A genuine question of my own: what has planted this worry in your mind? What tenor do you speak of? The demographics of the US mean that any policy that POC want to enact has to also be supported by enormous numbers of white people; that POC-friendly policies have ever passed is evidence that working with white people is par for the course.
To attempt to answer your original question, it depends on what you mean by "join".
The simplest answer is to bring it back around to class and recognize the shared fight against intergenerational poverty: support social programs that disproportionately benefit the poor of all races e.g. a livable minimum wage, expanded worker protections, public healthcare, etc.
If what you mean instead is to start a conversation about the unique ways in which poor whites are disadvantaged, well that's fertile ground but it also requires acknowledging that whites and poor whites have schismed into, effectively, entirely different races (they don't intermarry, they don't socialize together, they hold different values, have different cultural touchstones, etc). That's a difficult conversation to have, and you're going to find a lot of resistance from plenty of poor whites who still want to associate their identities with a holistic "whiteness" that they still long to be a part of. But someone has to start the conversation, even if it's uncomfortable, because the alternative is that the powers-that-be continue to wield that longing as an instrument by which to motivate poor whites to vote against the social programs that would benefit them.
Ah, if only it was actually about empathizing and showing respect. Wouldn't that be something.
My prejudices, if you insist on playing that card, come from listening carefully to exactly the people who demand I shut up and listen. I actually go to great lengths to understand their point of view. Before I judge them.
* https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/03/best-whit...
* https://www.news24.com/news24/columnists/melanieverwoerd/mel...
* https://3downnation.com/2020/06/02/dear-white-people-its-tim...
* https://medium.com/i-taught-the-law/shut-up-white-people-950...
* https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-06-11/a-time-to-spea...
* https://select.timeslive.co.za/ideas/2020-06-09-dear-white-p...
* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/30/why-im-no-long...
I'm not certain what you're asking or what you mean by "planted." The word "planted" implies that an idea with no basis in reality was put into this person's head. Seems like a strange way to word it if you're asking that question in good faith.
Anyway, I'm not speaking for the person you responded to, my point here is simply that there are people with loud enough voices saying "white people" should "shut up." That is what I see as part of the current tenor, which would mean that some white people aren't going to bother engaging in this.
"I’m no longer engaging with white people on the topic of race. Not all white people, just the vast majority who refuse to accept the existence of structural racism and its symptoms."
It sounds like you have answered the above poster's question about how to join in: by "accept[ing] the existence of structural racism and its symptoms".
> The word "planted" implies that an idea with no basis in reality was put into this person's head.
As I explain in my post, it cannot have basis in reality due to the provable existence of democratic decisions in favor of POC that have not merely included white voters, but often were comprised of a majority of white voters.
To say that someone is telling whites to "shut up" is to misrepresent your own cited headlines: "shut up and listen". If someone wants you to listen, it is self-evident that they want your help. You don't ask someone to listen if you don't care what they think or what they do. If someone in need asks another for help, the very first thing they will want to do is have the other person listen to what they need. And if someone is telling someone else to shut up so they can ask for help, that suggests that they think their cry for help is being drowned out.
If someone wants you to listen, it is self-evident that they want your help
The whole idea of reframing around class is to say "I know you think race is the primary differentiator, but I really think it's class/money/power". That is a negation of BLM, whose purpose is to bring attention to black Americans' rate of being murdered by police.
Remember the response to "All Lives Matter"? (Putting aside the bad faith actors), a number of people think police violence in general should be the #1 priority. The responses are often, "yes, all lives matter - but right now we're talking about black lives." Remember the cancer-walk comparison? If you show up to a breast cancer walk, trying to talk about prostate cancer, you're being a jerk. (The analogy here would be to show up to the breast cancer walk talking about how it's not even about cancer - all diseases need more awareness.)
It's very complicated. Attention is a limited thing, and while it'd be great if we could care about BLM and poor whites and addicts and immigrants, that doesn't seem to be how the public's collection attention works. Reframing the problem might be a better solution, but I don't think progressives would be receptive towards the reframe.
Thanks for the thought provoking discussion. I personally agree with your statement that it's really about the "shared fight against intergenerational poverty", but I'm not brave enough to try and lead the reframe because I think both sides would reject it. I think this route would address many of the core issues that have led to the Trumpworld voters, who don't care what the stance is as long as someone is fighting for them.
My suggestion is that you can start with what the demographic in question cares about. Then look sincerely at if what you're trying to do actually addresses those real, sincere, valid concerns in a way that's comprehensible to a relatively ignorant person who is perhaps justifiably suspicious of being tricked.
This is a gross oversimplification, but I think the takeaway is it's ok to have spaces for both discussions.
I'd also add that both discussions are happening concurrently. The race issue is big right now, but economic justice is still a central topic. Occupy was a good example even if not a well organized one.
My guess is that any attempt to reframe away from race, towards social class, would be strongly opposed by key interests. That makes it very difficult to get into the conversation, and creates infighting between marginalized groups.
So maybe it turns out this sociology/governance stuff is more complicated than my engineers bias wants to admit. How do you make a decision when the complexity makes prediction useless?
The template for a movement is out there, and we're not as divided as you think. Just ignore academics and journalists lol.
'The narrative' doesn't unconditionally control what people do. There are also multiple narratives out there and people get to subscribe to the one they want. If someone builds up an income-based coalition then the idea of 'systemic racial injustice' will fade away in favour of looking for more money.