The tale begins with the first English settlements. "Our cherished myths are at once bolstering and debilitating," she writes, and then seeks to remove the source of debilitation. Isenberg aims to put that history before us in ways we cannot ignore. Ewell, but we pass over Harper Lee's description of his family: "No truant officer could keep their numerous offspring in school no public health officer could free them from congenital defects, various worms, and diseases indigenous to filthy surroundings." We use the term "white trash" and do not think of its historic antecedents. We read To Kill a Mockingbird and recognize the racial animus of Robert E. We recall the impoverished roots of those few who got lucky, found an upper class patron, and climbed out of poverty, but ignore those who weren't so lucky and attribute their bad fortune to a lack of drive.
Isenberg sets out to correct the American habit of ignoring, or at least isolating, evidence of class, minimizing its significance as anecdotal or trivial. The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America. Today, I shall begin a review of the first of these books, Nancy Isenberg's White Trash. Fortunately, two recently published books help us get past the brouhaha of the campaign to an examination of the underlying cultural realities. While the most defining characteristic of this election so far the split between those who lack a college education and those who achieved one, these deeper cultural third rails are too obvious to ignore. Issues of race, class and religion stalk every campaign speech, every campaign advertisement, every poll and every pundit. This election, even more than the last two, has exposed some of the deepest fault lines in the American experience.
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