Reply #199: I really think you don't get it [View All]

[kwassa]

With all due respect ....

White privilege is not class privilege. The poorest white has privilege that people of color do not. Whites are often not conscious of having these privileges, because their culture dominates this country and everything in it; it is the default it is the norm, to them. If you do not understand this concept, you will not understand racial issues in this country. I suggest you do a Google search on white privilege and do some serious reading.

Race and class have been, and still are to a great extent, inextricably connected in this country, because of our history. Have you noticed your student body is segregated, and that there are not a lot of poor whites living with poor blacks in inner city neighborhoods? Why? It is the legacy of segregated housing codes in this country that didn't allow blacks to live in certain areas. Those barriers have been struck down legally, but the poverty has been institutionalized in these areas, and there is little turnover and change. These neighborhoods are just as segregated as they were during the era of Jim Crow.

The way you dropped Asians, Jews, and Latinos into this conversation tells me that you don't know their histories, either, in comparison to the black/white history in this country. Each has a unique historical experience, I would simply point out that both Asians and Jews had educational and traditions opportunities in their countries of origin that blacks never had here. It is more variable with Latinos, depending on where they came from. Anyone who is a recent immigrant has a completely different history that they brought with them, not the four hundred years of white and black history in the United States. And, I would point out, legal segregation up to 50 years ago, though desegregation was not enforced in many areas for long after that.

and they certainly do have a racial and ethnic identity. I never met an Asian, Jew, or Latino that didn't identify as one. This part of your thesis has no validity at all.