White Trash: Underclass That Runs Contrary to the American Dream 4219-SH193
Over 11% of white population in the US lives below the poverty level. Poor whites make up though for over 43% of the entire US population living below the poverty level, more than any other racial or ethnic group.
On the cover of Nancy Isenberg’s White Trash. The 400-year Untold History of Class in America, we read that “The white poor in America have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlements to today’s hillbillies. They have been labelled Clay-Eaters and Waste People, an underclass that runs contrary to the American Dream that hard work begets success. Yet, these marginalized whites have always been near the center of major debates over the character of the American identity, as crucial to the rise of the Republican Party in the early XIX century as they have been to the presidency of Donald Trump in 2017”.
In the words of a sociologist Matt Wray, the phrase white trash “conjures images of poor, ignorant, racist whites: trailer parks and wife beaters, too many kids and not enough government cheese. It’s hard to care about such people. It’s even harder to take them seriously.”
At this course we will analyze:
how the notion of white trash (and class more generally) is woven into American society’s fabric
how the existence of deep class divisions is (not/under) represented in American discourse
what is the cultural significance and what are the consequences of poor white stereotypes but also how dominant whites exploited and expanded these stereotypes to bolster and defend their own claims to represent others
what were the ideas about poor whites that circulated through various campaigns (e.g. worm eradication and eugenic reforms)
how the issues of class, race, gender, sexuality, religion, politics, and geography complicate and inform a critical understanding of white trash
what it means to be poor and white in the context of white privilege and when middle-class status is “normal” (a collision of racial privilege and class inferiority - paradox of privilege)
We will collect and analyze data and research results about white poor in America. We will look for patterns in:
education, housing (urban vs. rural, home ownership, trailer parks), jobs, economic situation (income, wealth, poverty, food stamps), family patterns, health (illnesses, opioid epidemics, life expectancy, mortality), crime, values, attitudes, political views and voting behaviors.
Type of course
Prerequisites (description)
Learning outcomes
Upon completing the course, students will have:
Knowledge about:
- US class divisions
- the role and importance of poor whites in the US history
- the cultural importance of stereotypes about poor white
- campaigns “solving the problem” of poor whites in the US
- the patterns of: education, housing, family structure, labor market situation, economic situation, health, crime, values, attitudes and political views of poor white people.
Skills:
- conducting an analysis of class relations in the US
- developing and presenting presentations on a selected topic (presentation via the Zoom platform)
- search and analysis of statistical data on a selected social group
- working in a group and discussing the texts read
Competences that will allow them to:
- understanding the complexity of the white poor phenomenon in the US
- understanding the complexity of class relations in the US
- critical analysis of selected cultural texts (literature, television, film)
Assessment criteria
• active class participation 30%
• group project, presentation and class discussion on a chosen topic related to white poor 40%
• individualized research project that locates and examines representations of white poor in a self-chosen piece of cultural text (literature, television, film, photography etc.) 30%
Bibliography
1. Bruder, Jessica (2017) Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, W. W. Norton & Company
2. Case A. and Deaton A. (2020) Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism, Princeton University Press
3. Cramer, Kathrine (2016) The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker, University of Chicago Press
4. Desmond, Matthew (2017) Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Crown
5. Frank, Thomas (2005) What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, Macmillan
6. Hochschild, Arlie (2018) Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, The New Press
7. Isenberg, Nancy (2016) White Trash. The 400-year Untold History of Class in America, New York: Penguin Random House
8. Moss, Kirby (2003) The Color of Class: Poor Whites and the Paradox of Privilege, University of Pennsylvania Press
9. Quinones Sam (2015) Dreamland. The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic, Bloomsbury Press
10. Smarsh, Sara (2018) Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, Scribner
11. Vance, J.D. (2017) Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, William Collins
12. Wilkinson, R. and Pickett, K. (2010) The Spirit Level. Why the Equality is Better for Everyone, London: Pinguin
13. Wray, Matt (2006) Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness, Duke University Press Books
Plus main data sources:
US Census
https://www.census.gov/en.html
Pew Research Center
https://www.pewresearch.org
Gallup
https://www.gallup.com
Brookings Institution
https://www.brookings.edu
Stanford Center for Poverty and Inequality
https://inequality.stanford.edu
Benefits
https://www.benefits.gov
Economic Policy Institute
https://www.epi.org
and a selection of recommended academic and press articles on specific topics related to students presentations.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: