In the last ten years I have frequently heard working-class whites use terms such as “stupid white people” or “wealthy white people” — a ridiculed class that defends its privilege and perks by loudly proclaiming ideologies whose consequences it has the money and power to navigate around, whether it be illegal immigration, affirmative action, or inner-city crime. A careerist middle-class product like Ta-Nehisi Coates has created an entire lucrative industry based on racial disparagement, having cultivated a love–hate relationship with fawning white urban elites rather than interacting with working-class rural whites. It is ironic that Coates would likely be treated more as an individual if he were working at a lumber mill in rural Georgia with poor whites, whereas he is regarded as a totem by condescending and guilt-plagued Ivy League grandees.

The white working class is not blameless. Drug use, illegitimacy, alcoholism, and violence are choices, not preordained fates. But what drives this endangered class to fury is the constant refrain on television, in Hollywood, on campus, and in politics and government — in our culture at large — of those who are privileged and who hope to maintain and expand that privilege in our racially polarized society by damning white people who are not privileged. The subtext of illegal immigration, government expansion, and political activism is now race and gender, not class. A poor white kid of 18 who came of age in the era of diversity set-asides, not Jim Crow, can expect to gain no edge in hiring and admissions owing to his race or gender. But he will find himself a target for racist allegations by those who seek either profit or penance.

When Quentin Tarantino cites “white supremacy” as the driver for his crude accusations against police, the con becomes laughable: He seeks buffoonish atonement for his own films’ gratuitous n-word vulgarities and the fact that he is worth $100 million and can buy exemption with cheap liberal sloganeering for the enjoyment of his security-guaranteed privilege.