On race and class

I’ve avoided the temptation to say that, in the United States, poverty is white.  It’s true, however, that there are twice as many poor whites as there are poor blacks.  While a larger percentage of the African-American population lives in poverty, the sheer number of poor whites — 24.1 million — overwhelms the number of poor blacks — 12.1 million.  (Interestingly, there are also more poor Hispanics than there are poor blacks — 14.5 million.)

From photographer John Edwin Mason’s piece Convergences, 3: South Africa’s Poor Whites & the Color of Poverty.

In it he asks, why do we so strongly associate poverty and black people? It’s as though we — I’m thinking primarily of those of us in the United States — think one is a necessary condition of the other. Also see JEM’s other posts on the subject (linked from the above post).

[via A Developing Story]

UPDATE: I read another of John Edwin Mason’s posts on white South Africans, and our tendency to conflate race and class. This paragraph stood out.

If there’s a man-bites-dog quality to most reporting about poor whites — and there is — the same can be said about reporting on rich blacks, especially, again, in Africa. Rich blacks fascinate us (western viewers and western media) for the same reason that “poor whites” do. They contradict our expectations of the way the world is “supposed” to be.

Read both posts. From what I can tell, Mason is a tremendous media critic, observing the ways in which photography supports, frames and reinforces our narratives, particularly around race.