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Racial or Class warfare?

March 16th, 2015 at 05:14 pm

With the greater publicity about white cops shooting african american people, a friend of mine commented that the US doesn't appear to making progress in the race wars. I said I think actually there has been a lot of progress racially but in the us class wars are rising. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I live in a very blue part of the US and I don't think people judge others by the color of their skin. But I think that a lot of people are judging others based on where they live, their education, their jobs.

I mean it seems pretty obvious just talking to people, so many are very much into "sending their kids to the right schools." After all it'll affect where they go to college and a state school isn't good enough. Or sending their kid now to private versus public school. You can sort of see a divide between blue and white collar jobs.

My friend lives in also a blue state but not as affluent. She said she'd have to look closer to see if there were class wars where we she versus her perceived race wars. She felt like where she lived there wasn't such a pronounced difference between those who were "upper middle class and above" and those below.

Do you think the US faces bigger racial or class warfare? Do we even have a problem?

3 Responses to “Racial or Class warfare?”

  1. ceejay74 Says:
    1426527408

    I think they're both huge problems and that they're intertwined. It's hard to single one out as more important than the other, but since the class issue directly impacts people of all races, I suppose you could say that's the bigger problem.

    I have tons to say about this -- I'm very interested in putting an end to police brutality and I know from following this topic that it's racially very imbalanced, and also imabalanced in terms of class. My husband is involved in trying to stop the "school-to-prison pipeline," which has much to do with both race and economics/class as well.

    I would say that consciously, when they are actually thinking about it, people don't judge others by the color of their skin for the most part. However we make a lot of our decisions based not on this rational part of our brain but on a more automatic, unconscious part, and it takes all the data it's been given over the years -- including constant negative stereotypes -- and people's behavior is often controlled by this data, that they themselves would refute if they were thinking about it consciously. (I know I'm not explaining that well. It's based on a book "Thinking Fast and Slow").

    But yes, income inequality is taking a horrendous toll by increasing class divides. And big business controls government to the point that they can just pull strings and keep widening the gap -- and decreasing any controls that might curb their abuse of workers -- pretty much as much as they want. We have maybe 15, 20 legislators on Capitol Hill that are absolutely not in the pockets of big business at all, but they are vastly outnumbered by special-interests puppets.

    Way more than two cents! Sorry for the rant.

  2. laura/the deacon's wife Says:
    1426531978


    From what I see, there are schisms that are starting to happen. Pope Francis has been the first one in the papacy to address the vast wealth in the Vatican versus the disproportionate number of the 1.16 billion Catholics in the world that live in poverty.

    I live in a suburb that could be considered affluent as the median income is above $100K. Within my parish, there are plenty of people who will over their (treasure) to support a cause rather than share their time or talent. Conversely, I have been fortunate enough to know some prominent Baptist pastors that are doing wonders within their own impoverished community to get things up and running (like after school programs to keep kids out of trouble, and affordable housing that improves drug areas). Totally different mindsets, and the poorer area is vastly improving due to the identity of the neighborhood versus hand-me-downs or hand-outs.

    Similarly, one of my daughters attends a very conservative Catholic school. In religion class the instructor wanted to list homosexuality as a sin. My daughter's classmate who is openly gay voiced his opinion that he would be crossing that off the list of sins to be "categorized". Every classmate with the exception of one did the same thing to show solidarity. Now I'm not going to argue the merits of a test question or Church doctrine, but things are changing. I don't know if it is race/class warefare of just the awakening of the younger generation. And my kids are far more into service than consumerism.

  3. PatientSaver Says:
    1426536646

    Just because you don't hear people expressing their views on race relations doesn't mean there isn't a problem. It's not politically correct to be racist so most people (not all) keep that under wraps, although their views can still inform their decisions and behavior, whether they want to admit it or not.

    You might say there's been progress because we have one exceptional black person as US president, but if you hear some of the incredibly bigoted remarks that come from the mouths of some people about the president and/or his wife, you know we still have a long way to go.

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