The "Middle Class": How the Mass Media Muddies Class Politics and Upholds Whiteness In Support of the Status Quo

        

        We Killed the Middle Class. Here’s How We Can Revive It, a headline in The Atlantic reads. “The middle class was once a symbol of the American dream, an article” by CNBC writes. In a country in which almost 70% of Americans consider themselves middle class, the "middle class" is undeniably a prevalent idea within American political discourse. However, what is the middle class and why is it such a pervasive concept? To the likes of neoliberal politicians like Joe Biden, the middle class is a value set, where one can aspire toward "a good education, economic opportunity, [and] access to quality, affordable health care." The middle class is the catch-all phrase for opportunity and choice, in which hard work and faith in the American dream are the catalysts. Similar to the libertarian “choice” rhetoric such as "right-to-work" or being able to choose your healthcare provider, the "middle class" muddies the power dynamics of a socially stratified society. Thus, as Adam Johnson and Nima Shirazi of Citations Needed accurately point out, the middle class "is less so what we’re talking about when we talk about...[and]more about what we’re not talking about." Namely, when we hear calls for "saving the middle class" by the media, it is merely a way to sanitize and positively spin concepts such as inequality, poverty, and racial discrimination (which often intersects with class). For the purposes of this article, we will go more in-depth into how the media uses the term "middle-class" to downplay class antagonisms and how the term is also, in the words Christopher Petrella and Ameer Hasan Loggins, a white-racial construct.

        Before we delved into a class analysis of the "middle class," I believe it is pertinent to highlight its racialized history and how the rhetoric around economic success primarily centers white people. According to Christopher Petrella and Ameer Hasan in their article titled “Middle Class” is a White Racial Construct, the middle class was first coined in 1908 during a presidential acceptance speech by then-president William Taft: "there is no farming or middle class tending to build up a conservative, self-respecting community, capable of self-government…It is quite unlikely that the [Filipino] people, because of the dense ignorance of 90 percent, will be ready for complete self-government and independence before two generations have passed…” As early as its first usage, we can see how the "middle class" was a racially-coded justification for U.S. imperialism, implying that POC are not able to self-govern themselves due to innate "biological" differences. Even in the context of today, not much has changed as the popular bourgeois conception of the "middle class" espoused by the media has never applied to African Americans. For instance, take the median wealth gap between Black and white families, in which Black family wealth comes up to only $1,700.00 while white family wealth is disproportionately higher at $116,800.00. Moreover, according to Christopher Petrella and Ameer Hasan, research finds that "whereas middle class Black families have seen their wealth diminish over the last thirty years, wealth among middle class white households has grown by ten percent." Thus, for many POC, "the stability of the middle class has always been a mirage," where policies aimed at strengthening the middle class work to compound the material gains of white people at Black peoples' expense.

        Coupled with racial connotations, the "middle class" is also a tool to promote capitalist workplace values such as "family" while muddying the class antagonisms between bosses, managers, and workers, an intentional ideological project blindly promoted by the media. Although I will specifically focus on class in this section, it is important to remember that race and class (as with all social hierarchies) mutually reinforce and/or "naturalize" one another. For POC, they are caught at the insections of both class and race, in which achieving economic and social mobility is an ongoing struggle due to the institutionalization of white supremacy. However, back to the subject matter at hand, while wealth inequality is very real, the usage of "middle class" intentionally makes it difficult to pinpoint the root causes associated with it. Namely, instead of blaming the system that is dependent on poverty for a perpetual pool of labor, the media uses "middle class" to reframe poverty as an individual moral failing (e.g., you didn't work hard enough, get a better job, etc). Moreover, the range of what is considered and not considered middle class is quite extreme, placing those with an income of $500,000 with those making $40,000 or less in the same category. This is because, to quote Adam Johnson and Nima Shirazi, the middle class "is defined by a set of comforts [and/or lifestyle choices] rather than an inherently antagonistic relationship between two mutually exclusive classes." In the case of the workplace, this is even more so as the manager making $20,000-$30,000 (this is just an example) more than their "subordinates" or the workers at the bottom of the workplace hierarchy are lumped together, despite the different power dynamics at play. Acting as a substitute for the working class, the "middle class," as used by politicians and the media, is a romanticization of the ideal "citizen," i.e., a suburban, economically secure white nuclear family who owns a three-story home. Thus, as citizens, we need to be able to recognize how euphemistic language such as the middle class parroted by the media supports and reinforces minority rule and hierarchical domination. Only then will we be aware of our own place in a system that cares primarily about the bottom line: profits.