make that a logical choice and the cultural factors that make it an attractive one.^169 But
when it comes to working-class whites, social structure evaporates. I have never heard
anyone fault inner-city black people, and say they deserve to remain in poverty, because
of their refusal to move where the jobs are. But working-class whites? Their refusal
reflects “stubborn immobility.”
Would working-class whites be so furious about “political correctness” if they were
among those whose challenges were recognized? Not likely. We won’t know how much
racism falls away until we stop insulting working-class whites and try including them
within our ambit of responsibility.
Does that mean abandoning people of color? Of course not. We must not assume a zero-
sum game: that if we care about gender, we don’t care about race; and if we care about
race, we don’t care about class. Claiming we can focus on only one issue at a time also
ignores people who belong to more than one group, such as black women or working-
class LGBTQ people.
There’s no empirical evidence to suggest that addressing one vector of social inequality
will necessarily hurt those affected by a different vector. The Workplace Experiences
Survey shows that not only people of color but also women and individuals with
disabilities report they have to prove themselves over and over again, much more so than
majority men.^170 Addressing prove-it-again bias through structural reforms will level the
playing field for everyone.
In 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr., called for an interracial coalition for economic justice,
and he tried to unite a broad range of religious, civil rights, and labor groups to achieve a
“Freedom Budget.” Along with traditional civil rights goals, that budget included a full-
employment policy with public works jobs for those idled by capitalist boom-and-bust
cycles and raising the minimum wage to a living wage.^171
King understood that what we need to address is social inequality—all of it. Fifty years
later, we still do.
- Is the Working Class Just Racist?