In an earlier post, I referenced the
Rednecks for Black Lives piece on Medium, dated June 4, 2020. I'm returning to it today and quoting it here because it speaks to what I've been working on for a few years now: How to build cross-racial coalitions among low-income and working-class folks. The piece was written by Beth Howard, who self-identifies as a "hillbilly and a redneck," saying she grew up in "rural Eastern Kentucky." After recounting some details of the economic suffering and its consequences, e.g., food insecurity, inability to see a doctor or pay for medicines, in Appalachia and the rural South, Howard writes:
We’re told to blame Black folks, immigrants, and people of color for our suffering, keeping us fighting each other instead of rich folks, corrupt politicians, and big business who are busy padding their wallets. Too many times we’ve believed these lies. But we don’t have to believe them anymore. We can make a different choice.
Poor and working class white folks showing up alongside Black folks and people of color demanding justice is actually exactly who we are. For decades the label “redneck” has been thrown at us to degrade us but it’s time we reclaim it. The term redneck actually comes from the nation’s largest labor uprising, the Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia in 1921, when a multiracial group of 8,000 miners fought coal company operators to unionize. ... maybe more than anything [the uprising] created power in the multiracial solidarity of poor and working people. The miners were called rednecks because of the red bandannas tied around their neck to indicate they were union.
Billionaires and the crooked politicians who keep them in power know they are outnumbered when Black, Brown, and white working people come together. That’s why they try so hard to divide us.
Cross-posted to Working Class Whites and the Law.
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