# If America got rid of all racism . . . how much would really change? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 14, 2004, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204 "2004-03-14T06:22:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/1 "2004-03-14T06:22:44Z")
Lately I’ve started two GD threads on racism: “How much racism remains in white America?” > **[How much racism remains in white America?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=243699)** > > Up through the mid-1950s, racist attitudes were widespread and universally accepted in white American society to a degree that seems completely incredible today. Especially the belief that African-Americans – OK, “Negroes,” let’s not be... and “Defend white supremacy! I dare you!” > **[Defend white supremacy! I dare you!](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=244236)** > > I recently started a GD thread – “How much racism remains in white America?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=243699&page=1&pp=50 Once thing that surprised me about the responses was that, while most posters agreed... Which have elicited a lot of – to say the least – **interesting** participation. (Especially the latter.) But I still wonder whether these discussions are skirting the real problems. Racism, especially white-against-black racism, has been one of the most horrible and intractable social problems of American history. But suppose we got rid of it? Suppose, by some miracle, the hearts and minds of all Americans were cleansed overnight of all traces of racial prejudice, racial hatred, racial fear and suspicion? **How much would things really change?** Hate crimes would be a thing of the past. Hate groups would disband for lack of interest. Blacks would not longer have to worry about getting pulled over for no good reason. All improvements, no doubt. But what else? There’s no more racism. The semiliterate black kid from the projects, who applies for admisssion to a good college or goes to interview for a good job, now has roughly the same chance as the semiliterate white kid from the trailer park. Very good. **But how much of a chance is that?** Racism is still a problem. But it is not the only thing holding back millions of African-Americans from getting ahead in our society, **and it is no longer the most important thing.** If there’s no racism, blacks still have to live the legacy of past racism – a social system that still forces large numbers of them (not all, of course) into poverty and, even worse, effective isolation from the larger society around them. They grow up in inner-city neighborhoods where there is inadequate funding for schools, no good local jobs, and very few positive role models. That won’t change, just because their color no longer counts as a strike against them. The way I see it: 1. Some persisting problems of African-Americans are unique to their dysfunctional urban culture, and the best way to deal with them is to get them out of those neighborhoods – get them into other environments, a few families at a time. E.g., subsidized public housing for the poor is not a bad idea. But instead of a few huge projects concentrated in a few neighborhoods, we should have many small ones dispersed all over the metropolitan area. Affluent suburbanites might object to that, out of fear of crime – but wouldn’t this make it much easier to control? A kid in the inner-city projects can snatch a purse and just fade into the background – but how can he do that in suburbia? 2. Other persisting problems of African-Americans are not unique to them at all, but shared with poor Americans of all races. Lack of affordable health care, lack of access to good jobs and good education and healthy social environments – poor **whites** have these problems too. In today’s America, **class is more important than race.** The best way to deal with that is a new class-interest-based politics. To start with, we really need to do away with race-based affirmative action – not simply do away with it, but **replace** it with an even more vigorous regime of \*\*class-\*\*based affirmative action, to give the poor black kid and the poor white kid and the poor Hispanic kid a leg up in our society, all equally. Of all contemporary American commentators on the interlinked issues of race and class, I think Michael Lind has the best handle on the whole thing. In his book _The Next American Nation_ (Free Press, 1995) – a book I honestly and confidently expect will one day be ranked in importance with _The Federalist Papers_ – Lind made the following statements. (I have gone to the trouble to type these passages up at length and have reproduced them in several other threads. Mods, please let me know if I’m going too far. But I am a lawyer and I’m sure all this comes under “fair use” with respect to copyright law.) To begin with, concerning the concept of “class” generally: > [@](#): > > Understanding the white overclass requires revising the most common misconceptions about class. The discussion of social class has been confused for generations by Marxist thinkers, who made the mistake of completely identifying class with economic function. Like the Marxists, old-fashioned American liberal pluralists tend to misunderstand class. What they refer to as class is typically not a social class at all, but a mere occupational or income category, such as service-sector workers or millionaires. Meanwhile, the New Left which came to prominence in the sixties has tended to drop the idea of class altogether, in favor of race and gender. . . . In recent years, conservative ideologues have added further confusion by defining political factions