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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
Listen to Working-Class Perspective editor Sherry Linkon's recent interview about Working-Class Studies on KERA's Think with Krys Boyd.Links
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Tag Archives: working-class stories
Valuing Working-Class Life: Recent Memoirs by Working-Class Women
With the UK general election looming, there has been renewed interest in the effects of years of austerity measures on poor and working-class people. It seems clear that inequality has increased and more and more people rely on food banks … Continue reading →
The News Media’s Blind Spots Covering the Working Class
At midnight on Sept. 15, 49,000 UAW-GM workers walked out on strike at locations across the country, a day after their 2015 collective bargaining contract with General Motors expired and the union declined to extend the provisions of the agreement. … Continue reading →
Memoir as Medium: Bridging the Class Divide
More than three years after its publication in 2016, Hillbilly Elegy and its author J.D. Vance continue to be lightning rods. A recent Washington Post opinion piece caused an uproar by insinuating that Vance lamented the declining white birth rate … Continue reading →
I, Daniel Blake and The Power of Working-Class Story Telling
Ken Loach’s latest film I, Daniel Blake (2016) was hard for me to watch. I left the cinema with a knot in my stomach and tears in my eyes. It was a visceral experience that brought back memories of my … Continue reading →
Posted in Class and the Media, Contributors, Issues, Sarah Attfield
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Tagged Ken Loach, working-class culture, working-class stories
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10 Comments
White Trash, Hillbillies, and Middle-Class Stereotypes
During election years white people who do not have bachelor’s degrees (the increasingly common definition of “the working class”) become both a somewhat exotic who-knew-they-were-here-and-in-such-large-numbers object of discussion and a target for freewheeling social psychologizing. Thus, it is more than … Continue reading →
Losing the Narrative of Their Lives
A study released a few weeks ago, conducted by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, documented a significant increase in the death rate among the white working class in the US, much of it due to suicide and substance abuse. In … Continue reading →
‘Struggle Street’: hard-hitting documentary or middle-class voyeurism?
A new Australian television show, Struggle Street, has attracted much controversy and commentary. The three-part documentary was commissioned by the public broadcaster, SBS, and made by KEO films. The production company’s web site describes Struggle Street as an ‘observational documentary’ … Continue reading →
Posted in Class and the Media, Contributors, Issues, Sarah Attfield, Working-Class Culture
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Tagged poverty porn, Struggle Street, working-class stories
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2 Comments
We’re Here! We’re Queer! We’re Not Going Shopping!
In 2002, when I was soliciting submissions for the anthology Everything I Have Is Blue: Short Fiction by Working-Class Men about More-or-Less Gay Life, I received this message on a Working-Class Studies listserv: “Excuse me for saying so, but isn’t … Continue reading →
Posted in Class at the Intersections, Contributors, Guest Bloggers, Issues
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Tagged class and sexuality, LGBTQ stereotypes, queer studies, working-class stories
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7 Comments
“Let’s Get To Work” — on the Weekends!
I started following Ed Schultz, the beefy, loud mouthed, pro-labor MSNBC anchor on Twitter a year ago last spring, when Pennsylvania education cuts were starting to reverberate across the state, forcing thousands of K-12 schools to cut art, band, music, … Continue reading →
Posted in Class and the Media, Contributors, Issues, Kathy M. Newman
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Tagged Chris Hayes, Class and the Media, Ed Schultz, MSNBC, The Ed Show, working-class stories
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2 Comments
News for the Consumer Class
It is no surprise to readers of newspapers – or readers of this blog — that newspapers contain little coverage of labor and working-class economic issues. Although I’d hesitate to say there was ever a “golden era” of labor coverage, there … Continue reading →
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