The Original Underclass By Marc Mcgillis

history to militantly struggle for ethnic minority and working class emancipation — a party whose agenda was the revolutionary establishment of real economic, social, and political equality across gender and color lines.” There was great discourse between the two races, blacks and whites. Whites had internalized racism against blacks and subjected them through many times of oppression through racial profiling, stereotypes and pain. The whites of this time were continuing the hegemonic society there forebears had inflicted upon the blacks through many stratagems. Even this far after the antebellum era and abolition of slavery, America’s legacy of racism prevailed and blacks were unable to assimilate into the white society.

In the article, "Stupid Rich Bastards", the author, Laurel Johnson Black, gives an insight on her life and upbringing in a "poor" family, the effects it had on her, her life goals, and dreams. Black’s article was published in the book This Fine Place So Far from Home: Voices of Academics from the Working Class in 1995. Throughout the article, Black gives an explanation of the conditions in which she and her family lived in, which include her parents having to take on various jobs such as her father being a plumber, junk man, car salesman and her mother—a cook, school crossing-guard and a McDonald 's counter worker as well. With all these jobs, Black also mentioned that the income was still inadequate. Being that her family 's way of living was not the best, her parents decided that one of their children has to make it or go to college, and Black was the one who was going to be the one to do that. She did this with hopes that she would earn more money, be able to make a better life for her and her family, maneuver along with the "stupid rich bastards", talk like them, learn their ways but not be like them, and explain to her family about the lives of the same "stupid rich bastards", people who had or made more money and had better lives or felt better than others. Along with her telling her story, the main purpose of Black’s story is to bring to our attention that she is trying to “keep the language of the working class in academia” (Black 25).

America, unlike the UK, has a written constitution, which has the intention of granting equal rights to all citizens. Under this constitution, slavery was legally abolished in 1865. As compensation during the reconstruction era (1865-1877. History.com). Freed slaves were given a plot of land and a mule so that they could begin to provide for their families and to develop their own economy. Black Americans had been granted the rights to become citizens and Black men the rights to vote. However, in practice very few men of colour exercised this right. Many states, particularly in the southern states in the US altered their state laws in order to exclude non White Anglo Saxon Protestants (WASP’s). Some of the tactics employed to exclude Blacks were; literacy tests, the ability to understand complex legal frameworks and a tax payable to vote ( p.31). Some states also asked Black people questions that were unanswerable, such has “how many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?”. It should also be noted that the above tactics also

There has always been a class system since the beginning of civilization and it was extremely difficult to get to a higher class. A person could not choose what class they were born in and the majority were lower class-man. As before the only way to become wealthy is by education and it was hard for lower class-man to get one. One way was for girls to get married like Johnny’s mom did or Mrs. Lapham marring Mr. Tweedie. For boys to become a higher class they need to be educated or have great skill at a craft which is usually only born with like Johnny. As these kids have little to no money they are picked on by arrogant adults, an example is Dove as the horseman for the British. These lower class-man children were given brute and labor intensive jobs. The children’s jobs are unimportant so they are given the least money for their work. Some children with low pay would be accused of theft if they had a valuable object. When court action is taken the upper class-man are listened to, unless undeniable evidence, like in Johnny vs Mr. Lytes case. A common stereotype for these children is that they are sick and thieves. The class system has created rough jobs for the lower class children and most jobs are extremely

In the Rusty Belt of America there a minority group of people whose income level has surpassed the poverty line. Inside the state of Ohio lies the poorest white American which describes themselves as hillbillies as they reside in the eastern Kentucky. In his personal analysis of culture in crisis of hillbillies, J.D. Vance tries to explain, in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, what goes on in the lives of people as the economy goes south in a culture that is culturally deceptive, family deceptive, and in a community, whose doctrine of loyalty is heavily guarded. Like every poor Scot-Irish hillbilly in his community, Vance came from being poor, like the rest of his kind, to be a successful Law graduate from Yale Law school. As result of this transition and being the only child in his family to graduate from a highly respected intuition in the country, Vance thought out to analyze the ostensible reason of why many people are poor in his community.

Another example of social inequality in Evicted was not in the housing market, but when Desmond witnessed a police officer harassing Arleen’s eldest son, Ger-Ger. Desmond describes the experience by saying, “I watched a police officer pull his patrol car up to Ger-Ger, Arleen’s eldest son, and say, ‘Man you’re fucked up!’...When I came out of the apartment for a closer look, the officer looked at me and drove away. He might have acted differently had I not been a white man with a notepad.” (P. 322). Desmond was not only witnessing inequality in the housing market, but also within the police department. When I read this, I could not believe that the police would rather harass a young black man than keep the streets of Milwaukee clean. Desmond witnessed this inequality firsthand, and I think he saw how unfairly these families were treated. In Hillbilly Elegy, Vance described a lack of social acceptance from the people in Middletown towards the people from Appalachia. Vance described the way that hillbillies handled many problems as “Hillbilly Justice.” This form of problem solving within their community was highly frowned upon by the suburbanites of Middletown. The culture of Appalachia was highly irregular, but that is not a reason to look down upon or discriminate against a group of people. J.D even described that when he was in Middletown, he

The American colonies had clear class divisions and from them arose much conflict. The elite wanted to stay on top so they created laws to oppress the poor and also tried to get the middle class to side with them by making “concessions to the middle class, without damage to their own wealth or power, at the expense of slaves, Indians, and poor whites.” I think Zinn said it best when he said, “New York in the colonial period was like a feudal kingdom…where barons controlled completely the lives of their tenants.” The use of slaves and indentured servants benefited and brought profit to only the elites. The American colonies were societies of “contending classes.”

