I watched President Obama’s inauguration eight years ago with colleagues with whom I had been teaching and organizing around issues of race, class, sexuality, and gender for almost two decades.  That America had elected a black man to its highest office felt like confirmation that our work, together with the efforts of so many others, had made a difference.  We knew we were a long way from constructing a “post-racial” society, but surely our country was heading in a more just and progressive direction, right?

My sense of hope dissipated long before November 8th, and like many people, I spent much of the past year struggling to figure out how to respond to the very different atmosphere of today. As we enter 2017, with Trump’s inauguration just a few weeks away, I am still thinking about what this election means for Working-Class Studies.

Obviously, we have good reasons to…