and lifestyle subcultures as classes. . . . > > In order to think about class in twenty-first century America, we must first clear our minds of these Marxist, liberal, New Left, and conservative definitions of class, and return to the older notion of class found in classical and European political thought from Aristotle to Montesquieu. > > A class is a group of families, united by intermarriage and a common subculture, whose members tend to predominate in certain professions and political offices, generation after generation. Note that the class – the group of similar families – has an existence independent of the offices which its members tend to hold. Indeed, we cannot talk intelligently about class unless we make a distinction between a social class and a mere institutional elite. Those who talk about “the political class” or, with C. Wright Mills, about “the power elite,” are confusing two very different things. Every modern society, even the most perfectly egalitarian, will _have_ an institutional elite – top civilian politicians, military officers, judges, diplomats, financial and industrial executives, publishers, editors and leading intellectuals, clerical leaders, and so on. The subject of class is raised only when you examine the social origins of the particular individuals who hold office in the institutional elite or elites. Learning the organization of judicial offices in a country tells you nothing about class. However, if you find out that most of the judges tend to come from old-money families in a particular region of that country, and that most attended one of half a dozen schools, then you have learned something important about that country’s class system. > > The United States at the end of the twentieth century has both an institutional elite and a dominant social class. The institutional elite is composed of upper-level officials in the federal and state governments, plus executives and professionals in the concentrated private sector and foundation and university executives (low-level government officials and small business owners are not part of the institutional elite). Almost all of the members of the American institutional elite also happen to be members of a single social class: the white overclass. To put it another way, the labor pool from which most elite positions are filled is the white overclass. The overlap is not complete. Though most members of the institutional elite belong to the white overclass, most members of the white overclass are not part of the institutional elite (since the overclass greatly outnumbers the elite); and – though this is uncommon – a person can become a high-ranking politician, military officer, judge, CEO, foundation president, or university president in the United States without having been born into the white overclass. It is possible to imagine a United States in which most members of the institutional elite did not have similar class origins. But that is not the country in which we live. > > . . . The white overclass is the child of the former Northeastern Protestant establishment, produced by marriage (not only figurative but literal) with the upwardly mobile descendants of turn-of-the-century European immigrants and white Southerners and Westerners. Unlike the Northeastern establishment . . . this relatively new and still evolving political and social oligarchy is not identified with any particular region of the country (though it is concentrated in East and West Coast metropolitan regions). Nor does the white overclass dominate other sections through local, surrogate establishments, as the Northeastern establishment once did. Rather, overclass Americans are found in the higher suburbs of every major metropolitan area, North and South, coastal and inland. Unlike the sectional elites of the past, members of the white overclass are not even identified with the regions in which they happen (temporarily) to live. The white overclass, homogeneous and nomadic, is the first truly _national_ upper class in American history. > > The white overclass is the product, not merely of the amalgamation of Anglo- and Euro-Americans, but of the fusion of the rentier and managerial-professional classes. This blurring of the upper and upper-middle strata is a relatively new development in the United States. In earlier generations, there were distinct landowning and rentier classes, with their own lifestyles and institutions – cotillions, seasons spent in the country, and the like. The elaborate rituals that governed upper-class life, such as dressing for dinner, were designed to conspicuously display wealth, including a wealth of leisure time. That was a long time ago. There is a class, or rather a category, of the celebrity rich, and there are still pockets of old-fashioned rentiers in the U.S. – in Virginia, there are still planters who do not work and who hunt foxes with hounds – but these subcultures are detached from the summits of power. Members of the upper class who want to make a mark in the world tend to adopt the style of life and dress and speech of the managerial-professional elite. Even though they do not have to, most members of the small hereditary upper class go to college and get executive or professional jobs, and work, or at least pretend to. Instead of serving as a model for well-to-do executives and lawyers and investment bankers, the hereditary segment of the American overclass conforms to the segment immediately below it, the credentialed upper middle class. And, concerning race: > [@](#): > > The chief danger confronting the twenty-first century United States is not Balkanization [fragmentation of society along ethnic