By Representative John Faulkner | The Faulkner Files
I recently came across a post from political strategist Marcus Ferrell titled “Dear White America.”
I will not attempt to repeat his words, but the message made me think.
It made me think about how easily working people can be convinced to fight other working people while the people doing the best in this country quietly keep doing better.
For generations, Americans have been given somebody to blame.
If you are struggling, blame the immigrant.
If your taxes are too high, blame the poor person receiving government assistance.
If you cannot afford health insurance, get angry because somebody on Medicaid can see a doctor.
If your community is struggling, blame diversity, affirmative action, DEI or whatever the political buzzword happens to be this year.
If none of that works, find somebody somewhere who is “woke” and make them the enemy.
Meanwhile, the grocery bill is still high.
The prescription still costs too much.
The hospital is still struggling.
The worker is still living paycheck to paycheck.
And the billionaire is doing just fine.
Maybe we have been looking in the wrong direction.
The Black man working two jobs is not the reason you cannot afford your insulin.
The Hispanic man roofing a house in the Mississippi heat is not the reason your wages have not kept up with the cost of living.
The single mother receiving assistance to feed her children is not the reason your property insurance increased.
And that poor white family living in rural Mississippi is not the enemy of Black Mississippi either.
Most of us are trying to do the same thing.
We are trying to keep food on the table.
We are trying to keep the lights on.
We are trying to get our children educated.
We are trying to afford healthcare.
We are trying to retire with something left after a lifetime of work.
We are trying to make it.
But somebody figured out a long time ago that struggling people become powerful when they recognize how much they have in common.
So keep them divided.
Black against white.
Rural against urban.
Citizen against immigrant.
Christian against non-Christian.
Republican against Democrat.
Keep everybody looking across the street at somebody else and asking, “What are they getting?”
Because as long as we are asking that question, we may never ask the more important one:
Who is getting the most?
Who receives the biggest tax advantages?
Who has enough money to hire lobbyists?
Who can walk into the halls of government and make sure somebody hears their concerns?
Who owns the companies while workers argue among themselves over who deserves a few dollars more?
Those are uncomfortable questions because they require us to look beyond the political distractions that dominate television and social media.
History teaches us that division is not new.
Race has been used for generations to separate people who often shared economic interests. Poor Black people and poor white people could live only miles apart, work equally hard, struggle with many of the same problems, and still be taught that their greatest threat was each other.
That strategy did not disappear.
It simply learned new words.
Today, we can spend an entire election arguing about what somebody said on social media while families are deciding which prescription they can afford.
We can fight over a word like “woke” while a rural hospital fights to keep its doors open.
We can be told to fear a struggling immigrant while barely noticing decisions being made that could move enormous amounts of wealth upward.
And while we were fighting each other, somebody was winning.
That does not mean race does not matter. It does.
It does not mean immigration does not deserve serious discussion. It does.
It does not mean every government program is good or every corporation is bad.
It means we ought to be wise enough to recognize when legitimate issues are being used to keep ordinary people angry at one another.
There are wealthy people who work hard and create jobs. There are poor people who make bad decisions. Life is more complicated than slogans.
But one truth remains:
Your neighbor struggling beside you is probably not the reason you are struggling.
Maybe America would be stronger if working people stopped allowing politicians to choose their enemies for them.
Maybe we should spend less time asking what somebody beneath us received and more time asking what is happening above us.
Because while Black America and white America argue over the crumbs, somebody else may be walking away with the whole loaf.
And perhaps the greatest political awakening would be realizing that the person we were taught to fight may have been struggling beside us all along.
