Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race

Chapter 6 focuses on the relationship between race, class, and injustice in Britain. British society has traditionally been divided into three groups: the working class, the middle class, and the upper class. These categories, however, have become blurred over time. The working class has increased its purchasing power through credit while economic hardships undermined the stability of the middle class. According to a 2016 survey by British Social Attitudes, 60% of Brits identify as working class, yet 47% of these people hold managerial and professional jobs (190). The survey called this phenomenon the ‘working class of the mind’ and found that people with this mindset were more likely to hold anti-immigrant ideas (190). Eddo-Lodge draws on the British Social Attitudes study, focusing her discussion of class on mindsets rather than wealth.

The BBC’s Great British Class Survey of 2013 provides a more nuanced view of class than the tripartite division described above. According to the study, there are seven classes in Britain: the elite, the cultured middle class, the technical middle class, the new affluent working class, the traditional working class, emergent service workers, and the precariat, which Eddo-Lodge describes as “the most deprived of groups” (191). The BBC survey is significant because, unlike others of its kind, it collected data on the race of its participants. It found that non-white people comprise 21% of emergent service workers and that these non-white workers are materially poorer than others in the same group. Non-white emergent service workers tend to have high cultural and social capital, both accrued through higher education, yet they lack economic capital (192).

Eddo-Lodge draws on studies to demonstrate that discussions of structural inequality must take into account the interrelation of race and class. For example, a study by the Runnymede Trust determined that Britain’s 2015 summer budget would negatively impact four million people of color, that non-white people were overrepresented in the areas the budget slashed, and that the budget would worsen racial inequities in the future (192). A 2007 study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation similarly underscored the link between race and class:

The foundation found that just 20 per cent of white Brits were living in income poverty, in drastic comparison to 30 per cent of black Caribbeans, 45 per cent of black Africans, 55 per cent of Pakistanis and 65 per cent of Bangladeshis. The report also found that a disturbing 50 per cent of black and minority ethnic children were living in poverty (193).

Recent studies reveal that the situation has gotten worse. Analyses published in 2014 show that Black men between the ages of 16 and 64 have the highest unemployment rate in Britain and that Black women are more likely than white women to be unemployed (193). Studies also reveal that Black and Asian men are more likely than white men to do low-paying, unskilled work, especially in healthcare, sales, and customer service (193). As Eddo-Lodge observes, these studies demonstrate that race and class are not distinct categories but entwined factors that contribute to inequality.

Eddo-Lodge uses the example of housing to help readers understand the relationship between race and class. Like many large cities, London suffers from a shortage of affordable housing. Luxury apartments are encroaching on low-income, non-white areas, changing their racial and economic make-up. The gentrification of minority areas has important implications. For example, Eddo-Lodge’s childhood neighborhood of Tottenham saw the construction of several luxury projects in the last decade. In 2015, Tottenham was included in a regeneration program worth £131 million, which included affordable housing (196). When Eddo-Lodge investigated the program, however, she discovered that low-income residents of Tottenham, most of whom are Black, were excluded from affordable housing because they did not meet the minimum income requirement, which was based on the area’s average annual income of £24 thousand (198). Gentrification inflated this figure. Had the luxury apartments not been built, Black residents would have benefited from the regeneration program’s affordable housing. The example of Tottenham not only demonstrates that race and class are interconnected but also calls attention to government policies that maintain racialized class structures.

White men in flat caps have long represented the British working class. Eddo-Lodge adds Black women pushing prams and other low-paid minority workers to this group. The notion that the white working class is losing out to people of color is a common refrain of the right-wing, which characterizes affirmative action as reverse racism and promotes the myth of white victimhood. These tactics shift attention away from the real problem of class prejudice. Rather than questioning the privilege of the middle and upper classes, the white working class blames their woes on immigrants. As Eddo-Lodge observes, immigrants are not the ones hoarding resources and wealth. The image of the grabby immigrant is a myth created by Britain’s upper and middle classes to sow discord among the lower classes. Class hierarchy existed long before Britain had a significant non-white population. Discussions of class, then, must not exclude conversations about racialized class prejudice.