lines] but what might be called Brazilianization. By Brazilianization I mean not the separation of cultures by race, but the separation of races by class. As in Brazil, a common American culture could be indefinitely compatible with a blurry, informal caste system in which most of those at the top of the social hierarchy are white, and most brown and black Americans are on the bottom – forever. Behind all the boosterish talk about the wonders of the new American rainbow is the reality of enduring racial division by class, something that multicultural education initiatives and racial preference policies do not begin to address. > > In the absence of sustained popular pressure from below or concern about America’s international status, the white overclass [a term Lind uses to mean the managerial-professional elite, not white Americans generally] has no incentive to combat Brazilianization in the United States. For one thing, any serious effort to reduce racial separation by class would inevitably mean higher taxes on the affluent – not just the rich, but the politically powerful upper-middle class. What is more, the dominance of the white oligarchy in American politics is strengthened by the emergent dynamics of a polarized society. In a more homogeneous society, the increasing concentration of wealth and power at the top might produce a populist reaction by the majority. But in a society like that of present-day America where a small, homogeneous oligarchy confronts a diverse population that shares a common national culture but remains divided along racial lines, the position of the outnumbered elite can be very secure. This is because the resentments caused by economic decline are likely to be expressed as hostility between the groups at the bottom, rather than as a rebellion against the top. In the Los Angeles riot, black, Hispanic, and white rioters turned on Korean middlemen, rather than march on Beverly Hills. And on the subject of “race”: > [@](#): > > The chief danger confronting the twenty-first century United States is not Balkanization [fragmentation of society along ethnic lines] but what might be called Brazilianization. By Brazilianization I mean not the separation of cultures by race, but the separation of races by class. As in Brazil, a common American culture could be indefinitely compatible with a blurry, informal caste system in which most of those at the top of the social hierarchy are white, and most brown and black Americans are on the bottom – forever. Behind all the boosterish talk about the wonders of the new American rainbow is the reality of enduring racial division by class, something that multicultural education initiatives and racial preference policies do not begin to address. > > In the absence of sustained popular pressure from below or concern about America’s international status, the white overclass has no incentive to combat Brazilianization in the United States. For one thing, any serious effort to reduce racial separation by class would inevitably mean higher taxes on the affluent – not just the rich, but the politically powerful upper-middle class. What is more, the dominance of the white oligarchy in American politics is strengthened by the emergent dynamics of a polarized society. In a more homogeneous society, the increasing concentration of wealth and power at the top might produce a populist reaction by the majority. But in a society like that of present-day America where a small, homogeneous oligarchy confronts a diverse population that shares a common national culture but remains divided along racial lines, the position of the outnumbered elite can be very secure. This is because the resentments caused by economic decline are likely to be expressed as hostility between the groups at the bottom, rather than as a rebellion against the top. In the Los Angeles riot, black, Hispanic, and white rioters turned on Korean middlemen, rather than march on Beverly Hills. And: > [@](#): > > Five hundred years of racial preference will not integrate the United States. At most, it will enlarge new black and Hispanic overclasses, dependent on government patronage and wite overclass paternalism, while doing little or nothing for most black and Hispanic Americans. The social mobility of black and Hispanic Americans is impeded by three quite different kinds of obstacles – active racism, barriers to entry in the economy and politics, and acquired disabilities. No single strategy is appropriate for all three obstacles. Active racism against individuals must be neutralized by rigorous enforcement of antidiscrimination law. Barriers to entry in the economy and politics have to be dismantled by sweeping legislative reforms of how business is done and how elections are carried out in the United States. Acquired disabilities – by which I mean the very real culture of poverty that equips many children of the ghetto and barrio with attitudes making them unfit for the mainstream, workaday community – are the most difficulte, because the most subtle, of all obstacles. Nothing less than a program to liberate denizens of the ghettos and barrios from those environments, family by family, is likely to succeed. > > To the solution of all these problems, racial preference is irrelevant. Indeed it is dangerous, to the extent that the proliferation of racial preference programs lulls white liberals into the comforting belief that, after all, something serious is being done to alleviate the enduring separation of race by class. Most white conservatives simply do not care. > > A serious attempt to integrate American society, then, would consist of coordinated efforts in different spheres – the judicial (antidiscrimination law), the political (legislative reform of education, the professions, electoral methods, and government structures) and the economic (targeted programs to liberate the hereditary poor, as well as broader programs like universal health care and public education benefiting all wage-earning Americans). I say all this needs to be done. We need to build an America where everybody starts with a fair chance in life, even if that involves measures some would call “socialism” (they aren’t, really); and we need an America where the overclass, if it still exists, is no longer distinctively white, and no longer wields political power out of proportion to its numbers. In the long run these reforms are more **important** than fighting racism, and in the long run they are the best **way** to fight racism. What do you say? