We have no condescension for the working poor

Hello Joe -

Just a note to thank you for this piece. First off it's well-written and funny and I enjoyed reading it. Have forwarded it on to several friends. But even better, it comes at just the right time for me.

I'm a die-hard liberal finishing my PhD this year and then taking a faculty job at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC. Small city (pop. 100,000) in rural tobacco farming NC where the university and medical center are the main employers. My husband and I will likely live in an even smaller town about 15 miles east, since we'd like to be near the water (is that too elitist?). We're moving to Bible-belt country. I'm an atheist and he's a Buddhist. Our biggest concern isn't moving to a smaller town, but rather the "cultural divide" you describe in your article.

We don't share the condescension for blue-collar workers or the working poor that you describe, and I have to tell you that though I know many many liberals, I don't know any of them that do either. I do not know who is so condescending to have earned us this label, but in my experience it isn't justified. I certainly recognize why these communities of the "just scraping by" would be angry (they should be!). But I do struggle to understand how they can fail so remarkably to discern how severely they are being taken advantage of politically and frankly being screwed economically.

At any rate I appreciated your overall message that we need to join hands with those who struggle in our communities, wherever we are, and that their stereotyped opinion of us will not change unless they have more contact with us and see who we really are and what we are really about. I had already been thinking about how to develop good working relationships and friendships with people who have such a different view of the world than I do, especially as far as religious beliefs. Your piece reminds me that I must not become insular just because it will be effortful.

I hope you will send a copy of your article to John Edwards, who is now going to head a center at UNC on Work, Opportunity and Poverty.

I also do hope you'll send a copy to Howard Dean, though you are not enamored with him. He is not the progressive revolutionary you and I would like to see in power at the DNC but he is not owned by the DLC either. It's a step. More to the point, I think he knows that he doesn't know the heart and soul of the "poor white conservative," and is open and very supportive of the grassroots organizing that you say you want. There is a "Democrats for America" progressives group in Greenville and I have already joined -- DFA is an example of the grassroots organizing that Dean has promoted.

I think it would be great for both of them to read this.

PS I also liked Hung Over in the End Times very much.

Best regards,

Leslie