There was a lot more unity between "poor whites" and "poor blacks," around labor-justice issues, before white textile-mill owners started to foment racist violence. Same thing goes on in Euro-American populations, for instance in mining, where ethnic mistrust issues are often harped on in mine-owner policies, propaganda, etc. In other words, it's not accidental that people don't bind together for justice around common interests when the powerbase is doing all it can to keep them apart in their smaller, less-policitally-powerful segments.

So one effect of poverty is simply that you can be desperate enough to swallow the lies the powerbase propagates, and protect what you then perceive as your own place in the system instead of changing the system. Violently, if "necessary." While the powerbase blames the violence on the inherent badness of the people, or their poorly-educated "ignorance."

I was thinking about this, just this morning, as I watched a wonderful PBS documentary about descendants of US slaves who became known for their quilting. I was thinking that it's so easy for people with apparent power to feel good about small "gains" that ease their inherited sense of guilt, when actually they are being distracted from the actual ills that have not actually changed at all.

An example-- nice white man brought their quilting to the world's attention, loves them, knows their personal and community histories, genuinely LOVES them.... very articulately sensitive on the cultural history of the area.... But the money their quilts fetch, now, that brought in electricity and plumbing, shoes, heat.... is the very thing that has made it possible for the current generation of young women to stop aspiring to learn quilting and start longing to go to the malls in cheap miniskirts and bright lipstick. But up at the art gallery where the quilts are displayed-- and in front of my my living room TV-- it feels so GOOD.... see?

~Susan