Why is the right so obsessed with peddling the fake narrative that it’s white people who have been left behind, says Guardian columnist Zoe Williams
Working class people are more diverse than any other social group. So why is the right so obsessed with peddling the fake narrative that it’s white people who have been left behind?Photograph: Westend61/Getty ImagesPhotograph: Westend61/Getty Imageshe “white working class” is such a peculiar phrase, so widely deployed and so misleading. Of course there are white people who are working class, but the class as a whole is the most diverse of any group.
Certain things stand out immediately: the “uberisation” of certain sectors such as academia, coupled with general pay stagnation and a public sector pay freeze, have combined to mean that old blue collar/white collar distinctions are no longer meaningful. You can have what used to be called a “middle-class job” and still struggle to meet your basic needs.
What does unify this group is its work ethic and its precariousness – and alliedto this, a belief that the system is rigged against people who have to work to live. Whoever is buying the line that the wealthy accrued their fortunes with graft, it is not the working-class people in this study, who overwhelmingly think that the rich have simply been handed better opportunities.
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