Abdul Hakim-Shabazz (the man, the myth, the legend) has a column entitled “The Revolution has been Gentrified.” He reports that the protest of the police action shooting of Aaron Bailey by two IMPD officers was much more heavily attended by white people than black people. The black folks were, he suggests, at Black Expo. I’m not writing to offer any thoughts on the particular event.
Instead, what caught my eye was the characterization of the white people who attended the event. It was in what I’m tentatively calling “The Gentry is Frivolous” genre. Abdul’s wasn’t particularly egregious, nor did it dominate his piece. (In his case, it was mainly used for comic effect):
[T]he Don’t Sleep crowd drew the hipsters and people most likely to serve you a tall latte, with skim (or almond milk), and no sweetener.
. . .
[T]he revolution has culturally appropriated by progressive white privilege. And when that white privilege drove home, it probably didn’t even have to worry about getting pulled over in a traffic stop.
But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about social class in America, and this seems like a fairly common theme. The upper middle class, the gentry, is a bunch of coddled, soft little ninnies with frivolous concerns. The food they eat is silly. Their stated social concerns are merely “virtue signaling,” not truly held beliefs.
They aren’t real Americans ™ doing real work ™. A real job — after all — requires that you shower after work, not before. And, after work, instead of drinking real, American beer like Bud Light or Miller, they drink pretentious, hoppy beers with funny names. Their kids, if they can be peeled away from the screen, probably run around with brooms pretending to play Quidditch instead of something manly, like football. Or worse, maybe they play boring, scoreless soccer instead of exciting American games like baseball.
Again, to be clear, I’m not piling this on Abdul. His line about the latte was just the launching point for something I’ve been thinking about for awhile. I have a very lefty acquaintance with a blue-collar job whose distaste for professionals was a lot stronger than I had anticipated. This class division is real. And it seems to be more about education than wealth. Trump can somehow be seen as of the blue collar social class despite being an alleged billionaire who was born into immense wealth. The professional classes are the ones more likely to inspire resentment among the white working classes. (And maybe the non-white working classes as well — politically, however, the leaders preferred by the white working classes are disastrous from any number of angles for members of the non-white working classes.)
The stated reason for the resentment by the white working class is often that they feel condescension by the professional classes. Whether that’s the true reason or not, I’m not so sure. After all, looking at the withering condescension you see going the other way. There is endless condescension about liberals and their lattes. Or maybe it’s arugula. Or maybe it’s participation trophies. Ann Coulter has made a lot of money telling white working class people what they want to hear over the years. She said:
“Liberals are not like most Americans. They are the biggest pussies on Earth, city-bred weaklings who didn’t play a sport and have never been in a fight in their entire lives. Their mothers made excuses for them when they threw tantrums and spent way too much time praising them during toilet training.”
So, I don’t think it’s an abiding concern for condescension that causes the resentment. It’s a sensitivity to condescension running the “wrong way” that seems to be provoking. And, by the way, this “city people are soft and lack virtue” notion is nothing new. The Greeks were using it against the cosmopolitan Persians. (Persians wore perfume and slippers, don’t you know.) The fall of Rome was ascribed to its adoption of cosmopolitan ways and abandoning the simple, more rustic virtues of real Romans. (Kids these days and their aqueducts. Why, in my day, you had to go to a well to get water!)
So, as you run across critiques of “liberals,” try to see how much of it can be boiled down to mere “the gentry is frivolous” hand waving.
To be honest I don’t give a fuck what Trump supporters think of me. God knows I’ve tried to help them over the years but I’m finished.
They are not welcome in my home and I think Hillary nailed it.
They are deplorable.
1. I have a postgraduate degree.
2. I only drink almond milk. I almost vegan. I haven’t eaten animal flesh in 16 1/2 years.
3. I have arugala growing in the garden.
I hit the trifecta.
I have been thinking about the breakdown of the US constitutional system for a long time. Since Con Law, actually.
