Some NPR correspondent: "...and we all know how this disproportionately affects black and brown communities." /s
American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class
81–90 of 888 posts
Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class
#82It's focused on race, but not in a nice way. It's been arguing about chattel slavery for 200 years, had a civil war over it, and has been busy ever since trying to decide where racial minorities should live and work, and if slaves turned out of plantations with empty pockets were ever at a disadvantage, or if they just fail to have "merit." It's obsessed with race, which is why Affirmative Action and diversity quotas trigger it so much. You would think that the 70% of the population that end up with 80% of the slots would be satisfied, but they're not if they think a black person might have gotten in with a lower SAT score.
It's also focused on class. Its been constantly attacking people who think that class matters since the 20s, and is rabidly anti- any sort of forced sharing, or restrictions on spending as literal sedition.
The economist also hates the poor, but it's willing to care about the poor for a single article if it helps them attack the blacks.
Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class
#83Race, class, gender, age, intelligence, wealth... there are infinite
partitions on humankind, used to divide us. But the future is not
split between the "have" and the "have nots." It will be between the
"will" and the "will nots". Those who submit to domination and those
who choose to remain human.
Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class
#84Racism was literally invented so the working class would fight one another instead of rising up against the elites. Look up Bacon's Rebellion in 1676.
Elaborate please because I’m getting mixed vibes from this comment and Wikipedia’s interpretation of the event referenced.
Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class
#85LMAO at these journalists pretending they're so surprised to find this. As if they had no hand in creating this environment... and as if this wasn't the whole point to begin with. The upper class owns journalism and this state of affairs was very much the goal.
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Note the graph in the bottom-right corner of [0] blaming it on Jewish billionaires.
Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class
#86LMAO at these journalists pretending they're so surprised to find this. As if they had no hand in creating this environment... and as if this wasn't the whole point to begin with. The upper class owns journalism and this state of affairs was very much the goal.
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Your first link contains an anti-semitic dogwhistle. Is this intentional?
Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class
#87How do you determine the class of student being admitted?
Geography and parental income would be good proxies.
That's a great way to get a class full of front-line gentrifier families whose breadwinners are academics, journalists, artists, nonprofit staffers, political aides, social workers, etc.
Class is not income, and finding the highest-performing kids from lower-earning families and neighborhoods is an almost perfect strategy for demonstrating the gaps. Of course that's my own background, so I'd take it!
Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a hilarious book by Paul Fussell titled Class: A Guide Through the American Status System He closes by positing that university intellectuals are above the whole mess ...
> He closes by positing that university intellectuals are above the whole mess That is a very disingenuous if not flat out incorrect summary of what he said. That may be one group of people who might be outside of “this mess” and in his category X, but I don’t think that university intellectuals are categorically in class X. For folks who are interested in a more contemporary class summary, I recommend Michael O’Chur…
No one is outside. The entire point is that everyone thinks they're outside.
Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class
#89LMAO at these journalists pretending they're so surprised to find this. As if they had no hand in creating this environment... and as if this wasn't the whole point to begin with. The upper class owns journalism and this state of affairs was very much the goal.
The goal of whom? Please don't vaguely hand wave about the .1%.
Who specifically with means has had this goal? Because without any kind of evidence or idea of who is doing it, it just sounds like a conspiracy theory.
I ask because whenever I see instances of the ultra rich trying to control the narrative, it always comes off as obvious and ham fisted. The obvious rebuttal is "well you don't see when they succeed", but I don't think they would torpedo a cause they believe in in order for other causes to be successful. Unless they are truly playing 4d chess.
Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class
#90Yeah, I agree that it is important to take into account disadvantages that people may have unfairly experienced due to no fault of their own. But, why do we need to use race as a proxy? Presuming something about someone based on their skin color is prejudice regardless of your intentions. If people are disadvantaged, let's measure those disadvantages directly and adjust for those factors.
The main rationale is that it is complicated. :-) Controlling for income doesn't work well, because whites at the same income level tend to have much more wealth than blacks at the same income level. Controlling for wealth, blacks still tend to poorer access to resources (clean water, prenatal care, etc...). It would be a great achievement if we could simply say that poor blacks were finally as well off as poor white…
I'm sure it is complicated.
But these effects are well studied and I'm sure these institutions have plenty of sociologists that could help come up with some models that work at least as good as stereotyping based on skin color.
The idea that generalizing based on race is just easier leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Why do we tell racists that they shouldn't prejudge people based on race at the same time that people with good intentions do the same thing?