Robert Reich on the Netroots Nation event

[Starry Messenger]

63. "It's hard for Black people to understand what is obvious to white progressives: that

economic issues are intrinsically tied to racism." Slow your roll, lady. That's really not true at all, and a really insensitive thing to post.

Racism is nearly the entire basis for our economic system. It's the struts that hold the rest of it in place. Our country was founded on the riches of Black slavery and has barely relented in profiting in racism in all the years since.

I would lay a firm bet that nearly every Black person who lives in the US knows exactly how much racism costs them economically.

If we move on racist policies, and eliminate conditions that foster racism, that will actually go a long way toward making economic reform, as well as helping to eliminate structural racism, which would be a moral good in its own right.

Racism is the underlying factor in US economics. In our case, class and racism are so intertwined, they are the entire foundation of modern capitalism.

We may never get rid of the haters, but putting legal structures in place to eliminate bias and racist treatment and then rigorously enforcing them would make hatred less politically and economically worthwhile. Our economics are basically racism given a power structure to blossom in.

"Economic equality" isn't a race-neutral concept, and it needs to encompass reforms that eliminate the basis for that inequality too. Changing the minds of white people isn't the problem. It's making racism less of a threat to Black people.