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/2 "2004-03-14T06:26:03Z")
Should’ve edited that more carefully and not included the same passage twice . . . give me a break, it’s 1:25 a.m. Never mind. Let us proceed. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/3 "2004-03-14T08:53:28Z")
IMHO, if you aren’t black and living in a low-income neighborhood, you can’t offer definitive solutions for helping people who are black and living in low-income neighborhoods. That said, your idea of dispersing subsidized housing, rather than concentrating it and effectively creating new low-income neighborhoods, is a good one. Unfortunately, government on the local, state, and federal levels can’t afford to subsidise housing in upper-crust areas. There’s no point in subsidising it in lower-class areas, and so it becomes necessarily concentrated in lower-middle class areas, of which there can only be so many. ---
**Author:** ![Xenologist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/df705f/32.png) [@Xenologist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xenologist)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/4 "2004-03-14T08:56:13Z")
. > [@](#): > > Some persisting problems of African-Americans are unique to their dysfunctional urban culture, and the best way to deal with them is to get them out of those neighborhoods – get them into other environments, a few families at a time. E.g., subsidized public housing for the poor is not a bad idea. But instead of a few huge projects concentrated in a few neighborhoods, we should have many small ones dispersed all over the metropolitan area. Affluent suburbanites might object to that, out of fear of crime – but wouldn’t this make it much easier to control? A kid in the inner-city projects can snatch a purse and just fade into the background – but how can he do that in suburbia? Been there, done that, tried it. Doesn’t work. The suburbs become crime-ridden slums. The dysfunctional urban culture you speak of is a great part of the problems facing blacks. Perhaps we should look at who’s selling it to them. Listen to rap much? I don’t think trying to force blacks to adapt to a predominantly White alien society is going to work, anyway. Blacks need to make their own way. If Whites could have done everything for them, we would have by now. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/5 "2004-03-14T15:13:24Z")
> [@Xenologist](#): > > Been there, done that, tried it. Doesn’t work. The suburbs become crime-ridden slums. Cite? > [@Xenologist](#): > > I don’t think trying to force blacks to adapt to a predominantly White alien society is going to work, anyway. Blacks need to make their own way. If Whites could have done everything for them, we would have by now. This is a red herring, **Xenologist.** I’m talking about “forcing” blacks to accept anything. The American melting pot doesn’t work that way. And black Americans are not living in an “alien” society, they are living in the society where they and their ancestors have lived for 300 years and more, and black and white society have been exerting influences on each other, back and forth, for all that time. (When was the last time you listened to a distinctly American piece of music that was completely free of any black influences?) If blacks have not assimilated to the extent that, say, the more late-coming Irish, Italians and Jews have assimilated, that is because for most of their history they have been artificially excluded from the process, and that only started to change in the mid-'60s. In his book _The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again_ (Regnery Pub., 2001), Michael Barone compares the blacks to the Irish. The Irish who fled to America in the 19th Century were socially dysfunctional. They were desperately poor and their families had broken down completely. Illegitimacy and prostitution were rampant – Irishmen often abandoned their women, and prostitution was often the only way a girl could survive. (By contrast, there were very few Italian-American prostitutes; it was not necessary – the Italians mostly crossed the Atlantic with their families intact, and the girls got taken care of). The Irish were also extraordinarily given over to drunkenness and brawling. All these are things people say, with some justification, about contemporary inner-city blacks. But the Irish-Americans did not **remain** a permanent self-destroying underclass. Gradually they got accepted, they “became white,” they built stable family units, they organized themselves politically, they got good educations and good jobs, and now for an American to be Irish is merely something about him or her that is a bit interesting and, well, cute. Now, in Barone’s analysis, the blacks only started to leave their “old country” – that is, the Old South, land