there are a TON of reasons that i hit back so hard at the 'working class white people are racist MAGA' meme. i've covered a ton of them, i think the reason i push hardest is cuz it deliberately side steps the very wealthy racist white people that organize the working class-

while well meaning liberals have been hitting at the working class white people and their stupidity for voting against their interests thing for....lets see...EVER--they've ignored or silenced any challenge to the koch bros, to the DeVoses, hell, even to well off Ds.

but as i sat and watched fellow michiganders letting all their white supremacy show these past two weeks--i want to come back to the working class white person meme. cuz there were a ton of working class white people.

at those rallies across the country, but in michigan too, and yay, we got to be the leaders in being one of the first and best covered cuz the prez hates our gov.

i want to start by saying that there's different levels of class with white people. nobody really has any clear definition of what they mean when they say 'working class whites.' some people say 'no college' others use old school 'works in factories' definitions-

others just mean 'not wealthy.' others are talking abt 'nascar dads.' i personally define multiple classes of white community--

working poor folks that are required to work bcz they're on SNAP/getting benefits, but the jobs they have are trash. these folks r probably working now cuz they have to.

the working class that is no longer revolving around factory life. administrative assistants, medical assistants, data entry, non-profit workers, etc--all the people that keep bureaucracy running, but get shit pay and shit (probably none) benefits.

and then there's the middle class that is one or two steps away from being working class in the sense that their parents or grandparents were sharecroppers from south, they came north during migration and got into factory jobs when they were good.

the sons got grandfathered into great positions at factories thru their fathers. those sons are the last of that generation of worker--in flint/detroit, jobs left after they got hired. but they were able to hang on. and live their modest middle clas life-

with their cabins up north and their boats and their nice houses in the suburbs near their parents that white flighted out of detroit and flint. they've never known poverty, they've never known hunger, but they have heard those stories their entire lives.

so they *think those stories are theirs*. and they walk around with a permanent chip on their shoulder bcz they are too buried in working class patheos and mythology to go upper middle class 'my dad worked for everything he had!' bullshit. they know that sounds fucked up.

so instead they make up a working class culture to wear, and that culture embraces libertarian 'why do i have to pay taxes so you can sit on the dole' ethos.

think: kid rock, with his mansion and wealthy daddy. singing country songs and masturbating over that confederate flag. think abt his fake southern accent and his 'good old boy' persona. he has never -ever- been poor. but 'working class whites' flock around him.

but i think it's important to pay attn to distinctions between class here--bcz in MY area--it's the *sons* that flock to him. the others that are just like him--grandfathered into great jobs, never been poor, cabin up north, etc.

the working poor in my area? the ones working at mc donalds and taking bus to work every day? the working class community that maybe gets to stay home right now but aren't getting paid or have already had to apply for unemployment? voted almost universally for progressive bernie.

the kid rock bros? who are not actually working class and never have been? as you can TELL BY THE HUNDREDS OF MASSIVE VERY VERY EXPENSIVE PICK UP TRUCKS AT THE RALLY??? voted almost universally for trump. with occasional shout outs to the libertarian guy.

i'll pause here to say that i am talking abt SE Michigan.

which is all to say, there's a working class white *culture*--and then there's actual working class people. and of course there's overlap and of course there's even over lap in agendas. but it is important and worth it to try to understand the distinctions-

bcz in the end: it's NOT CLASS that the kid rock bros were organizing around at their rallies. it was race. it's *always* race and it *always has been* race.

but when people get caught up in the stereotypes of class: working class people are ignorant, they're stupid, they're red neck trash, etc--it's *stereotypes* that get blamed for white supremacy rather than *white supremacy itself*.

so in other words--ignorance is inherent part of poverty, white supremacy is ignorance and so poor white people esp are inherently white supremacist.

that's what is coded in the 'not college educated' polls we always see abt white men that support trump. their inherent stupidity, their inherent ignorance, their inherent white supremacy. it's normalized thru classist tropes of stupid ass red neck white trash.

white supremacy then becomes ignorant white trash thing--NOT something enacted through the hoarding of wealthy ass corporate mother fuckers.

and white people distinguish themselves from racist working class whites thru classist bullshit that actually replicates and reinforces white supremacy--hoarding wealth, turning voting into a moral identity, shopping at anti-union grocery stores, etc

in fact, they see shopping at whole foods as direct proof THEY are not white supremacist. they are not ignorant, they are not trash. they buy their care for a price, and they believe that is actively anti-white supremacist.

white supremacy becomes an individual moral failure that one must pull their boot straps up to escape from rather than a system that needs to be dismantled or even just controlled thru heavy taxes.

notice: how many Ds actively worked against progressives and are *thankful* to get problematic biden over troublemaking bernie. even when workers clearly have the benefit right now at this moment--we're all waking up to how essential all of us r to making capitalism work-

they insist that a progressive agenda of simply putting controls on white supremacy just can't work, not even now. yes. capitalism is white supremacy enacted. period.

to return to the kid rock bros. when you make white supremacy about ignorance, you miss that they are bargaining with white supremacy. every day, every year, every generation. they bargain for their position at the factory, they bargain for their suburbs and their houses-

for their good schools and their cabins up north and their boats and their gardens and their guns and their safety and their enjoyment.

they're not now and never have been voting against their interests.

anymore than white liberals that imagine themselves to be 'good people' based on their voting habits are voting against their interests by supporting biden over bernie.

and this is not 'white privilege' i am talking abt. i want to be very clear on that. white privilege assumes that all this stuff 'just happened.' that suburbs and cabins and good schools just happened when some mysterious lever was pulled on accident.

what i am talking abt is *active*. white supremacy is a living organism that is constantly fluctuating--and so it must be constantly renegotiated. collectively bargained with, if you will.

white MAGA folk hate unions and collectively bargaining and white liberals see no use for it, but they are doing it every single day. and passing their bargaining skills on thru the generations.

and you *lose* that 'active' quality, that constant every moment aliveness of white supremacy--when you insist that 'the working class whites' are just ignorant dumb babies that don't understand what they're doing.

they know what they're doing, they know what they're negotiating and bargaining for, just like the mocha drinking whole food shopping white person does.

the only difference is that the kid rock bros know they're negotiating with white supremacy.