LRB � Walter Benn Michaels: What Matters

LRB � Walter Benn Michaels: What Matters.
A review of an essay collection, Who Cares about the White Working Class? edited by Kjartan Páll Sveinsson. A nice analysis of how race politics and class politics work at loggerheads.

One of my pet peeves has been the prominence of increasing opportunities to different races, rather than increasing opportunities to different classes. While the upper echelon has become more racially diverse, the economic background of those making into the upper echelon has become less and less diverse. It is the rich who have benefited, particularly rich minorities - the lot of the poor, regardless of race, has likely worsened over our lifetimes. The concentration of power in the hands of fewer and fewer, and the inability of the poor to access tools to achieve financial independence, are greater threats to America than racism today.

The reviewer also makes some nice points regarding the parallels between "racism" and "classism". Does the end of "classism" mean increasing equality of means, or does it mean increasing respect for working class culture? Is it enough to respect the redneck? Is it a disrespect to his culture to insist on the superiority of a four year university over technical training? The same questions have defined and troubled feminist politics, racial politics, and all other forms of identity politics. The transformation of class politics into another form of identity politics is probably another book in and of itself.