If Poor Black, White People Unite, They’d Be An Unstoppable Force, But Here’s Why The Powers That Be Won’t Let Them

President Donald Trump followers are clear examples of people voting against their own interests. He has most recently persuaded the Senate and House of Representatives to push through his Big Beautiful Bill that will strip millions of Americans, white and Black, of their health care. This is after he gutted the federal workforce, sending thousands of governmental employees (again, both white and Black) packing. What’s shocking is that many of the people he is hurting helped the man get into the White House.

By now it is common knowledge that white Americans are the reason why Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris in 2024. But there is a deeper question we need to be asking that is bigger than why the man who currently sits behind the Resolute Desk is there.

The question is as simple as it is complex. Why are we so deeply polarized in this country along racial lines?

The division runs deep. So deep, in fact, that many fail to realize that we, white and Black folks, have so much in common politically. Especially when it comes to working class white people. If they were to only open their eyes, they would see they have far more in common with Black folks than they do with Trump and people like him.

So how did we get here? Well, unsurprisingly, much of what we are seeing traces back to America’s original sin: slavery and the war between the states that erupted in its wake.

If you ask most white folks in the South about their ethnicity (their cultural identity), they will just tell you they are American. If you ask most in the North, they will identify as American, yes, but also as Irish, Italian or some other ethnicity that traces back to Europe. Why is this important? Because it shows how the political establishment at that time (almost all white men) convinced white people to identify as white above all else. They did that to solidify support against the growing movement to free slaves. But they did not stop there.

After losing the Civil War, political leaders continued to pit white Americans against Black ones.  They convinced all whites, but especially working-class ones, to see Black Americans as their enemy. They told them Black men were animalistic and after their daughters and they persuaded some to see Black women as welfare queens who did not want to work. But Black folks are not without blame in this.

We have always looked suspiciously at white politicians who wanted our vote. But there are an untold number of Black politicians who courted the Black vote and then did not do what’s best for the Black community.

Any time a person threatened to bring together white and Black people politically, they just happened to be killed. That is not to say that this is the reason why Bobby Kennedy, who was building a biracial political coalition, or Fred Hampton, who was politically uniting working-class white and Black people in Chicago, was killed.

So again White and Black people have more in common that we like to admit. We may not all like the same music nor do we season our food the same way. But we would be wise to look past the way political leaders try to divide us. Because none of us are helped by seeing each other as the enemy.