Book Review : "What’s the matter with white people?"

[umbertino]

by: Mark Gruenberg

October 12 2012

WASHINGTON - Building on its stereotype of African-Americans from 30 years ago, the Republican Party has made "cops, firefighters, nurses and teachers into its new 'welfare queens,'" an author of a new book about the alienation of the white working class says.

The catch, adds Joan Walsh, author of What's The Matter With White People?" is that the workers and families being demonized, alienated from their ancestral roots in the Democratic Party by the tumult of the late 1960s and early 1970s, don't realize that's the Republican attitude - and keep voting against their own economic interests.

Walsh, a self-described "white working class Irish kid from Long Island" offered that analysis at a recent book talk at the AFL-CIO. But she said not all the blame should be laid at the feet of the GOP. The Democrats themselves moved away from white workers, including those whom organized labor represents.

"It's an incredibly divisive notion to have 'people-of-color coalitions," excluding whites, she said. "White liberals and progressives are the worst on this. They're looking down on the white working class."

The reaction and the key turning point there, she added, was the 1970 confrontation in New York between construction workers and anti-war protesters, which Richard Nixon and a succession of Republican politicians have exploited.

That exploitation has reached all the way to the 2012 vote. Opinion polls show that Democratic President Barack Obama's weakest group is white working-class men, again, although there is a regional division to that weakness, Walsh adds.

"In the South, he's trailing by about 40 percentage points," she notes. "But he's ahead in the Midwest and tied in the West and Northeast," Walsh says. Obama is also running ahead of his 2008 figures among white working class women and Catholics.

Nevertheless, Republicans - she cited former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who finished second to Mitt Romney in the GOP race, plus Romney himself - keep exploiting the Democratic divide, while hiding their own strategy.

"It gives them the chance to break through where they couldn't do so before" 1970, Walsh explained.

"Mitt wants to write off 47% of the country?" she asked, referring to Romney's infamous remarks at a Florida fundraiser about people who are "victims" and who expect government support. "Well, most of them are white and a quarter of them are seniors." By bringing those voters back, "We have the opportunity to make the country more stable,"

Audience members described similar attitudes among white working-class voters they interviewed. One Fire Fighter recalled his recent canvassing in Danville, Va., in the southwestern area of the state - an area hard hit by past factory closures.

The biggest source of jobs there now is government, but GOP budget cutting slashed those jobs, too. "It's been positive but scary. I told them there are a lot of Fire Fighters and police officers who don't have a job," he said. "The room was dead silent."

For the Republicans, her own Long Island relatives and those white working-class people, "the face of welfare is black," contrary to actual statistics, Walsh replied. "But white poverty and unemployment has doubled, and we have to validate that" to bring those voters back. "It'll be a tough slog," she admitted.

The mass media doesn't help, Walsh noted. Many of the hardest-hit white working class voters "get their facts from Fox," known for its aggressive Right Wing bias. Fox network chief "Roger Ailes told me they have a target audience: 'Age 55 to dead,' and they're whipping them up into a frenzy."

But the Occupy movement may help start returning those voters to pocketbook voting, Walsh adds, by putting the issue of rising income inequality and the decline of the middle class squarely at the forefront of the national discussion.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who hosted the discussion, said the labor movement is trying to do its part, through creation and campaigning by Working America, its affiliate for workers who could be sympathetic to the movement's goals, but who can't or won't, join unions. Working America now has more than 3 million members, with tens of thousands of them in battleground states, such as Ohio.

Their efforts are effective, because Working America volunteers are listening to and having discussions with voters, one by one, and adjusting accordingly, he stated. In the 2008, he claimed, voters contacted by Working America - a group prior surveys show is whiter, more working-class and more conservative than the union movement - voted for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama by a 3-to-1 ratio. That was higher than Obama's ratio among unionists, Trumka said.

"When they get information one-on-one, it moves them dramatically," Trumka concluded of the white working class.

http://www.peoplesworld.org/what-s-the-matter-with-white-people/

[dog53]

Geez umbert you trying to run me out of negs today . My little pinko pal Hmmmmm

[tommy17]

Geez umbert you trying to run me out of negs today . My little pinko pal Hmmmmm

He got mine too.

[grand pubah]

My friend umbertino... why do you keep bringing this communist propaganda here?

Nobody buys it bro.

Maybe in europe, portugal, italy, greece.... but not here.

GP

[grand pubah]

I am white and I love living in a country where I have the opportunity to succeed through hard work and risk taking, and I do not like lazy people and self serving unions. I currently work 3 jobs. 2 of them are my own small businesses.

I don't believe that others have a responsibility to take care of me or owe me anything. And I don't expect to get anything I didn't earn.

I guess that is what is the matter with me.

[seabee64]

by: Mark Gruenberg

October 12 2012

WASHINGTON - Building on its stereotype of African-Americans from 30 years ago, the Republican Party has made "cops, firefighters, nurses and teachers into its new 'welfare queens,'" an author of a new book about the alienation of the white working class says.

The catch, adds Joan Walsh, author of What's The Matter With White People?" is that the workers and families being demonized, alienated from their ancestral roots in the Democratic Party by the tumult of the late 1960s and early 1970s, don't realize that's the Republican attitude - and keep voting against their own economic interests.

Walsh, a self-described "white working class Irish kid from Long Island" offered that analysis at a recent book talk at the AFL-CIO. But she said not all the blame should be laid at the feet of the GOP. The Democrats themselves moved away from white workers, including those whom organized labor represents.

