Re: "racism divides working people from each other"...

[YoungDemCA]

...I believe it is critical for us to remind the white liberals and leftists - who are basically the only people who perpetuate this meme - that the division only goes one way. It's not working people of color who have consistently sided with the wealthiest Americans against the interests of both people of color as well as the common people more broadly.

The racial divide within the working class is entirely the result of white racism and efforts to uphold white supremacy. Workers of color have always been pushing for their inclusion within the Anerican labor movement and other movements of working people. And white workers have quite consistently and deliberately excluded workers of color from participation in working class political movements. So much for working class "solidarity".

The almost exclusively white voices who lambast how the wealthy classes "divide us against one another" and "distract us from pushing for economic justice" have no business calling for working class unity against the "1%" when it is their community - the white community - who have been entirely responsible for the race-based divides and interracial tensions within the Anerican working class.

My message to these white liberals: Make sure that your own house is in order before you go around criticizing others for supposedly sowing "division" among liberal-minded people.

[freshwest]

1. I agree with this more than I can say here.

Racism, sexism and other biases transcend class. Not everything is the fault of the 1%.

[TygrBright]

2. An IMPORTANT reminder! Couldn't agree more. n/t

[Nitram]

3. Truth.

The 1% certainly benefits from racism, but it originates within families and communities.

[LWolf]

4. This confuses me.

But then, I'm white, so I have, passively or actively, benefited from white privilege. I freely acknowledge that.

I come from working poor people. I'm the first person on any side of my family to attend college. I am female. I know what it is to be poor, I know what it is to struggle to survive from week to week, and I know what it is to be treated as a lesser person, in the form of sexism, in the world and in the workplace. That's not the same as racism, but I have still experienced discrimination, and have fought against discrimination in my lifetime.

I have not excluded workers of color from participation in working class political movements; but then, I'm not sure when there has BEEN a vibrant working class political movement since I came of age.

I have been aware of racial justice issues, and the need to support achievement on that front, since my pre-teen years; my single working mom made sure I was aware.

I don't think I've "sided with the wealthiest Americans against the interests of both people of color as well as the common people more broadly," but then, I'm not sure what you are referring to here.

I freely admit that I have not been on the front lines, and therefore don't have enough information to form an opinion. That's not a function of disinterest or disinclination; it's a function of time, place, and struggle to get by right where I am.

I freely admit that I tend to be outside cultural and social norms, and therefore don't relate to conventional wisdom from any side.

I do think that economic justice and racial justice are interconnected to some degree. I don't think separating them helps either of those causes, and I do think that working on them together benefits both. I also know that the growing socio-economic inequalities aren't helping anyone...but those at the top.

I don't know who accused whom of sowing division, but I recognize the division itself. I freely admit that I don't understand some of it.

But then, I don't understand why people do most of what they do, and often when I do understand, I disagree.

That's where my house is.

[gollygee]

5. When people say race is being used to divide us

They seem to be saying that people of color shouldn't be able to vote how they want or speak about issues that affect them, and that their self-preservation is divisive.

It's ridiculous. I always reply, "If race is dividing us, let's not be divided! Let's all work with people of color!" Funny how people of color are supposed to change what they do and say to avoid "division" and conform to how white people do things, but white people would never consider changing what we say and do to avoid that "division." They are expected to change, not us.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

6. This is what the Southern Strategy was all about.