of slavery and Jim Crow – in the 1960s. And then the barriers which kept them a race of permanent aliens, in the South and in the rest of the country, started to come down. Socially speaking, African-Americans are still **new** immigrants in America despite having lived here since before Independence. We just need to give the melting pot time to work and stir it as best we can. Perhaps the blacks will never assimilate to the point of all turning into “oreos”; but then, the Jews have assimilated to a pretty solid position in American society, yet they remain distinctly Jewish, with their old religion and some remnants of their old customs. It has been said that 11:00 a.m. on Sunday is the most segregated hour in America. But if that **does not change** – if fifty years from now there are still distinct and separate black churches (and black social organizations, and some predominantly black neighborhoods) – that can still be compatible with blacks achieving full assimilation in countless other ways, just as the Jews and the Irish have. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/6 "2004-03-14T15:14:51Z")
Sorry, I meant, “I’m **not** talking about ‘forcing’ blacks to accept anything.” ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/7 "2004-03-14T21:56:18Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Some persisting problems of African-Americans are unique to their dysfunctional urban culture, and the best way to deal with them is to get them out of those neighborhoods – get them into other environments, a few families at a time. Why do you think urban culture is dsyfunctional? Has it failed to function? No. Urban blacks haven’t just curled up and died. Urban culture remains vibrant. So vibrant, in fact, that it is spilling over into suburban and even rural life. It may seem violent, coarse, and oedipial to you but that doesn’t make it inpaired or abnormal. It is a way of life suited to the violent urban environment. You should be more wary of imposing the value judgements of your own culture onto another. Black culture isn’t broken. America is broken and black culture has adapted to deal with it. But just because a way of life is functional doesn’t make it desirable. I think we can agree that people shouldn’t have to live like that and that breaking up the concentrations of extreme poverty is the way to alleviate that hardship. I think though that your method is the exact opposite of what America needs. We don’t need more dispersion. We don’t need more sprawl. We have largely abandoned our cities to those unfortunates too poor to move elsewhere. What we need to do is retake our cities. The answer isn’t to take the poor out of the cities too but to bring the wealthy back. Then we can shrink our metropolitan areas to a more efficient and managable size. > [@](#): > > - In today’s America, **class is more important than race.** \* ## Do you have any reason to believe this is true? It seems to me that both remain important. Have you compared the 2 to reach this conclusion? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/8 "2004-03-14T22:33:31Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > We don’t need more dispersion. We don’t need more sprawl. We have largely abandoned our cities to those unfortunates too poor to move elsewhere. What we need to do is retake our cities. The answer isn’t to take the poor out of the cities too but to bring the wealthy back. Then we can shrink our metropolitan areas to a more efficient and managable size. I’m entirely against more suburban sprawl, **2sense,** and I’m not talking about building even more suburban developments even further out from the city center. I’m talking **who** gets to live, or has to live, in the neighborhoods, urban and suburban, that already have been built. I’m also all for shrinking our metro areas to more efficient and manageable sizes – but that seems to me to be a politically impossible goal. Tens of millions of American families have their entire net worth invested in those goddamned space-devouring shitboxes; I can see no way to sell them on a policy that involves bringing in the bulldozers and turning Maple Acres (Phase II) back into forest or farmland. That is a very challenging problem to discuss – but in another thread. The point I’m making is that poor people in our society, of whatever race, should be able to live on their meager means **without** living next door to other poor people, of whatever race. Perhaps Jesus was right (I hope not) that we will always have poor **people** with us; but I see no reason why we have to have any poor **neighborhoods** anywhere within our borders. Which I think accords exactly with what you are saying. If the rich and middle-class live near the poor, they have an incentive to work and contribute to keep the neighborhood, with all its public amenities and local school systems, nice and clean and functional and safe for **everybody.** That would be much better for society than their present settlement trend, which is to retreat into gated, walled, PUD pods where every family’s income is within $10k of every other’s. > [@2sense](#): > > Do you have any reason to believe this is true [that class is more important than race]? It seems to me that both remain important. Have you compared the 2 to reach this conclusion? It seems obvious to me that for those African-Americans who have escaped from poverty and achieved middle-class status or higher (perhaps a third of the total black population of the U.S. – no cite, but that’s a figure I’ve often heard quoted), white racism is not really very much of a problem – a problem in some ways, sure, but certainly not a problem the way it was for their grandparents or even their parents. (If you think I’m wrong on this point, please tell me why.) But class divisions in our society persist, and they cut across racial lines. