Late to Class: Social Class and Schooling in the New Economy

1. GROWING UP AS POOR, WHITE TRASH STORIES OF WHERE I COME FROM

1 GROWING UP AS POOR, WHITE TRASH STORIES OF WHERE I COME FROM Beth Hatt The idea of “poor, white trash” conjures many different images in people ’s minds. For some, they think of raggedy clothes, bad teeth, and dirty hair. People also picture trailers and roaches crawling across kitchen counters. A final assumption would probably be that they have “no education .” For me, I think of my family, of people I care deeply about. I think about where I come from. I would like to think that the following narrative about my own life is part of an education of “educated” people. Literature concerning the working class has taught us a lot about working-class culture, gender, and race construction within the working class, and about schooling within working class life. However, I am hesitant to think that it has personalized the working-class beyond the stereotype. It has not typically made the issue of growing up poor a personal one or as something urgently needing to be eradicated. Furthermore, the focus of critique has often stayed upon the working class rather than highlighting the destruction caused by hegemonic middle-class culture joined with capitalist ideals. In this chapter I will provide a personal narrative of rural, white working-class life and the people who live it. It will be grounded in Dorothy Smith’s (1990) perspective of the “feminist sociology of knowledge .” She claims that within academia we, as women, are forced to work under the dominance of the “father tongue,” which was constructed through years of the disciplines being dominated by men. The father tongue is characterized by impersonal and objectified relations with the right to speak for others, whom Smith specifically identifies as women. 19 This is particularly applicable to dominant notions of what is appropriate academic writing and rhetoric, which often distances itself from the emotional and relational aspects of the writer’s life as well as those with whom we conduct research. Smith’s work could be expanded to include notions of whiteness and elitism as being part of the father tongue. Intellectual, political, and cultural worlds are not only structured through patriarchy but also through notions of white racial superiority and economic elitism. These worlds are dominated by men but are also very white and wealthy spaces and ways of being. We need to work against, and move beyond, the father tongue in order to allow greater, more diverse participation in various spaces such as the intellectual and political. For these reasons, I purposefully aim for my writing to be personal and reflective in opposition to a very formal or overly academic style. Before beginning my narrative, I must first make some concessions. This is “my” story rather than “our” story. To clarify, I fully realize that I cannot speak for all of the rural, working class. Additionally, I cannot say our story because I left. I no longer live in the same small town nor live the same life. Instead, I see myself as being somewhere in between Karl Marx’s categories of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. I have wined and dined too much to be considered a proletariat, yet my working -class roots and identification keep me from being completely accepted and comfortable with/by the bourgeoisie. It makes my identity a bit schizophrenic . Also, I am torn between romanticizing the white working-class way of life while also being aware of the bigotry that is often included. Finally, I do not want my narrative to be read as a success story nor as a story of hardship. I do not define it as a success story because success to me is about much more than schooling. I do not see it as a story of hardship because mixed in with the story is my privilege in being white. Additionally, I am well aware of the fact that I did not grow up as poor as many other people. I know that many children have struggled much more than I ever have or will. What I hope my story does, is shift how we think about class, people who are poor or working class, and the lived experience of class. (De)Valued Knowledge My environment growing up included blue-collar parents, a singleparent household, limited adult supervision, and a low-level family income. I believe my family background provided me with a unique perspective from that of many people in academia. Also, it enabled me to be aware of some...