"We can't talk about racism until no white people are poor."

[struggle4progress]

19. The social notion "race" has no scientific merit: its utility has always been to mystify

the class-structure it imposes

"Race" as a social notion, of course, is real: it has ugly ramifications in the real lives of real people, and for that reason it must be considered when trying to learn the lessons of history. But the point of emphasizing class issues, rather than "race" issues, is that the lower classes ought to be, and need to be, united to fight for common interests and that emphasizing "race" perpetuates imaginary divisions that benefit the status quo.

The proper understanding of race IMO is this:

Racist theories function in a manner similar to the sexist theories that impose "glass ceilings" on women: whether we're discussing chattel slavery, chain-gang labor, or the more recent anti-Hispanic "Juan Crow" system, the theory of "race" has always been used to obscure whose labor can be exploited on grounds of inferiority, criminality, or purported illegal presence in the country, just as anti-feminist theorizing has been effectively used to confine women to lower paying jobs

That is not to say that racist or sexist thinking has disappeared, nor even that any of us -- conditioned as we are by cultural context -- is free of such thinking. And it is not to say that we can ignore the realities and perceptions of racist or sexist experiences of our contemporaries: these matters require constant critical attention. But we will better understand the underlying political tasks we face if we proceed on the basis of a class-analysis