[lbo-talk] Fredrik deBoer: “I think the problem of white poverty is under-discussed in left-wing circles.”

michael yates mikedjyates at msn.com
Sat Jun 28 13:58:45 PDT 2014


Fredrik deBoer says,

"Left-wing publishing, for good and bad, is defined in large measure by a particular social and cultural group. And that group has little use for issues of class that aren’t ancillary to issues of race and gender. Just check the publishing records of the popular left. Find how many of them concern, say, the destitute white underclass of the Appalachian mountains. You won’t find many!"

This seems patently false to me. I asked deBoer about it and he admitted that this is overboard. But then why say it except to make points against the person to whose essay deBoer's piece is directed? And what might the "popular left" be? Popular to whom? "Defined in large measure"? "A particular social and cultural group"? "the Appalachian mountains"? Not much specificity here. Those mountains go from southern NY to Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. That's a pretty big area (and about 25 million people) to be writing about "the destitute white underclass." What is an "underclass" anyway?

If I am not mistaken, Carrol Cox has mentioned on any number of occasions on several lists the local groups to which he has belonged and what they were trying to do.



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