posts tagged asWorking Class Perspectives

George Floyd and the Costs of Racial Capitalism

by on June 10, 2020

George Floyd’s public viewing will be held this afternoon at The Fountain of Praise Church in southwest Houston. A private funeral service will occur tomorrow followed by burial in Houston Memorial Gardens Cemetery about sixteen miles south of Houston’s Third Ward, Floyd’s home for many years.

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Class, Capitalism, and Coronovirus at Disney’s Newest Attraction

by on March 31, 2020

Last week the Coronavirus forced Disney to announce that its American parks are now closed indefinitely, resulting in the longest interruptions of any kind since they opened in 1955 (Disneyland) and 1965 (Walt Disney World). Disney has been on my mind because I made my first ever visit to Walt Disney World in Orlando on January 25th of this year, just as the first COVID 19 cases were being identified in the US.

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Class and the Challenge of COVID-19

by on March 19, 2020

COVID-19, the coronavirus that is spreading across the world, is wreaking havoc on working people and their families.  Weeks after it burst onto the world scene, the end of this deadly threat is still not in sight.  Although it is clear that its death toll will not begin to approximate that of the lethal 1918-19 worldwide Spanish Influenza epidemic, early indications are that COVID-19 could end up inflicting even more economic and political damage than that earlier pandemic. 

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White Middle-Class Racism

by on November 17, 2019

What do you picture when someone refers to the “Trump’s base”? If you’ve watched television coverage of his rallies or read any of the dozens of articles in which reporters and commentators try to explain Trump’s appeal, then you probably imagine white people wearing “MAGA” hats and t-shirts chanting “Lock her up

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Doris Day as Babe Williams in Pajama Game

Doris Day: Working-Class Hero

by on May 26, 2019

Doris Day was one of the hardest working entertainers of the 1950s and 1960s, as well as one of the highest paid female singers/actresses of all time. Many of us probably associate Doris Day with a certain kind of middlebrow wholesomeness and mid-century glamour, but I believe that what made her so successful was her work ethic and her conception of herself as a humble worker—an ethos which had its roots in her upbringing in a German-American working-class community in Cincinnati.

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Class(room) Warfare

by on April 23, 2019

The actress Felicity Huffman—along with 13 other parents charged in the college admissions scandal—entered plea deals last week, putting pressure on actress Lori Laughlin and her husband, designer Mossimo Giannulli, to do the same. Prosecutors are hinting that if Laughlin doesn’t accept a deal she could face 20 years in prison, 3 years of probation, and a $250,000 fine.

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Notre Dame Cathedral and Questions from a Worker Who Reads (after Bertolt Brecht)

by on April 23, 2019

When Notre Dame Cathedral caught fire in Paris on April 15, 400 firefighters were deployed to tackle the blaze. One of those workers was seriously injured, and two police officers were also hurt. Emergency workers risked their lives to remove artefacts from the burning cathedral, but most reports emphasized  the value of the artefacts and artworks rather than the people who saved them.

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