What Working-class and Poor White People Need to Understand About Rich White People

[tenderfoot]

Rich people do not care about you.
When a family like the Waltons, worth over $50 billion — that’s billion with a “b” — are fine knowing their employees are collecting food stamps to survive and they do nothing about it, that speaks volumes. It says loud and clear: I don’t fucking care about you!



Creating jobs isn’t a thing to be praised.
“Job-creation” is nothing more than a catchphrase that politicians use to get votes. It doesn’t mean anything. Let’s say there is a small town with 500 people and a factory opens and pays minimum wage. If the company hires everyone in the area, the result will not be a thriving community. It will be a community of 500 poor people. Yes, the factory technically created jobs, but it also spread poverty. Never forget they need us more than we need them. Without us working their low-paying jobs, they have nothing. Make them pay fairly for your labor. Make them create well-paying jobs.



There is NO such thing as a “Welfare Queen.”
There never was. Politicians made this up. It is propaganda designed to make you think people of color are lazy and want a free ride at your expense. If you resent them, you are more likely to vote to eliminate programs that benefit them but could also benefit your own family. Generations and generations of white people have been programmed to be racist even if it’s to their own detriment. By helping to keep people of color down, you keep yourself down — and that’s how politicians want it. Consider how the GIF below uses racist propaganda to persuade you to think negatively about people who need government assistance. (And no, one example of a person buying steaks with food stamps does not prove the entire welfare system is corrupt.)



There is a myth that raising the minimum wage would allow unskilled workers to make as much as skilled workers and that wouldn’t be fair.
Again, this is more spinning of tales so that wealthy CEOs can keep worker pay at an all-time low while they make billions. The truth is if minimum wage went up, skilled wages would go up too. How? Let’s say you are an EMT working for $15.00 an hour and the minimum wage goes up. Now everyone working in retail and fast food is making the same as you. Pretty insulting, right? Wrong. That’s what corporations want you to think so you will fight to keep other poor people down. If the minimum wage rose to $15, you could get a job anywhere for the same pay. That would give you leverage to negotiate a higher wage by saying, essentially, “There is now an abundance of jobs paying what I make. I can leave and take one of those jobs unless you pay me more for my added skills.” Your skills are now worth more. Instead of $15, you may get $20, but you’ll never get the $20 if you keep fighting to keep others down. Lifting others lifts you up too.




more: https://medium.com/jonnaivin/what-working-class-and-poor-white-people-need-to-understand-about-rich-white-people-44157a370c8f?

[brush]

1. Which is why repugs always want to cut education funding and keep people uneducated...

so they can continues to divide and conquer.

Good post.

[handmade34]

2. "We have the Power...stop giving it away"

Stop listening to people who say you need to boot-strap your way up...
This is a myth wealthy people have been telling poor people for centuries. It’s a way to keep poor and working-class people grinding away at jobs that create more wealth for them, not you.

[JoeOtterbein]

3. Many don't even want us to have healthcare.

We may live too long.

MFA now!

[TygrBright]

4. You don't get it. It's not about whether rich white people care/will help.

For the kind of poor/working class white voters you're describing, it doesn't matter that they have only a dime in their pocket and the rich white guy has a hundred dollar bill in his.

What matters to that kind of poor/working class white voter is simply this: What does the brown guy have in his pocket? A nickel? Or a quarter?

If the poor/working class white voter has a dime in his pocket and the brown guy has a nickel, he thinks all is well.

If the poor/working class white voter has a dime in his pocket and the brown guy has a quarter, the world is coming to an end.

They'll never admit it, even to themselves, but THAT's what matters.

wearily,
Bright

[C Moon]

5. Thank you, tenderfoot. This is what I'm always telling these boneheads.

But I'm beginning to think their racist brains just can't see past skin color, and ethnicity—so they're an easy sell for the likes of Moscow Mitch.

[Farmer-Rick]

6. So true, we remember the capitalist who built the factories but not the children who did the work

The filthy rich could not have run those factories and made millions without the cheap labor of poor people's children. The never ending supply of children with desperately poor parents ensured those filthy rich capitalists had a cheap, cheap labor source to run their dangerous equipment.

But somehow it's only the fat guy on top who gets to keep the profits from all that child labor.

[richdj25]

7. Sorry but

It's all about racism with those people. Been that way since Plymouth Rock.