"It's an incredibly divisive notion to have 'people-of-color coalitions," excluding whites, she said. "White liberals and progressives are the worst on this. They're looking down on the white working class."

The reaction and the key turning point there, she added, was the 1970 confrontation in New York between construction workers and anti-war protesters, which Richard Nixon and a succession of Republican politicians have exploited.

That exploitation has reached all the way to the 2012 vote. Opinion polls show that Democratic President Barack Obama's weakest group is white working-class men, again, although there is a regional division to that weakness, Walsh adds.

"In the South, he's trailing by about 40 percentage points," she notes. "But he's ahead in the Midwest and tied in the West and Northeast," Walsh says. Obama is also running ahead of his 2008 figures among white working class women and Catholics.

Nevertheless, Republicans - she cited former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who finished second to Mitt Romney in the GOP race, plus Romney himself - keep exploiting the Democratic divide, while hiding their own strategy.

"It gives them the chance to break through where they couldn't do so before" 1970, Walsh explained.

"Mitt wants to write off 47% of the country?" she asked, referring to Romney's infamous remarks at a Florida fundraiser about people who are "victims" and who expect government support. "Well, most of them are white and a quarter of them are seniors." By bringing those voters back, "We have the opportunity to make the country more stable,"

Audience members described similar attitudes among white working-class voters they interviewed. One Fire Fighter recalled his recent canvassing in Danville, Va., in the southwestern area of the state - an area hard hit by past factory closures.

The biggest source of jobs there now is government, but GOP budget cutting slashed those jobs, too. "It's been positive but scary. I told them there are a lot of Fire Fighters and police officers who don't have a job," he said. "The room was dead silent."

For the Republicans, her own Long Island relatives and those white working-class people, "the face of welfare is black," contrary to actual statistics, Walsh replied. "But white poverty and unemployment has doubled, and we have to validate that" to bring those voters back. "It'll be a tough slog," she admitted.

The mass media doesn't help, Walsh noted. Many of the hardest-hit white working class voters "get their facts from Fox," known for its aggressive Right Wing bias. Fox network chief "Roger Ailes told me they have a target audience: 'Age 55 to dead,' and they're whipping them up into a frenzy."

But the Occupy movement may help start returning those voters to pocketbook voting, Walsh adds, by putting the issue of rising income inequality and the decline of the middle class squarely at the forefront of the national discussion.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who hosted the discussion, said the labor movement is trying to do its part, through creation and campaigning by Working America, its affiliate for workers who could be sympathetic to the movement's goals, but who can't or won't, join unions. Working America now has more than 3 million members, with tens of thousands of them in battleground states, such as Ohio.

Their efforts are effective, because Working America volunteers are listening to and having discussions with voters, one by one, and adjusting accordingly, he stated. In the 2008, he claimed, voters contacted by Working America - a group prior surveys show is whiter, more working-class and more conservative than the union movement - voted for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama by a 3-to-1 ratio. That was higher than Obama's ratio among unionists, Trumka said.

"When they get information one-on-one, it moves them dramatically," Trumka concluded of the white working class.

http://www.peoplesworld.org/what-s-the-matter-with-white-people/

Your amazing!!!

Move here and deal with our politics. And then I can hear what you have to say......

[pragerbabe]

Umbertino,I don't know where you attended school to learn American History, so I am thinking you are getting by on someone elses view. I attempt to gain information from several different places, never one source as you seem to site. One of my finds along the way was C.L.Bryant and a movie "Runaway Slave". It would do you some good to see it and learn what a black man has to say here in the Southern United States. Men have done things through out history that takes advantage of others, leaders come along and create laws to fix the problem, many times those laws end up being more of a problem. You seem to want to fix a lot of people here on DV, I don't think it is working. The more I see you post, the more I see you batted down by reason.

[yota691]

What’s the matter with white people?" Think it ought to Read "What the matter with umbertino?"

[The Machine]

I don't believe that others have a responsibility to take care of me or owe me anything. And I don't expect to get anything I didn't earn.

I guess that is what is the matter with me.

I hear you buddy ..... I've always paid my own way.

It does annoy me though having to pay for those that just think there entitled to everything ...... on an average month I pay the equivalent of about $1,400 of my hard earned cash into a welfare system I don't even use !!

[CrappieShark]

To say that I owe for the sins of a man or group,of men who live before my time and whom I never met, sins committed against men whom I never met and who are now deceased, is beyond rediculous. At some point whether you are tall, short different colors, fat, skinny or disproportionate in any way to others if you are a citizen of the USA you need to acceot that responsibility and contribute to society. It irks me that the people who want what they have not worked for always play the discrimination card and get away with it. I owned my own company for years in trades, I became 100% disabled. I did not resort to a welfare mentality. I lost everything I had worked for through hospitalization and bankruptcy. I learned how to use my knowlegde to help other professionals realize their dreams. I never took one welfare check. I am still considered 100% disabled but work with my mind and make a decent living. Grow up, and mature. Get a job and make money. The problem is there are so many who want the high paying job and will not settle for less. This discrimination stuff is garbage. I have friends from most races and none of themare asking for a handout and all of them hate this racial bigotry played on by media and special interest groups. I don't owe anyone anything I work hard for my money and do not like giving a large part of my check to able bodied people that want a free handout.