I know most new stories are about the Black’s and Latino’s because that constitutes a larger part of society. But the more I live my life as an Ojibway woman I am tired. I am very tired of hearing about what is going on in this country with no mention of Native issues. I don’t want to mention my current economic situation but I have had a difficult time even having a Master’s degree.

I am writing this to open your mind and raise your awareness. Take a look at billboards and advertisements, who is on them? Who is on thew news and on magazines? I want to open up a positive and constructive dialog about this. Because it hurts me so much. It hurts me that I am unseen for the most part of so many levels. Not just this physical body but my spirit as someone who is intimately connected to the heart of the Earth.

Inawendiwin (peace)

I truly believed we are all screwed, and those that think it won’t happen to them, or they yawn as long as it they believe it only affects (insert your favorite racia/ethnicl slur here), or believe that when enough WHITE people suffer, the pols will finally do something, are sorely mistaken. This is yet one more example of how the racist chickens are coming home to roost for all of us, and we will pay dearly (and I think we already are, but too many people have their heads up their racist/bigoted asses and fear blacks, immigrants, gays, Muslims, etc. far more than they fear for the own welfare of their families) for dismissing, ignoring and blaming the “Other” for the structural racism (and classism) in this country.

Safety nets are for white people. Laws that affirms rights are for white men. Laws that deny rights are for everyone else.

Safety nets are primarily dependent on one thing: cash forming assets. That means land, for the most part. Especially land that has woods on them, or oil & mineral rights beneath them. Land that can produce real cash crops like tobacco or wine is also pretty good. Land with an apartment building is okay. Now, having said all that, I leave it to you to figure out just how many minority families have such assets. Then figure out how many minority families ONCE had such assets. By tradition in the US and in many other Western countries, minorities are NOT allowed to have such assets. If they do, like Indian tribes with casinos, they are typically highly resented by many for having such, and the only reason they still have them is because it suits the corporations to have casinos on Indian lands.

A safety net is having real assets that you can allow a bank to collateralize (without reasonable fear of predatory lending), in order to get loans that help you start a business, make further improvements, get health care, college for your kids, the list goes on and on. Land or other assets that generates a CASH surplus (as in, not bubbled up asset values) are indespensible in creating a genuine safety net.

Lastly, I think I oppose La Lubu‘s sentiment about what is and what isn’t middle class. Not because what she says isn’t true on a level, but because it’s only a snapshot. What is actually wrong is that things don’t get better as the generations roll over. The real meaning of middle class is that the cops work for you, instead of against you. The lawyers work for you instead of against you. The banks work for you, instead of against you. The LAW works for you, instead of against you.

In other words, being middle class is ultimately reserved for white people.

It’s failing now *largely because of white supremacy*. Most of the privileges when you measure it, are extraordinarily expensive. Everything from all of the elements that supports suburbian life, the low density housing, the cars, the schools…to all of the elements that attempts to see that nondeserving people don’t get the same, like the city infrastructure, the hypocrisy and corruption that prevents real reforms (one way or another, most serious reforms are about rebalancing white privilege towards general citizenship), the jails that encourages society to waste people, the wars that are necessary to support the right class…

@La Lubu – Thanks for the solidarity. God, a safety net… I feel like I’ve finally reached a point where I realize how important one is, but getting it? I’m at a loss. Seems like a very slow, very steep climb – and that’s even given my relatively abundant resources. That book sounds interesting, I should check it out.

@Riva: Ah yes, the convenience of colorblindness when pretending or insisting that everyone’s on a level playing field. Ugh.

I’ve always maintained that the difference between “working class” and “middle class” isn’t the size of the paycheck, but the size of the safety net. If your only form of security is your paycheck—well hell, welcome to the working class! And I say this even for people with college educations, because in the economically depressed Rust Belt, a college education is no guarantee of a decent job.

A book I recommend (frequently) to smug, self-righteous people who wonder why the wealth gap still exists is “The Hidden Cost of Being African American” by Thomas Shapiro. Very telling were the comparative narratives in the book. There was a white couple in south St. Louis (translation: white flight enclave) who went on and one about how they “busted their ass” to have what they have, the car, the nice home, the neighborhood with the good school, etc. They used that particular turn of phrase quite a bit, “bust their ass”. Yet, it became clear that with all their ass-busting, the people doing the heavy financial lifting in that household were both sets of grandparents. How? Well, first in the form of fully funding their kids’ college educations—no crushing student debt to pay off. Also, giving them the down payment for their home. Also, fully funding the private school educations for all of this couple’s children. Also, extracurriculars for the grandkiddos. Buying clothes for the grandkids, hefty cash gifts for the parents, etc. So while this couple felt that because they worked full-time, they “earned” everything they had, in reality without the financial assistance of their own parents, their financial picture would have been marginally middle-class. Just like their African-American counterparts in the Vandeventer neighborhood (translation: “transitional” neighborhood—gentrifying, but white folks still don’t want to live there).

That couple was college-educated, full-time professional workers too, but their only assets were the two paychecks they were bringing in. They both had significant student loans to pay off, had to scramble for years to come up with the down payment for the modest home they bought (and were not at a point yet where they had any significant equity in it)—there were no vacations or private school for that family. Unsurprisingly, that couple felt really fortunate to have what they did, as other members of their extended family were not so fortunate. The white couple above was defensive and had a sense of entitlement (don’t take my word for it; read the book!).

(Shapiro asserts in the book that the wealth gap is the result of social policy—the disparate impact of treating wealth differently from income, and the cumulative, generational effects of institutional racism. Y’know, like the GI Bill and VA housing loans were “affirmative action for white people” back in the day.)

Some people just have no idea how much work it takes, how many years it takes, to come up with even a marginal safety net. Decades of savings can be gone in an instant with a change in health or a job loss. I spent most of 2005 unemployed, and it has taken me three years of frugal living to build up some savings again. I’m in my forties, and I think about this nominal middle-incomeness quite a bit. How long will my health hold out to the point I’m employable? My mother was first diagnosed with cancer at my age. I try not to think about it, but I do. I try not to think about it, because there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it at this point; my daughter isn’t old enough for me to take on a second job yet. That’s my only game plan right now—when my daughter gets old enough to watch herself in the evenings, take on a full-time second job to save up more money for retirement (if I’m lucky) or medical expenses/job loss (if I’m not).

Jack, you (for-damn-sure) are not alone.