2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Third Way Progressives, Screwing the Plebs [View all]Prism
(5,815 posts)Racism and economic bigotry are not the same things. They are simply intertwined things.
In your example. You have you and a homeless white person who is stealing. The shop keeper figures you're the suspect who warrants watching and harrassing. He looks at you and thinks, "Ni**er". That is both racist and economic bigotry. There are shades along that spectrum. I know, I grew up white. I understand how they think. They figure there's "Ni--ers" and then there's, "That nice colored couple who lives around the block." What differentiates a "Ni--er" and a "nice colored couple" in those white minds? Economics. And even then, as I know you know, the racism still exists towards the middle class blacks. They're "that colored couple" down the street. But they're, you know, "ok", because they adhere to the middle class social norms.
Think about many stops during DWB. What is a resting assumption involved in a lot of these? "There's no way a black person could afford to drive a car this nice. It must be stolen." Is that pure racism? Or is it racism combined with the assumption black people must be poor?
I'm not denying a racist component. Not at all. Not in the slightest. It's stupid to deny racism in this country. It's too ingrained to do so.
But to think economic justice will have little to no effect, that it's not nearly as important as social justice, is tunnel-visioned, IMO. It's to deny or at least fail to acknowledge that the economic degradation of people of color doesn't play a role in how they are treated in our system. And, despite the country's racial advances, it's very difficult to chicken and egg among many white minds the source of the bigotry. You ask many white people if they're racist, they'll of course reply, "God no!" And yet, they still make economic assumptions that fall along racial lines. Black shoppers, black drivers, they must be up to something.
That's not encompassing. In a nation with our racist history, it could never be. But it's significant in picking apart what's going on. There are plenty - too many - instances than one can boil down to pure, unadulterated racism. But there are many more - I'd argue the majority - that boil down to white people being taught and inculcated with the thought that black people are also poor people and must be treated accordingly.