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2004, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/9 "2004-03-15T03:56:20Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I’m entirely against more suburban sprawl, **2sense,** and I’m not talking about building even more suburban developments even further out from the city center. I’m talking **who** gets to live, or has to live, in the neighborhoods, urban and suburban, that already have been built. I’m glad we are on the same page here. > [@](#): > > _It seems obvious to me that for those African-Americans who have escaped from poverty and achieved middle-class status or higher (perhaps a third of the total black population of the U.S. – no cite, but that’s a figure I’ve often heard quoted), white racism is not really very much of a problem – a problem in some ways, sure, but certainly not a problem the way it was for their grandparents or even their parents. (If you think I’m wrong on this point, please tell me why.) But class divisions in our society persist, and they cut across racial lines._ It is just those “facts” that seem obvious to us that we need to watch out for. Believing in something that happens to fit your worldview is the easiest way to be misled into basing arguments on false presumptions. I’m not sure you are wrong. In fact, the more I think about it the more likely it seems to me that you are right. Comparing the experience of middle and upper class blacks today with their counterparts from thirty or more years ago isn’t helpful in this regard. A useful comparison would be the difference between today’s middle and upper class blacks with today’s middle and upper class whites contrasted with the difference between today’s poor and today’s middle and upper classes. Looking at it from that perspective I tend to agree with your assumption. The discrimination faced by middle and upper class blacks doesn’t seem likely to be as bad as the lack of health care and such that the poor have to deal with. But I am white so I can’t pretend to understand the entirety of the discrimination faced by minorities. Even where there is a sign to the contrary I have learned to expect that when I pull up to the pump at night the attendant will flip the switch so I can fill my tank without having to go inside to pay first. Would they do the same for a black man? Even one in a suit? I don’t know. What I do know are plenty of regular white folks and if they are any indication then White Middle America doesn’t necessarily like you if you are poor but you are still one of them if you are white. They still don’t see blacks as “us”. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/10 "2004-03-16T01:59:52Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > The discrimination faced by middle and upper class blacks doesn’t seem likely to be as bad as the lack of health care and such that the poor have to deal with. But I am white so I can’t pretend to understand the entirety of the discrimination faced by minorities. Good point. Let’s hear from some affluent, middle-class African-Americans on this thread. How does white racism affect **your** life? And if race-based affirmative action were phased out, how much would you miss it? ---
**Author:** ![Sinungaling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Sinungaling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinungaling)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/11 "2004-03-16T02:34:21Z")
“Race” never exists by itself, but also exists along with class and gender. No one is simply just “black” or “white,” but also middle class, black, and male; or white, poor, and female. Different types of discrimination exist beside each other, and it’s never clear whether the middle class black man or the poor white woman experiences more discrimination. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/12 "2004-03-19T16:51:04Z")
> [@Sinungaling](#): > > “Race” never exists by itself, but also exists along with class and gender. No one is simply just “black” or “white,” but also middle class, black, and male; or white, poor, and female. Different types of discrimination exist beside each other, and it’s never clear whether the middle class black man or the poor white woman experiences more discrimination. It seems rather obvious to me, **Sinungaling** – and this is the essential point of this thread – that the poor white woman **has it worse** in America than the middle-class black man, even if she encounters fewer instances of prejudice in her daily life. Do you disagree? ---
**Author:** ![holmes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e95f7d/32.png) [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/13 "2004-03-19T17:41:16Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > It seems rather obvious to me, **Sinungaling** – and this is the essential point of this thread – that the poor white woman **has it worse** in America than the middle-class black man, even if she encounters fewer instances of prejudice in her daily life. Do you disagree? Yes. White skin is still an advantage. That poor white woman doesn’t have to **stay** poor. It washes off. She goes to Goodwill and finds a nice dress and goes shopping, the security guard doesn’t follow her. The cops don’t pull her over, the bank clerk doesn’t doublecheck her id. She is allowed the benefit of the doubt. No matter what the black person does, the guard sees a black person and all the suits in world won’t help him. And yes, women get the short end of the stick too, but your question was about has it better. I say white trumps all…but it’s getting better. