White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

by Nancy Isenberg

Selective memory allows us to romanticize a golden age that functions as a timeless talisman of American identity. For Charles Murray, who ignores the country’s long history, the golden age is 1963, when the essence of the American creed was somehow captured in a Gallup poll in which respondents refused to self-identify as either poor or rich: approximately half said that they were working class, while the other half perceived themselves as middle class. As if a single statistic could possibly tell a comprehensive story, the social scientist writes, “Those refusals reflected a national conceit that had prevailed from the beginning of the nation: America didn’t have classes, or, to the extent that it did, Americans should act as if we didn’t” (emphasis added). Murray’s fable of class denial can only exist by erasing a wealth of historical evidence that proves otherwise. The problem is, the evidence has never been effectively laid out, allowing gross misrepresentations to stand.2 By gaining first a better understanding of the colonial context and, next, charting the steps by which modern definitions of class were established, we will be able to see how ideas and ideals combined over time. By acknowledging the ongoing influence of older English definitions of poverty and class, we will come to recognize that class identity was apparent in America—profoundly so—long before George Gallup saw it as a creature of public opinion;

And, even if that single stat was somehow influential, it wouldn't change the fact that even if people refuse to acknowledge a truth that doesn't change the fact of its existence. Reality doesn't change because someone (or even lots of someones) want it to.