Working Class Whites

1242 Words5 Pages
The idea that unequal treatment and social mistreatment are still constant struggles is addressed in Angelina Price’s essay “Working Class Whites” and bell hooks’ essay “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance. Both authors explain how racial and social controversy affects today’s society. This is done through Price narrowing her focus on how class structure and media relations affects this issue while hooks’ essay concentrates more on public perception with relation to this issue. Both authors use a significant amount of evidence to support their logic as well as ideas that allow the reader to draw their own personal conclusions. In both essays, the idea of social class fueling thoughts and perceptions of either the “Other” or “poor white class” in today’s society is drawn upon multiple times. In Prices particular argument, she targets many factors as reason to why racial dispute has still been a corruption in today’s society. Price focuses on the fact that the public media controls how the poor white class is viewed. The reader can draw from the essay that the media is controlled by the middle to upper class whites. An example of this is when Price explains that through things like movies, TV shows, and even public figures, the media dictates how the public feels about the poor whites. Price further explains her idea by saying that the media gives personality qualities to the poor white class; they can either be the “good country folk” or “white trash” (Price 390). However with this, the reader cannot specifically know whether it is the actual media dividing them into characteristics, or if it is the upper and middle white classes. With Price saying that the upper and middle class whites “control the media” and outlook of other classes, a conclusion can be made that it is truly this controlling hold that fuels a dividing of personal qualities. With bell hooks
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