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/14 "2004-03-19T17:55:57Z")
> [@holmes](#): > > Yes. White skin is still an advantage. That poor white woman doesn’t have to **stay** poor. It washes off. She goes to Goodwill and finds a nice dress and goes shopping, the security guard doesn’t follow her. The cops don’t pull her over, the bank clerk doesn’t doublecheck her id. > > She is allowed the benefit of the doubt. > > No matter what the black person does, the guard sees a black person and all the suits in world won’t help him. > > And yes, women get the short end of the stick too, but your question was about has it better. I say white trumps all…but it’s getting better. You’re missing the point, **Holmes.** At the end of the day, the poor white (woman or man, let’s keep gender out of it for the moment) still has to go home to a trailer or an efficiency apartment, and the middle-class black gets to go home to a nice house in the 'burbs. Isn’t that a bit more important than getting suspicious glances from a rent-a-cop now and then? ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/15 "2004-03-19T18:26:18Z")
At the end of the day, the poor white woman knows that no one is going to question the validity of her prescence wherever she goes in America. The black man, despite his social status and prime location, will always be considered a nusiance by his own countryman. I think security and belonging is more important at the end of the day. ---
**Author:** ![holmes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e95f7d/32.png) [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/16 "2004-03-19T18:30:39Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You’re missing the point, **Holmes.** At the end of the day, the poor white (woman or man, let’s keep gender out of it for the moment) still has to go home to a trailer or an efficiency apartment, and the middle-class black gets to go home to a nice house in the 'burbs. Isn’t that a bit more important than getting suspicious glances from a rent-a-cop now and then? At the end of the day the poor white person has the chance at another day. You’re assuming that these poor people want to remain poor…I’m not. I assuming that they want to get a better life and will attempt to do so…that’s when being ‘white’ **can** be an advantage. Please don’t trivalize the effect of those “glances”…I suggest you read [Black Like Me](http://www.shopping.com/xMPR-Black-Like-Me~PD-4587557760~RI-1449823876) ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/17 "2004-03-19T18:36:57Z")
> [@](#): > > _BrainGlutton_ > You’re missing the point, Holmes. At the end of the day, the poor white (woman or man, let’s keep gender out of it for the moment) still has to go home to a trailer or an efficiency apartment, and the middle-class black gets to go home to a nice house in the 'burbs. Isn’t that a bit more important than getting suspicious glances from a rent-a-cop now and then? and it’s cute how you’re trying to trivialize these glances from “rent-a-cops” (try real cops with guns and can and will kill you if they have “probable cause”). Can you imagine what it would be like to be a suspect every where you go, and know that there’s no place on Earth for you to escape it, since it’s happening in what is supposedly your own country? ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/18 "2004-03-19T21:22:53Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > It may seem violent, coarse, and oedipial to you but that doesn’t make it inpaired or abnormal. Violence as a way of life shall never be healthy. ---
**Author:** ![Sinungaling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Sinungaling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinungaling)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2004, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/19 "2004-03-20T05:20:01Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > It seems rather obvious to me, **Sinungaling** – and this is the essential point of this thread – that the poor white woman **has it worse** in America than the middle-class black man, even if she encounters fewer instances of prejudice in her daily life. Do you disagree? Since we’re arguing over the topic then it’s obviously _not_ clear who is worse off. If it _was_ readily apparent who was worse off, then there wouldn’t be any disagreement in the first place. And I’m not necessarily saying that one or the other is indisputably worse off, either. I’m just pointing out the complexity of discrimination, where no one is ever just black or white, but black, white, Indian, immigrant, female, working class, etc., all at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![Sinungaling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Sinungaling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinungaling)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2004, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204/20 "2004-03-20T05:26:05Z")
> [@holmes](#): > > At the end of the day the poor white person has the chance at another day. You’re assuming that these poor people want to remain poor…I’m not. I assuming that they want to get a better life and will attempt to do so…that’s when being ‘white’ **can** be an advantage. Excellent point. It’s possible for a poor person to stop being poor, but it’s not possible for a black person to stop being black. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-america-got-rid-of-all-racism-how-much-would-really-change/234204.md?page=2)