"I Know Why Poor Whites Chant Trump, Trump, Trump" - Must Read Article Gets It!
President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." Martin Luther King also gave a sermon, The Drum Major Instinct, about how racism is used to oppress and exploit poor whites.
Now, we have Donald Trump who ran the most overtly racist and hateful campaign in recent memory, yet he is labeled a populist because he won a huge percentage of the poor white vote even though his actual policies are extremely harmful to the poor and middle class. Is this a new phenomena?
The answer, as the article ably explains, is that this tactic is well rooted in American history dating back to the days of slavery. Yet, the corporate media is reluctant to note how the economic elites have often used racism to oppress not just minorities who were the subject of the racism, but the poor whites whose hate was nurtured and exploited.
What the Democrats need to do is not to just denounce racism, sexism and xenophobia, but they need to bear witness to the harm caused by Republicans policies and expressly call out Republicans for using hate to not just oppress minorities and women, but to mislead and oppress white men.
http://www.theestablishment.co/2016/05/24/i-know-why-poor-whites-chant-trump-trump-trump/
What is it about a flamboyant millionaire that appeals to poor white conservatives? Why do they believe a Trump presidency would amplify their voices? The answer may lie in America’s historical relationship between the wealthiest class and the army of poor whites who have loyally supported them.
From the time of slavery (yes, slavery) to the rise of Donald Trump, wealthy elites have relied on the allegiance of the white underclass to retain their affluence and political power. To understand this dynamic, to see through the eyes of poor and working class whites as they chant, “Trump, Trump, Trump,” let’s look back at a few unsavory slices of America’s capitalist pie.
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As the British labor market improved in the 1680s, the idea of indentured servitude lost its appeal to many would-be immigrants. Increasing demand for indentured servants, many of whom were skilled laborers, soon bumped up against a dwindling supply, and the cost of white indentured servants rose sharply. Plantation owners kept skilled white servants, of course, often making them plantation managers and supervisors of slaves. This introduced the first racial divide between skilled and unskilled workers.
Still, African slaves were cheaper, and the supply was plentiful. Seeing an opportunity to realize a higher return on investment, elite colonial landowners began to favor African slaves over white indentured servants, and shifted their business models accordingly. They trained slaves to take over the skilled jobs of white servants.
An investment in African slaves also ensured a cost-effective, long-term workforce. Female slaves were often raped by their white owners or forced to breed with male slaves, and children born into slavery remained slaves for life. In contrast, white female servants who became pregnant were often punished with extended contracts, because a pregnancy meant months of lost work time. From a business perspective, a white baby was a liability, but African children were permanent assets.
As the number of African slaves grew, landowners realized they had a problem on their hands. Slave owners saw white servants living, working, socializing, and even having babies with African slaves. Sometimes they tried to escape together. What’s more, freed white servants who received land as part of their freedom dues had begun to complain about its poor quality. This created a potentially explosive situation for landowners, as oppressed workers quickly outnumbered the upper classes. What was to prevent freed whites, indentured servants, and African slaves from joining forces against the tyranny of their masters?
As Edmund S. Morgan says in his book American Slavery, American Freedom, “The answer to the problem, obvious if unspoken and only gradually recognized, was racism, to separate dangerous free whites from dangerous slave blacks by a screen of racial contempt.”
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