A few years ago my sister called me, panicked, and she said that she was worried that her step-son might become a school-shooter. At this time, my sister lived with her then-husband, my brother-in-law, who a large collection of guns, … Continue reading →

I grew up in a rural Appalachian town of less than 1000 ppl and one of my early writerly projects was, when I was 16, this group of redneck boys let me hang out with them, and we worked on … Continue reading →

Recently it’s become common for commentators like David Brooks to suggest that the red/blue divide has to do with the gap between the college-educated and the non-college-educated, and to suggest that the Democratic party only appeals to people with B.A.s … Continue reading →

Sometimes in NYC among academic colleagues or fellow artists, I’ve mentioned my childhood in Appalachia; and unfortunately people’s only real frame of reference these days is J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. It seems that the experience of rural whites is under-represented … Continue reading →

In trying to understand the appeal of Trump for rural white working-class voters, I want to draw upon studies of domestic abuse (Lundy, Why Does He Do That? and Jules Falquet, Pax Neoliberalia), and think about the rural white working-class … Continue reading →

AI is stealing our jobs? In Energy and Equity, Ivan Illich suggested that the desire to build robots is the reflex of a society built on slavery… And is there not then a racial subtext to the discourse which claims … Continue reading →

As I’m trying to fry some eggs over-easy, a yolk breaks, and I yell: GODDAMNIT. Anger of this sort—seemingly out of proportion to the situation—is a habitual affect of my own daily life, embedded in my body since childhood, growing … Continue reading →

Larry Kramer’s famous anger… Sarah Schulman’s discussion of white privilege’s complicated role in the work of ACT UP…

One of the things I’m curious about is WHITE RAGE APOLOGETICS… Or, the cultural work that is done in order to justify away working-class white resentment… Examples like David Brooks recently blaming higher-ed & deindustrialization… Bernie Sanders, from another vantage, … Continue reading →

This blog is for me to take notes about the fascism of rural white U.S. culture and white anger/resentment/bitterness For my next book, I’m thinking about writing a first-hand analysis of rural white fascism… based on my upbringing in Appalachian … Continue reading →