![](http://uhurunews.com/promo-images/black-agenda-report.jpg)
Freedom Rider: Middle Class means Working Class
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
January 25, 2011
Americans love to think of themselves as middle class. For decades, polls have shown that 90% of the population will refer to themselves with this meaningless phrase. We know of course that there are millions of poor working people in this country, but if anyone asks how they define themselves, the words poor or working will not appear in their self-identification.
The term middle class should disappear from our lexicon, and the sooner the better. Regardless of educational attainment, income, or assets, anyone who depends on a paycheck to maintain their lifestyle is a worker. A white collar, college educated worker who makes six figures is still a worker. If that high income disappears, that individual is in very deep trouble. The sooner Americans begin thinking of themselves that way, the better off they will be.
Working people are under attack in this country in ways that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago. The American mania for middle class aspiration has helped to make this dire circumstance possible, and will cause workers to feel enmity with other workers when they should feel a sense of common cause.
Republicans and Democrats have declared war on those few workers fortunate enough to be unionized. As the great recession enters its fourth year, cities and states are drowning in a sea of red ink. Governors, mayors and state legislators appear to be of one accord on the remedy. Public employees must either lose their jobs altogether, lose pensions and benefits, or lose their union protections. As a result of seeing themselves as middle class and not as working people, workers in the private sector who are themselves vulnerable, applaud the effort to race to the bottom, instead of fighting against it.
Read the full article at:
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/freedom-rider-middle-class-means-working-class