and equitable society.