The shift from indentured servitude to racial slavery in the British North American colonies didn 't occur all at once. Instead, the transition was much more uneven, spreading across different colonies at different times, and triggered by various unique historical incidents. However, two themes show up consistently in the transition from indentured servitude to race-based slavery. First, as more and more indentured servants became free, the wealthy planter class began to perceive these newly freed men as a threat. Indentured servants acquired land at the end of their term, and were able to compete economically with their former masters. To quell this economic threat, the wealthy class began to prefer a system of lifelong servitude, e.g. slavery.

This journal is very similar to the previous one. Some of the information is printed verbatim in comparison to the other journal. He talks about the divide in the class system that was not as heavily present in the 1960’s as it is in the present day. Murray begins by talking about how even though there was always a wreath gap between the richest and the poorest people there always seemed to be a cultural equality. Americans always prided themselves on a superior way of life calling it ‘the American way of life’, but Murray believes that is no longer true. He hi lights what what include the American way of life, “a civic culture that swept an extremely large proportion of Americans of all classes into its embrace. It was a culture encompassing shared experiences of daily life and shared assumptions about central American values involving marriage, honesty, hard work and religiosity.” The points he attributes to the American way of life are the same ones he talked about in the first journal. In the 1960’s these were virtues that all Americans agreed on. Over the past few decades these assumptions have changed which Murray attributes to an emerging upper class with better education that they were able to attain at elite schools. At the same time this upper class was emerging a new lower class was forming that was characterized by people withdrawing from the core cultural values that Americans previously held as central values. Murray then goes into using the same two fictional neighborhoods from the first journal using the same criteria to assign people to one neighborhood or the other. He examines the same values: marriage, industriousness, crime, and religiosity. In each of the categories he provides the same data as the first journal. He shows the changing landscape of America from two different groups of people. The result from both neighborhoods is that most people did away with the

“A hundred years ago, the US Eugenics Records Office not only targeted racial minorities but ‘sought to demonstrate scientifically that large numbers of rural poor whites were genetic defectives,’ as the sociologist Matt Wray explains in his book Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness (2006).” But in an autobiography written by W.E.B. du Bois, Dusk of Dawn (1940), he talks about how growing up in Massachusetts in the 1870s, the racial angle was more a matter of income and ancestry more than color. Both of the piece’s date back or talk about the past and link to Smarsh’s text about the upper-class. Poverty is a cycle and it always repeats itself and poor families become trapped in poverty for generations because they have limited access to crucial resources, like financial services. From being impoverished for generation to generation, a family is already poor and has low income; from having low income, there is less access to food and safe water and that develops into becoming hungry and having poor sanitation; always being hungry and having poor hygiene leads to malnutrition and disease; and finally, shifts to depleted workforce and economic decline and the cycle repeats itself all

Overall, the Underprivileged show will discuss social class, race, and education. The mission of this show is to educate the younger Americans about the disadvantages of the public education system. Although the show will be more opinionated than factual, the goal is to open the discussion about our modern society. Also, it is imperative for blacks to be displayed in a more positive light and Americans need to learn how to see beyond the stereotypes. The show must stress that all of the problems in America are centered around race, social class and education. Therefore, it important for the show to have two characters who come from a privileged background, but they are not of the same ethnic background. There needs to be a show that breaks

Thomas Phipps a member of the WASP class, an upper white protestant group explain what the benefits of being upper class (Alvarez, Kolker 2001). But even though the lifestyle is so different from many, the WASP group is like the rest in which the member are most conformable with each other. The other groups mentions is middle class, because as the documentary states by not being “middle class your un-American” (Alvarez, Kolker 2001). But being middle class is tricky if you’re a black American, because “no one wants a hierarchy in black cultures” especially with the history of slavery (Alvarez, Kolker 2001). In a country that connect being black with poor, being middle class come second to being black.

This is unsurprising as the novella is set in 1930s America during The Great Depression when work was extremely scarce and poverty widespread, particularly for black peoplewho were pushed out of unskilled jobs previously scorned by whites before the depression. Blacks faced unemployment of 50% or more, compared with about 30 percent for whites, while wages were at least 30% below those of white workers, who themselves were barely at subsistence

the thing I thought I was doing a sleepover your friend I know typical sleepover but you could just make you more tumblr off on door w 1 all the stupid map domino's pizza just watch tons of netflix talk about everything to everyone have a good time eat cake yeah five thing I thought was just go out for a meal I'm know I'm doing there I'm going out for one on sunday and so I'm going to

The white men seemed to appear out of no where. Like the Gods sent them here from the heavens, maybe as a test or a gift for our loyalty. The day they arrived started off normal, as the chief i always walk the village first thing in the morning and then walk to the beach by myself before anyone else awakens. When I got to the beach I saw what seemed to be a giant canoe with great white sails atop of it. Soon it got closer then stopped and smaller canoes were sent from the giant one. My fear grew as they got closer and soon after I ran back to the village to warn the others. We hid as the white men came ashore they rummaged our village before they left. I truly hope they do not return tomorrow.