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July 02, 2008

Racism = Classicm = Racism

Not always, of course. But far more often and widely than the mainstream conversations on the subject seem to indicate.

I don't deny that racism exists - of course it exists. And much of it is pure, knee-jerk racism. But much of it is really just plain old classism if you peek beneath the color coded facade.

One of the hot political issues d'jour is immigration. Yeah, most of those belly-aching about it are only focused on those crossing our southern border. And almost all of illegally crossing that border are of one or more ethnic minorities (in the U.S.). It's true that we hardly ever hear anyone complaining about lilly-white Canukistanians coming in here illegally. But it seems to me that the skin color difference there is nothing more than an excuse - albeit an increasingly less often cited one. And last time I checked the estimates of how many illegally cross our northern border pale in comparison to how many cross our southern border.

Time and time again I've read, heard or watched a news report on illegal immigration which boiled down to "they're taking our jobs!" It's about economics first and foremost.

What motivated black slavery in our nation's early history? Was it the overwhelming desire to have someone under their thumb? To feel superior? No! It was about economics.

Wasn't kinda the entire point of post-civil war "share cropping" deals, from the POV of the landowners, all about economics?

Who coined the term "white trailor trash" and used it frequently enough to propel it into our national lexicon? Wasn't it more affluent whites who gleefully looked askance at those they deemed to be "less than" them? And what determined who lived in the trailer court and who lived in the big house with the expansive yard? Economics!

Of course unmitigated racism exists. It's no less onerous than classism, by any means. But I submit that as long as we continue to artificially divorce racism from classism in the public realm that we only serve to perpetuate the problem, no matter how much we talk about it.

Talk about it, by all means! But talk about the whole issue, not just one facet of it.

So anyway... that's what was on my mind today. Sparked largely by having watched Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North on OPB Sunday evening.

Posted by Kevin at July 2, 2008 08:18 PM