This book is about the history of class in America. It refutes the theory and founding myth that the United Sates is a classless society. The underclass has been part of our history from the beginning. English decision makers viewed the New World "as a giant rubbish heap" and the place to send their undesirables. "Expendable people -waste people- would be unloaded from England; their labor would germinate a distant wasteland." Criminals, indentured servants and lower-class discharged soldiers were more plentiful than the yeoman classes that crossed the ocean. This was less so in the Bay Colony, where many intact families migrated, but was certainly so in Virginia, Georgia and the Carolina's. Indeed, North Carolina was populated by people drifting south from Virginia and living in and around the Dismal Swamp. It is characterized as "the first white trash colony". Georgia was actually "founded as a charitable venture, designed to uplift poor families and to reform debtors". Although 1776 saw the venerable phrase that "all men are created equal", Jefferson believed and lived in a very structured world in which he was very much part of the gentry. He agreed with Washington who said "only the lower class of people should serve as foot soldiers". Class distinctions were alive, well and embedded in the new nation. As people poured into the trans-Appalachian frontier, the terms 'squatter' and 'cracker' entered the lexicon to describe the impoverished, landless settlers of the early 19th century. "Over the two decades leading up to Andrew Jackson's election as president, the squatter and cracker gradually became America's dominant poor back country breed." "From the foothills of the Appalachians into the banks of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, the nation leaned backward. The squatter was frozen in time. His primitive hut represented his underclass cage."
As the Civil War approached, the appellation 'white trash' came to apply to southerners stuck in a cycle of poverty, who were believed to have been marginalized because all the quality land was tilled by slaves. In contrast, northerners had opportunities through access to land because their soil was 'free'. The south was littered with an underclass unable to climb out of the hopelessly sordid world they lived in and looked down on by all. After the war, the term 'redneck' came into use. "It defined the rowdy and racist followers of the New South's high profile demagogues of the late 19th and early 20th centuries." The condition of the uneducated, often ill with diseases like hookworm and pellagra, white trash led to the eugenics movement, which peaked in the late 1920's. The New Deal tried to tackle poverty in the south and programs like Rural Electrification and the TVA made some headway. The Civil Rights conflicts of the 50's and 60's pitted the poor white redneck against the poor black. Orval Faubus and George Wallace played what the author calls 'the redneck card' throughout their careers. LBJ's Great Society's war on poverty attempted to tackle the similar problems of the nation's blacks and the Appalachian whites.
In the final chapters of the book, Isenberg presents the thesis she calls 'redneck chic' discussing Jimmy Carter, Tammy Faye Baker and Dolly Parton. In the 80's and 90's, "a growing chorus sought to clean up the image, to make 'redneck' a term of endearment". Like Johnson, and to some extent Carter before him, Bill Clinton epitomized the American Dream by rising from southern poverty to the pinnacle of success. However, as a member of the class of poor southerners, he was an easy target for the hatred that poured out of the conservative right. He had not the class of Reagan or Bush - a pauper had replaced princes. "Beltway reporters said they had never seen such vitriol before." Starr went after him over Lewinsky because "he had been caught in a tawdry sexual escapade suited for a trailer park". Notwithstanding the thrashing Clinton took, redneck chic survives as evidenced by innumerable reality tv shows featuring, well, rednecks.
Today, the vast amount of poor whites vote against their self-interest because the power elites have convinced them that they are unique and victims of the liberal establishment. "We are a country that imagines itself as democratic, and yet the majority has never cared for equality. " "White trash is a central, but disturbing thread in our national narrative." "They are who we are and have been a fundamental part of our history, whether we like it or not."
This book is a highly acclaimed bestseller. However, there has been some criticism. The 'Atlantic' reviewer disapproved of her failure to address poor whites outside of the deep south. Similarly, a NY Times reviewer asked about the downtrodden Asian immigrants, who were subject to similar insults and prejudice. I also have a few concerns. For the non-academic, forays into philosophy and political theory tend to dull one's attention. At times, I kept wondering where the book was going and what the point was of many chapters. I had also hoped to see this book address the evolution of the Scots-Irish in America and she barely touches the topic. In one of the more noteworthy books I have ever read, the author of 'Albion's Seed' sets out the religious, cultural, social and economic consequences of five different migrations from the United Kingdom. The fifth and largest group treated in that book are the Scots-Irish, described as border people in the UK, used to fighting and clan warfare and the backbone of the American 19th century westward settlers and the US military. In the end, Im not recommending this one.
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