So the actual depolorables resent the success of the winning class. They regret the “entitlement mind set” of the educated successful professionals.The white losing class take things a bit to vaingloriously.
We often hear from the white losing class that “we need to get back to the Constitution.” A bit adventuresome of them.
Despite the belief that all men are equal, our Founding Fathers did not buy into that all the way. They feared the unschooled masses. The Senate was selected by the state legislatures. The Electoral College was the firewall against the dumpster fire that are the deplorable masses.
At the time of the founding of the nation, voting was restricted to land owing males, successful by definition. There was no place in politics for the deplorables. Yet the last two republican presidents lost the popular vote but were installed in a fashion in contravention of the purpose of the Electoral College.
Hard to have much empathy…
They feared the reign of “King Mob.”
Case in point the 25% to 35% who believe anything out of Trump’s mouth, and the great majority of Republicans who don’t believe Don Jr. talked to a Russian, even when he openly admitted it. We see Trump et al systematically working to destroy the country and the institutions of government, courtesy of “King Mob” whose insatiable civic ignorance is fed by Faux News. The Congress is too intimidated by Trump and lacks the moral strength to act or even criticize. The only people who stand in the way of authoritarian rule are those pesky attorneys and judge–and I’m not one of them, but I know a patriot when I see one.
Who cares what that smear merchant Abdul thinks?
Quite a few people since my work appears in media outlets all over Indiana.
Abdul,
Apparently your delusions of grandeur haven’t diminished with age. All you do is smoke cigars and drink brandy all day. Also there is the amoral matter of you falsely accusing Gary Welsh of being behind your now defunct Indy Undercover blog as well as your nastiness and attempted character assasination of Paul Ogden. Your days are numbered you smart Alec, two bit punk!
Just because your stuff “appears in media outlets all over Indiana”, it doesn’t mean that people read it or that they agree with your ideas. Sure, Indiana votes Republican, but that doesn’t mean they are knowledgeable. As Sheila Kennedy, and others have observed, civic ignorance is rife. Don’t contribute to it and don’t start believing your own press.
I imagine there are a lot of professionals who think the gentry is indeed frivolous as well, particularly those of us who grew up in a household fed, and college paid for, by blue-collar tough guys. My old man was a pipefitter/welder in a steel mill, who took on a couple extra shifts a week, to send me to college, and provide us with a comfortable upbringing. Compared to what he did, my salaried IT job that he paid for is pussy work. It’s valuable work, gainful employment and all that, but having spent a couple summers in a rebar plant bending bar for bridgework (which was chumpchange compared to my Dad’s job), what I do for a living is a frickin’ cakewalk.
To the credit of the hipsters who turned out for the protest Abdul was describing, at least they braved the possibility of poor Wi-Fi reception, and didn’t just repost some ridiculous meme on their social media outlet of choice. :-)
I have no doubt that your dad’s job was physically more demanding. What I question is the sort of unspoken assumption that the physicality or pain associated with a job makes it superior in some fashion. If I made my living by letting passers-by kick me in the nuts for a nickel, would I be the manliest of them all?
I half suspect it connects back to our Puritan roots – sinners in the hands of an angry God and all of that. The road to heaven is painful. Medicine doesn’t work if it tastes good. Etc.
Good one Doug. My dad had the saying”While you are resting go out in the garden and pull some weeds” Now I use Preen to kill weeds in the garden, Round- up to kill them in my soybeans and corn. I freely admit that I could not hold a candle to the work my dad did. He would be 96 if he were sill alive,however, nobody was prouder than him when I graduated from Purdue
I’m sorta late to the party, but I tend to agree with you, Doug.
I’m willing to bet that Ann Coulter hasn’t been in very many street fights, if any. Neither has Donald Trump. I’d also bet that many of Trump’s supporters, for all their tough talk online about capping would-be thugs if given the chance and exercising their 2nd Amendment rights, are mostly keyboard commandos.