Today in class, we spent some time discussing chapter 15 of James A. Morone’s Hellfire Nation. The class noted that Morone emphasized drugs and crime as the pertinent issues involved in the organization of the Christian Right, unlike other authors, such as William Martin and Seth Dowland, who focus on factors like abortion, gay rights, and feminism. In an attempt to explain the cause of this difference, one student offered a particularly interesting critique of Morone, suggesting that he unnecessarily used race as the basis for historical discriminatory practices. Specifically, my classmate cited the example of Moron’s statistical evidence regarding an increase in incarceration rates during Reagan’s presidency that reflected a racial bias towards black men and Hispanics (Morone, p. 456). He pointed out that Morone could have made his argument just as strongly by using economic classes rather than racial minorities. This is an astute observation that leads us to consider how language has shifted from employing a difference among racial groups to emphasizing differences due to economic status.
Our readings of Martin Luther King and Jerry Falwell have revealed this shift in rhetoric. During the civil rights movement, King’s language demanded racial equality. Then later in the 1970’s, Falwell began to promote a moral sentiment that did not attack racial inequality, but rather focused on the decaying morality of certain Americans, unintentionally revealing his economic class bias. In Listen America, Falwell was somewhat insensitive toward poorer families that relied on working mother, chastising these women for neglecting their children (Falwell, p. 108). The subtle shift from race talk to class talk becomes even more apparent in the 21st century. In the current election, Barack Obama claims that the nation is entering a post-racial era and his policies toward issues that were once predicated on a discussion of racial inequalities now uses language focused on gaps among economic classes rather than racial groups.
Recently, in the third presidential debate, the candidates offered their opinions of the D.C. school voucher program. The Washington Post article explains that this program allows students from low-income family backgrounds to apply taxpayer money towards private school tuition. The eligibility of the recipients of these vouchers depends on their families’ economic class rather than their racial identities. This program grants $7,500 to about 1,903 children from low-income families.
There has been a shift in political attention from “leveling the playing field” among races toward economic classes. But, this is not to suggest that race and class are mutually exclusive. The D.C. school voucher program has a primary goal of providing equal educational opportunities for poor D.C. residents. Yet, according to the 2006 U.S. census racial minorities make up more than 60% of the D.C. population. Furthermore, the same 2006 statistics show that D.C. ranks second only to Mississippi as having the greatest percentage of families living below the poverty level (link).
So, if we can agree that race and economic class are closely linked, then the next question is why has a discussion of inequalities shifted from using race as a factor in gaps between groups toward using economic status.