Mike Rose's Blue Collar Brilliance

In the article, “Blue-Collar Brilliance”, the author Mike Rose highlights his view that working class Americans are constantly overlooked and underappreciated in society. He describes the vast amount of intelligence and difficulty of blue collar workers through observing his mother as a waitress and uncle as a factory worker. The focal point of his message revolves around the working class. Throughout the article, the author effectively persuades and connects blue collar individuals through his personal experiences. He emphasizes that blue collar jobs require just as much intelligence as white collar jobs. Mike Rose effectively depicts a story to the reader that intelligence can’t be measured based on the amount of education we received in school, but how we learn them in our everyday lives.
To start off, just because certain jobs require less schooling, doesn’t mean that there is less intelligence needed in those fields of work. In the text, the author writes …show more content…
Uncle Joe is a factory worker who worked up the ranks from working the assembly line to become a supervisor of the paint and body department. Rose made the distinction that his uncle’s workplace is like school, but instead you’re continuing to learn. Even though Joe didn’t receive a formal education, what he did have was hands-on experience and training. Mike Rose stated, “But the life stories of working-class people are few and are typically accounts of hardship and courage or the achievements wrought by hard work.” Mike Rose effectively persuades and shows the readers the complexity of such blue collar jobs. He effectively directs a message and remark that our society needs people skilled and experienced in an array of professions. That these blue collar workers go to work each day with a sense of pride and a sense of purpose in what they do. That they’re the forgotten working class that powers this country as they are the heart of America