Structural racism in American society is only attenuatedly connected to slavery, for starters. If we’d followed through on — and built on — the promise of Reconstruction instead of allowing it to collapse and replacing it with another nine decades of legal white supremacy, we’d be in a lot better shape now.

And since your comment doesn’t address any of the specific points either I or Scalzi made, I’ll leave it there. If you’ve got thoughts on that stuff let me know.

Blacks who may have it worse is because they created a culture in which being a Thug is Cool. Tu Pac The Jesus of the Hood.

But I could go on all week. Bottom line is that there are a Billion Black Programs(funded by Taxes) A Zillion Black places to go and be black till your hearts content. Thousands of Churches with a Racial Name attached to it. And this is concederd Fine and Dandy. But when the Poor dumb hicks join white groups. Mainly because they live in bad hoods and are the victim of an Outrageous amount of Black on White Crime( the stats are truly Horrifying) You see how hate begets hate and so on.

The Fact that Scalzi ignored Class when that has always been the issue. Even in the Slavery Days. Both Whites and Blacks were slaves in Mexico until it got to be to much trouble(therefore costing to much) and they had to free the whites as they were not going to have it.

Oh did I mention I understand there is and was racisim(you poor smucks) That shit has been force fed down our throats and they have tried to force white guilt on us. to a point where you have many liberals who think that they are the Black Champion.(Not that they would walk in their hood but hes still there for them(on the phone maybe)

This is more of the Oh your not responsible for what you do as your a victim bs.

Fact is, this is the best place in the world for black people. It sure the hell isn’t Africa.

I know, you dont like that. Well White sometimes is the lowest setting of getting Reality.

Some people can afford this attitude(as they are safe and like to think better of themselves. and its hard to think of yourself as special when there are almost 300 million of you everywhere. So they set themselfs apart by pretending to be not like the 300 million and for the little guy. the poor black child who needs help from the Great Waldo.

This stuff sickens me. And is Conter Productive. If you morons wants to pretend Racism is something new we havent talked about more then any fucking issue other then the Weather then you need to get a life.

Signed. Kiss my poor ass once in a while.

The video is about 11 minutes long, but it’s worth watching.

http://www.timwise.org/2011/04/tim-wise-at-first-church-of-boston-april-20-2011-beached-white-males-and-the-pathology-of-privilege/

I think I can give a reason for the focus on class: It’s because the number of otherwise privileged people who have been hit by the current economic crisis has reached critical mass. They can now look around and see a lot of people like them (generally educated, straight, white men from a middle-class or higher family) who have recently acquired a set of related characteristics– poverty, unemployment, student loan debt– that have put them at a disadvantage. They notice the class marker because they’d grown up with the assumption that getting a college degree necessarily leads to a well-paying, satisfying job with good advancement prospects. And in the past, they pretty much could count on that– in part, because they DON’T face the issues that hinder people who are LGBTQI, POC, women, undereducated, disabled, mentally ill, from an historically poor family, etc.

The otherwise privileged people who now have their shiny new label of “class underprivileged” see class as the single most important factor because it’s the only axis of oppression that directly affects the large majority of them. Therefore, they feel that if we can fix the class problem, that will fix all the other problems.

And yes, class is an important factor, and yes, being below middle class is definitely a marginalized identity, and yes, it’s wrong that people in this group face additional challenges, and yes, we should aim to fix that.

But the idea that that is THE overarching problem seems to me to be an oversimplification of the fact that class privilege is one of very few privileges that SWMs can lose. Being able-bodied is another example, but it’s not something that happens on as large a scale as the recent loss of class privilege, nor were most people raised to believe that they would always have full use of their limbs or senses. And frankly, SWMs don’t have to worry that some outside force will turn them gay or black or female.

I’d like to ask SWMs who are focusing on class to think very carefully about why you think class is the central issue. Because when you say these things, your words come across as trying to center all efforts at equality on YOUR issue.

You seem not to have noticed something important: A person’s class and economic privilege is very often an EFFECT of the accumulated set of privileged and marginalized identities that zie has. Every way in which you are privileged increases your chances of being upper class. Every way in which you are marginalized increases your changes of living poverty. If the only marginalized identity you have is poverty, then sure, addressing only class divisions will help– but it will pretty much only help you and people like you. All the other marginalized groups will stay in the lower class until the people who have the power stop oppressing them. And ending that oppression– for ALL marginalized groups– is the mission of intersectional social justice, and I’m fairly confident that that’s the context for Scalzi’s metaphor.

Or if both are hired, they mentor the one who they share a bunch of interests with, hang out with after work, and set that person up for a promotion, even though the other applicant actually came in with better prior experience and education?

This kind of stuff really happens. Not all managers are like this, but unconscious bias is quite common… and hey, the people who do this don’t even realize it because it’s unconscious.

The people in power are white male so the landscape is biased towards white males. Even when they have been shorted as Scalzi said on other points, even when because of this they do find some doors closed, they will find many more safe havens than other players in the game. The worst thing is that they don’t even realize this is happening. Too easy to pretend that you got that job because you’re worthy. Too much self-esteem wrapped up in material success in our society, not enough in character.