Don't Persecute Hope

by Mona Shaw

You can be certain of this. We will never get traction on the road to justice until we address class as a cultural construction in the United States

Classism in this nation is so prevalent and so insidious that we don’t see it for the most part.

It emerges in countless ways. It’s there when a social justice activist adds their Ivy League  or academic credentials to their activist resumes—as if those credentials are germane. It’s present when a parent brags about their child getting into Harvard.  It’s the primary driver in making fun of Country Music or overweight people who wear tight clothes. It takes place every single time stories of “success” are predicated on accomplishments that involve economic gain or status.

The purpose of classism is to identify an “unworthy other.” It selects a population that is worthy of ridicule and contempt. It delights in blaming this population for everything worthy of disdain.  

This is no more apparent than in images and memes that are employed that mock these people. There are entire websites with the sole purpose of humiliating these people. People of Walmart is one.

The past three years it has become tragically popular to construct memes of poor people who support Trump. These memes are almost always Photoshopped by someone who doesn’t the know the person in the meme. They just know the person is missing teeth or overweight or wearing stereotypical underclass clothing.

By choosing these people for these memes, they target anyone for persecution that may resemble these people.  They suggest there is something inherently “bad” about people missing teeth or have other attributes of people who are impoverished.

If this weren’t the intent, we would see more anti-Trump memes featuring the wealthy class playing golf with Trump at Maralago, but that doesn't happen. Of course this plays right into Trumpish hands.  It leads to the condemnation of the poor and takes it away from the abuses of the wealthy where it belongs. Since the poor have no institutional power whatsoever, choosing them as culpable for Trump is astonishingly short-sighted.

To address the obvious classism in these memes leads to a convoluted and exhausting discussion that employs the least creative tactics of apologists of bigotry of all kinds.

“That’s not what I meant by that.”

“I’m poor, and it doesn’t bother me.”

“A lot of poor people are like that.”

“Stop being self-righteous.” Or “condescending,” “purist,” etc.

“You lose any point you may have had by your attitude, how you brought this up, when you brought this up, where you brought this up, etc.”

“This is an example of ‘political correctness’ going too far.”

Just insert “person of color,” “LGBT person,” or “woman,” and this will become familiar.

There is no oppression that is more difficult to discuss than classism. Too many see it as a “detail” rather than a serious and deadly oppression. No one is perfect, after all. And classism is the oppression we are most inclined to give a pass.

Calling out classism is the oppression that incurs accusations of minimizing other oppressions simply by bringing it up. This is a preposterous fear because objecting to any oppression can only serve to diminish any other oppression.  It is self-defeating given that other oppressed groups are more vulnerable to class oppression as well.

In this culture we have constructed a culture in which we base our worth as it compares to the worth of another.  We find it immensely difficult to interact without knowing each other’s social class. We have many social clues for this. How someone talks. How they dress. Where they work. Our ingrained interest in and deference to celebrities. Our admiration of the customs of the affluent from how they set a table, where they vacation, what they eat, or how they decorate their homes.

We don’t know how to have an identity or value unless we can look down on those who do these things “wrong.”

I left an “Occupy” event in Washington D.C. in 2011, after I witnessed two things.

The first was when “core” organizers were protective of Ralph Nader when he visited our camp. His celebrity warranted special treatment and not allowing the proletariat too close for too long.

The second was when “core” organizers determined that we should allow homeless folks in the neighborhood to eat at the camp food tent. 

“We need this food for us.” they said.

I knew then I didn’t belong there. I was not one the “us.”

I agree with Eugene V. Debs.

“While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

You don’t build solidarity by mocking the targets of class oppression. They are our hope. The effective justice movement can only be led by the “least of these” in society. It will be led by a toothless fat woman in tight, stained, stretch pants.  I’m ready to follow her. I’m certainly not going to mock her.