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Rethinking Racism Across Class Lines

Notes by Sharon Jarrett

The group had read a chapter from "Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back" (2025) by Joan C. Williams, UCSF, School of Law.  The title of the chapter discussed is "Aren't Elites Just Less Racist” (Chapter 14, 130-139).

The primary points covered in this chapter focused on the following three points:

1.   Racism is well documented among lower middle-class whites, but, also commonplace among elites.

2.   Styles of racism differ between elites and non-elites. The popular racial resentment scale used in many studies tends to pick-up working-class styles but over looks elite styles of racism.

3.   White Americans of all classes need to work on racism. Privileged Americans of all races need to take responsibility for addressing class disadvantage.

The group noted the following:

1.   Values are different dependent on class.

2.   Racism is expressed differently based on class.

3.   There are those who feel they are not racist, yet, their personal actions are consistent with racism.

4.   It is hard to change what you cannot identify. One participant saying having grown up in the South, upon arriving in California, he found the environment just as racist, although not as overt.

5. There was an extensive discussion about economic inequity. The lack of movement between economic classes. One participant from the United Kingdom noting the class structure was much more structured in the United States which surprised them.

The participants also discussed the following not related to the reading material:

1. Gerrymandering 

2.  Coalition building among lower class individuals regardless of race to seek a more equitable society.

3.  The need to support individuals as opposed to a race or class.

The next meeting of the group will be November 21, 2025 at 12:00 PM PST.

Additional Books mentioned during the meeting:

White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessnes in America (2017) 

Joan C. Williams

Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America (2025)

Beth Macy

White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy (2024)

Reverend Doctor William J. Barber II