Stop Pretending Black Midwesterners Don't Exist

"It is not just the white working class that is suffering — it is the working class, period. And we can’t solve the problem if we refuse to see who those workers actually are. By 2032, according to the Economic Policy Institute , the American working class will be made up mostly of people of color, including black workers.

The people in Gary, which is more than 80 percent black , and in Detroit, another predominantly black city, where millions of black Southern migrants once thrived making America’s convertibles and Coupe de Villes, are rendered invisible by the country’s racially biased understanding of the Midwest and the working class.  Whiteness. It is that mythologized heartland that pundits seem to think will engender empathy, not the black families of Milwaukee; the majority-Latino community of Dodge City, Kan."