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"The result of these emotionally driven discussions is that once again, Americans are focused on race being a primary driver of inequality and distracted away from the much bigger issue of class. It's a very convenient tactic for the corporate elites who own our government and want to prevent real change. Racism is a convenient target, because it allows people to blame a problem whose solution doesn't involve massive overhauls of tax policy to better redistribute the wealth that is accumulating with the .01%."

I'd upvote this tenfold if I could. I think the race discussion in America pits us against one another and creates Trumps and anti-Trumps, instead of pinpointing the elite (both the leaders of the Trump and anti-Trump camps are elites).

It's horrifying how far away we are from talking about class. Racial privilege exists, but by focusing on it as the number one priority, the number one problem in America, we've turned it into a wedge issue.

The politicians and elite ALWAYS want us to be focused on wedge issues - gay marriage, abortion, race, a candidate's tax return - because otherwise we might unite against the true crimes of our day, such as inflation and currency devaluation. They emphasize divisive issues to keep us fighting with each other instead of fighting against them.

>>Another thing that drives me crazy about these "privilege" discussions is how insanely qualitative and emotion driven they are.

Asserting another person's privilege is a specific tactic for silencing speech. It is literally a method of supression if you believe in freedom of expression.

The positive side of this is that once you realize this, you can treat people who focus on "privilege" with the exact same tools you use on Mormons and Jehovas Witnesses. Race theorists behave in ways that earn them uncomfortable status in the BITE model.

Except it's not an emotionally driven discussion, it's an issue that has been studied for decades. Saying "it's an issue of class not race" is not a hot take on the issue, it's a distraction that had been quantitatively disproven over and over again.

Believe it or not people have done quantitative studies on the interaction of race and class. You can go read pretty much any study on intergenerational income mobility and find what you want to know: At every single income level blacks are less likely than whites to transition from their parents income bracket to a higher one [0]

And by the way it's not just police shootings that are the issue. Minorities are overrepresented at literally every stage of the criminal justice system. They're more likely to be searched following a traffic stop [1]. More likely to be charged with a more serious crime [2]. More likely to receive worse bail terms [3]. And more likely to receive longer sentences [4].

Please try to not let your emotions overwhelm the mountain of evidence pointing to the fact minorities really do have a different experience than white people.

[0] https://www.chicagofed.org/~/media/publications/economic-per...

[1] https://www.unc.edu/~fbaum/TrafficStops/DrivingWhileBlack-Ba...

[2] http://www.fjc.gov/public/pdf.nsf/lookup/NSPI201213.pdf/$fil...

[3] https://www.pretrial.org/download/research/Testing%20for%20R...

[4] http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/summerprog/2009/nijworkshop/Steff...

Just because minorities on average have a different experience than white people doesn't mean there are not white individuals who have exactly the same experience as some minorities. Telling those white people that their experiences don't matter because white people on average have a better experience isn't likely to make them feel better, though.

Systemically getting targeted by police because of your race vs sometimes they happen to go after you.

Bit of a difference.

Bit of a strawman on your part.

Should it make them feel better to know they are simply being targeted by police because of their class rather than their race?

Can you kindly also cite the studies which show that the level of social mobility in America is now one of the lowest in the industrial world?

Luck, particularly how much wealth you were born with, plays a large role in your likely social outcome, in ways which cast serious doubt on the success of the layout and rules of the economic system under which we attempt to flourish.

If you follow that logic, when you look at historical state-sanctioned inequality, from slavery to Jim Crow to de-facto de-segregation to the present, what we're witnessing isn't a continuation of Jim Crow. The lack of social mobility here (a raceless consideration) has condemned those who've started off many meters behind the 'Start' line of the race.

THAT is the interplay between race and class.

The fact that we can only articulate this in terms of race is the genius of how the dialogue continuously shifts away from wealth inequality (in America the top 1% own 40% of the wealth) and into discussions of white versus black. Now, the average white person and the average black person are pitted against one another, instead of BOTH screaming against this very fact.

It's not just a convenient target once you realize that as recently as the 1970s it was typical to redline neighborhoods so darker-skinned people wouldn't be shown certain homes. It was common to have white suburban flight, leaving all-black neighborhoods in the inner cities with little commerce or industry and few jobs. It's so easy to conflate class and race in some cities because a couple of generations out one still has been so informed by the other.

What's the outcome for a white kid born in a trailer park vs. a black kid born in a wealthy suburb?

I don't think this is a productive framing when there is a huge excluded middle in there, but to your point, when have you seen an upper class white person treated like Henry Louis Gates?[1]

See also: Paul Mooney's "Nigger Wake-up Call"[2]

Americans are focused on race being a primary driver of inequality and distracted away from the much bigger issue of class.

Class is a function of race in the US.

"The latter argument—“the issue is class not race”—claims that because we have poor and well-to-do people within all racial groups, what matters is really class difference. As the argument goes, differences in average wealth across racial groups are in fact caused by persistent class differences; race no longer has a measurable effect. Again, this dismissal of the issue of race does not hold up to empirical scrutiny. Class matters to be sure, but so too does race. Moreover, studies find that minority groups are not able to pass middle or upper-class status on to their children with the same frequency as Anglos. And the “class not race” argument simply avoids the most pressing question: Why should there be such drastic class differences between racial groups to begin with?"[3]

1. http://archive.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/specials/...

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw8cDmLpuzg

3. http://www.guleninstitute.org/publications/analyses/240-how-...

> I don't think this is a productive framing when there is a huge excluded middle in there, but to your point, when have you seen an upper class white person treated like Henry Louis Gates?

If it were to happen to an upper class white person, it would probably not become a national news story in which the POTUS involved himself, as was the case with Henry Louis Gates. So the fact that I haven't heard of it happening to an upper class white person does not suggest, at least to me, that it hasn't happened to an upper class white person.

And as I recall from the news reports, Gates became confrontational and argumentative with the officers who were investigating the report of the possible break-in at his home, as was their duty. That might have been a contributing factor in his getting arrested.

> Is class privilege completely nullified by racial privilege, meaning the white kid is likely to earn more than the black kid as an adult? The data doesn't show this, and puts a much heavier weight on class and geography being the bigger barriers.

What data? This is counter to any data I've seen.

> these emotionally driven discussions

To suggest that there is no rational, factual basis to racism in the U.S. is not helpful to a discussion of serious issues.

Rich black man in a dress shirt drunkenly waving a Wusthof in one hand and a glass of wine in the other in his granite-countered kitchen vs. a dirty white trash kid in a torn hoodie brandishing a machete. Who gets shot?

Details matter.