WaPo's Richard Cohen: to gag at the idea of biracial families "not racist."

[RainDog]

5. racism vs. classism

is an excellent topic.

my pov is that racism flourishes in a society with little social mobility - like the U.S. now compared to other western democracies... yes, Denmark and the UK have more social mobility than the U.S. does.

The reason we have less social mobility is because we do not tax wealth enough to create social mobility. That's what it all comes down to, and no one with political power will make the case for taxes because the financial class controls the political conversation in all sectors of society beyond the left.

To even talk of tax increases is to be a commie/marxist, etc. etc. - even Eisenhower, no commie marxist - but labeled this by some Republicans at the time - saw the value of infrastructure investment with the interstate hwy system (but he also justified this with a military reason - to get troops around the states quickly in the case of a communist invasion/attack.)

In this nation, it seems you have to appeal to fear, not smart actions for good reasons that have shown, empirically, that they improve economic outlooks.

but I don't think that solves every problem as far as racism, or sexism, or homophobia, etc. goes.

however, it's a lot easier to discuss those issues when there is more economic stability among a population.