In my post about the book White Poverty, I linked to Betsy Leondar-Wright's moderation of a webinar with one of the book's co-authors.
Betsy's decades of work on class and classism merit more attention. I've known Betsy for a long time (and of her before that). I was honored to partner with Class Action in launching the First in Our Families digital story project when Betsy was CA's leader. I served on the board of Class Action and I presented with her at the Working Class Studies Association conference. For years, Class Action was one of the very few organizations out there training people in business, non-profits, schools, and places of worship about social class and eradicating classism. They launched the original annual First Generation Student Summit that's still held each year on the east coast (and where I once keynoted!).
Her book, Missing Class, is a rare analysis of cross-class dynamics in 25 activists groups, gently shining light on the classism within some middle-class leadership, on the different approaches and assumptions that that activists from different class backgrounds bring to the work of organizing. She writes of ways that activists from different class backgrounds might become stronger by building on one another's' strengths and perspectives in the work for social justice.
I have not yet read her newest book, Is It Racist, Is It Sexist but it is rising to the top of my stack. The webinar series she's moderating for the Working Class Studies Association is an excellent resource.
Betsy has been working to educate others on social class and classism for so long. I've learned a great deal from her, and readers of this site will learn a great deal just browsing her website. I'm encouraged and inspired by Betsy's endless belief that we can all be part of making the world more just, across class differences.
This is sounding more like a letter of recommendation than a nudge for you to go check out her work if you don't know it already.
So just go check out her work already!
