The Fire Next Time Thesis

White America’s Secret Weapon

Poverty is a universal issue. Both white people and black people have experienced it in America throughout time, but the difference between their respective poverties, is that white people have never been impoverished because they are white. Black people have been made to believe that their natural standing in America is near or at the bottom. White people, ever since the first white settlers arrived in America and took over the already occupied land, truly believed they were superior to the indigenous people because of the color of their skin. White people have always been assumed to be the dominant race and have pushed black people to the bottom. The perpetual cycle of poverty in the black community stems from

the white people grappling to maintain their confidence in the fact that there will always be a group that they can keep below them. In modern day, although black people are still forced to the bottom of the socioeconomic hierarchy, there have been a few black people in power. Not enough to suggest complete racial equality is present, but enough to rattle the white working class into questioning if they can continue keeping black people in an inferior position. White people use stereotypes of black poverty, such as excessive drug use and crime, to distance themselves from a dangerous image of poverty and make themselves seem innocent, when really, they perpetuate racism and stereotypes just as much as the rest of white America.
At first glance, poverty would seem like a weakness rather than a weapon, but lower-middle class white Americans found a way to use it, not only to help themselves, but to attack black people. Poorer white people have recently begun to feel as ignored as the black population of America and sought a way to gain back some power so they “did the only thing any reasonable polity might: elect an orcish reality-television star who insists on taking his intelligence briefings in picture-book form” (Coates, 9). This quote from Ta-Nehisi Coates perfectly demonstrates the desperate attempt by the poorer white people to grab on to any person in power who would support the cause to subjugate black America. White America utilizes this common struggle to uphold the white supremacy to elect a man who stands for whiteness, also referred to as “the bloody heirloom” by Coates earlier in the article (Coates, 2). Also, Coates mentions how white people developed the idea that America should be okay with being numb to black suffering, commenting that “black workers suffer because it was and is our lot. But when white workers suffer, something in nature has gone awry” (Coates, 11). White America lacks empathy when it comes to the hardships black people face, but if some of their own feel attacked or slighted by anything, there has to be something done. America becomes proactive and defensive of white people when they feel as though they have had bad luck. Americans excuse these people from any form of criticism, whereas they have no problem with suggesting that impoverished black people are just too lazy to get a job. The white working class needed a scapegoat to contrast their innocent facade, so naturally, they chose the most consistently oppressed group, lower-middle class black people.
In James Baldwin's book, The Fire Next Time, he discusses how white people use poverty to try to take away any options or future a black person could have.

When he talks about his education and his father’s lack of support for it he says, “I no longer had any illusions about what an education could do for me; I had already encountered too many college- graduate handymen,” (Baldwin, 18.) Baldwin gives an example of no matter how much effort and dedication a black person would put into finishing a college education and improving chances of a better future, they would still be bound to the white standard of what a black person should do. Baldwin also discusses how he realized that “crime became real… not as a possibility but as the possibility,” (Baldwin, 22). He started to realize how bleak his future would be if he allowed the box white people put him in to define the rest of his life. The recognition of the fact that he was being pushed into a life of crime that white people believed was natural for black people scared him because he finally acknowledged the total lack of power of not only himself but of every black American. Baldwin also notices how his black friends and acquaintances were “unable to say what it was that oppressed them, except they knew it was “the man” -- the white man,” (Baldwin, 19). This constant oppression is what keeps most black people from breaking out of poverty, and makes it extremely difficult to succeed in white America. Poverty is one of the main obstacles America puts in the way of black people’s ultimate

happiness.
Poverty is lower-middle class white America’s secret weapon, used to portray themselves as victims, while simultaneously viciously attacking lower-middle class black America’s reputation. Black people have suffered poverty ever since they were forcibly brought to America just because they were black. Poverty leads to mental health issues, as well as physical ones, and when a whole race is oppressed, it leads to a toxic environment and country. White America has not only strived to mistreat black people, but to force them into borderline uninhabitable environments. Poor white people are able to exploit poor black people because of America’s acceptance of the fact they believe black people should never get any advantage a white person could have.