White Working Class

by Joan C. Williams

Instead, I focus on a simple message: when you leave the two-thirds of Americans without college degrees out of your vision of the good life, they notice. And when elites commit to equality for many different groups but

arrogantly dismiss “the dark rigidity of fundamentalist rural America,”6 this is a recipe for extreme alienation among working-class whites.

There are two reasons I think we have to try to replace it with a healthier one. The first is ethical: I am committed to social equality, not for some groups but for all groups. The second is strategic: the hidden injuries of class7 now have become visible in politics so polarized that our democracy is threatened.