Reflections on Class: Intersectional, Anticapitalist Pedagogies for Our Times

The contemporary United States is defined by extreme economic inequality. However, the public discourse on class has been strikingly anemic. Whereas the white working class is portrayed as victims of globalization who are denied economic opportunities they deserve, impoverished communities of color are represented as an undeserving, criminal class who would rather live off taxpayers than work and fulfill their social responsibilities. Recognizing that women, queer and transgender people, immigrants, people of color, indigenous people, people with disabilities, and those who live at the intersections of these categories disproportionately bear the costs neoliberalism and have historically led the way in organizing resistance to capitalist exploitation, this essay reflects on strategies for developing an intersectional, anticapitalist pedagogy. Drawing on my experience teaching a course about social movements organized around care work, I highlight the ways that centering waged and unwaged reproductive labor potentially disrupts dominant narratives of class and offers students valuable skills for both understanding and resisting racialized and gendered capitalism in the current moment.