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Subscribe to Working-Class Perspectives - Working-Class Perspectives offers weekly commentaries on current issues related to working-class people and communities. Contributors discuss a variety of issues, from what class means to how it intersects with race and gender to how class is shaping American politics. We welcome relevant comments of 500 words or less.
For questions or comments about this blog, e-mail Sherry Linkon. For assistance with news stories about working-class politics and culture, call or e-mail John Russo, 330-207-8085. Categories
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The State of the Working Class
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Tag Archives: working-class stereotypes
Who Speaks for Us?
Mark Meadows got a lot of flak for bringing Lynne Patton, a woman of color, to the Cohen hearings in an attempt to refute Cohen’s charge that Trump is a racist. After all, said Meadows, Patton worked for Trump – … Continue reading
Class, Politics, and the Return of Roseanne
When ABC brought Roseanne back to life on March 27 it attracted more than 25 million viewers to its initial episode—and an additional 5-10 million caught the second airing or streamed it online. In today’s media ecosystem these numbers are … Continue reading
From Paula Jones to Trailer Parks: Journalists’ Class Blind Spots
In 1996, James Carville was asked what he thought about Paula Jones’s claims of being sexually assaulted by Bill Clinton. He said, “Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you’ll find.” The liberal press … Continue reading
Misrepresenting the White Working Class: What the Narrating Class Gets Wrong
Most of the time the white working class is invisible in the U.S. But during elections there is a flurry of attention to this “demographic” among political reporters and operatives, and as a result, also among the millions of us … Continue reading
Class, Cuteness, and Disgust in Here Comes Honey Boo Boo
It’s hard not to notice the way rural working-class female fatness in the “Redneck Reality TV” series Here Comes Honey Boo Boo comes across as a condition to be ridiculed. It is constantly associated with poor health, dirtiness, and … Continue reading
Posted in Class and the Media, Contributors, Guest Bloggers, Issues
Tagged fatness, Honey Boo Boo, Poverty, reality TV, working-class stereotypes
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The Return of the Undeserving Poor
In the nineteenth century, critics and policy makers made a clear distinction between the “deserving” and the “undeserving” poor. The deserving poor worked hard, kept their homes and families clean, went to church regularly, maintained sobriety, and otherwise adhered to … Continue reading
Class War and Sociology
I no longer get as angry as I probably should when I witness middle-class professionals engage in the kind of dismissive class prejudice that Classism Exposed so insightfully reveals almost every week. It is so common that in many middle-class … Continue reading
Ridiculing the White Working Class: The Bogan in Australian Television
The US has its ‘white trash,’ the UK its ‘chavs,’ and Australia has the ‘bogan’ — a white Anglo-Celtic man or a woman from the working class. Characterized as uncouth, uneducated, unsophisticated, mainly interested in drinking cheap beer, swearing, smoking, … Continue reading
Talking with the Press about the Working Class
Over the last three months, I have done interviews with and provided assistance to dozens of national and international reporters about various working-class issues, including the American Dream, manufacturing, education, the recession, displaced workers, local and international trade, and, of … Continue reading
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