We Just Feel Like We Dont Belong Here Anymore Think its hard for the white working class in rural America? Try being a person of color. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/08/we-just-feel-like-we-dont-belong-here-anymore/
This is a great piece from Mother Jones featuring 5 stories of people living in a rural county that swung to Trump heavily. The author (who is white) went back to his home county in Tennessee to get testimonials about how life has changed since the election and the stories are pretty stark. Would recommend reading in full-it's not really a long read and there are 5 people profiled in total.
This is a great piece from Mother Jones featuring 5 stories of people living in a rural county that swung to Trump heavily. The author (who is white) went back to his home county in Tennessee to get testimonials about how life has changed since the election and the stories are pretty stark. Would recommend reading in full-it's not really a long read and there are 5 people profiled in total.
Since Trumps election, there has been ample coverage of white peoplethe rise of white nationalism, the white working class that makes up Trumps core constituency, the 53 percent of white women who voted him into office. Much less has been written about the people of color who live and work amid the rising tide of white nationalism in rural red states.
I grew up in a town called Bells, one of the five small towns that make up Crockett County in West Tennessee. The county is 83 percent whiteI am also white14 percent black and 10 percent Hispanic. (For comparison, according to 2016 Census data, Tennessees population is only 17 percent black and 5 percent Hispanic.) The median household income is $35,000, and 19 percent of the countys 14,411 residents live below the poverty line. Most of the people I went to school with are still there. The area is deeply ruralthe main highway that winds through the county is framed by cotton fields and pastures where cows keep a lazy watch over passing cars. Friday night football reigns supreme; game attendance is only second in importance to church. Many families have been here for generations, passing down their farmland and businesses to their children and grandchildren.
It can be a lovely place to live, but in counties like Crockett, its hard to be anything other than white. So I decided to go back home and talk to the people I should have been talking to all alongpeople of color who live and work and go to school with white Trump supporters. They told me how it feels to live among neighbors who voted against their best interests andworst casetheir basic existence.
Turner tells me that over the past year, life for her family has changed. She hints that her parents have been in West Tennessee long enough to know which families fought against civil rights back in the day. Since Trumps election, theyve warned her to steer clear of a list of people that is too long for comfort.
The day after the November presidential election, Turner went with her mother to the store, and they both kept their heads down. We just feel like we dont belong here anymore, she says.
Turners mom, who cleans houses in town for a living, went to work a couple of days after that, and her employer, an older white woman, brought up the results of the recent election. The two had talked politics beforeTurners mom is a Democrat, and her employer is a Republican. Well, you might as well come and live with me now, the employer said. You gonna be mine eventually.
She called her daughter in tears. Turner immediately got in her car and picked her mother up to bring her home.
Last year before the election, a young woman Turner described as one of her best friends casually mentioned she hoped for a Trump victory so that he might do away with some of these African American people. She quickly clarified that she wasnt referring to Turners type, but when Turner sharply asked her what she meant, she couldnt answer. Another friend assured her that it would be okay if Trump won the election because she would convince her parents to purchase Turners family as their new slaves. In a place where a few large plantation-style houses remain scattered through the county, the joke feels a lot like a threat.