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> Can you imagine Salon tweeting something that started "Memo to black people?" People callously adopt this disrespectful tone when talking about or writing abo

> Can you imagine Salon tweeting something that started "Memo to black people?" People callously adopt this disrespectful tone when talking about or writing about white people that they would not when discussing any other race. I think if you want a public dialogue that's not completely vapid, you're going to have to accept this kind of double standard. There is a class divide here in the US, and that divide squares up precisely with race. Speaking to one side of a class divide in a certain way becomes more or less acceptable over time. I mean, like it or not, white people have built up generational wealth on the backs of black people. This continued long after slavery ended and we subconsciously will do everything we can to maintain that wealth. This tone might look and feel disrespectful, but what it is is a memo to white people that if they don't wake up, they're going to lose it.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> There is a class divide here in the US, and that divide squares up precisely with race. No, it doesn't. Race is a social divide which correlates with, but does not align perfectly with, class which is also a social divide.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  I don't understand your distinction or the underlying mental model you're using. I don't think of race as a social divide, rather as something that you're born with and can't escape. A social divide can crop up around it, but race in and of itself does not necessarily have to create a divide. For example, in ancient Rome slavery was widespread, but there was no skin color distinction. Slaves differed from free mostly by clothing. Once they were free, they could change clothes and change their lives. That didn't happen in the US, and as a result skin color discrimination often got written right into the legal code. Such a thing would have been impractical in many regimes in which slavery was practiced.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > I don't think of race as a social divide, rather as something that you're born with and can't escape. Race is a social construct, not a biological fact. (This is evidenced by the fact that racial identities shift, both “organically” and as the result of deliberate societal engineering; the effort in revolutionary México typified by La Raza Cósmica is an example of a (significant in effect, though incompletely successful) attempt at the latter. Now, it's true that both of these processes tend to be slow, and the context of race in which you were born is likely (providing you don't move to a different part of the world) to be the one in which you live your whole life, or at least the variation will be small, but that's not because race is inherent, just that the socisl attribution of race evolved slowly most of the time. > A social divide can crop up around it, but race in and of itself does not necessarily have to create a divide. Racial identity is always a social divide; it may or may not be a significant social divide in general, in specific, concrete terms in the modern US, however, it's the second most significant such divide, behind that of economic class.
    - angersock 9y ago
      >* Race is a social construct, not a biological fact.* Odd, given the known epidemiology of sickle-cell anemia and other known issues like the alcohol flush reaction (Asian glow).
angersock 9y ago
> white people have built up generational wealth on the backs of black people. This is quite the claim. Some did, say owners of textile mills, but rednecks and white-trash and crackers haven't really gotten much there--since they didn't have much generational handovers to begin with. Blue-collar tradesman didn't exactly make out well over the exploitation of blacks either.
rayiner 9y ago
> I mean, like it or not, white people have built up generational wealth on the backs of black people. This continued long after slavery ended and we subconsciously will do everything we can to maintain that wealth. This tone might look and feel disrespectful, but what it is is a memo to white people that if they don't wake up, they're going to lose it. I absolutely agree with this. But it's completely possible to talk about these issues without being flippant, dismissive, and disrespectful of white people. Indeed, your post does so.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> There is a class divide here in the US, and that divide squares up precisely with race. No, it doesn't. Race is a social divide which correlates with, but does not align perfectly with, class which is also a social divide.

vinceguidry 9y ago
I don't understand your distinction or the underlying mental model you're using. I don't think of race as a social divide, rather as something that you're born with and can't escape. A social divide can crop up around it, but race in and of itself does not necessarily have to create a divide. For example, in ancient Rome slavery was widespread, but there was no skin color distinction. Slaves differed from free mostly by clothing. Once they were free, they could change clothes and change their lives. That didn't happen in the US, and as a result skin color discrimination often got written right into the legal code. Such a thing would have been impractical in many regimes in which slavery was practiced.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > I don't think of race as a social divide, rather as something that you're born with and can't escape. Race is a social construct, not a biological fact. (This is evidenced by the fact that racial identities shift, both “organically” and as the result of deliberate societal engineering; the effort in revolutionary México typified by La Raza Cósmica is an example of a (significant in effect, though incompletely successful) attempt at the latter. Now, it's true that both of these processes tend to be slow, and the context of race in which you were born is likely (providing you don't move to a different part of the world) to be the one in which you live your whole life, or at least the variation will be small, but that's not because race is inherent, just that the socisl attribution of race evolved slowly most of the time. > A social divide can crop up around it, but race in and of itself does not necessarily have to create a divide. Racial identity is always a social divide; it may or may not be a significant social divide in general, in specific, concrete terms in the modern US, however, it's the second most significant such divide, behind that of economic class.
  - angersock 9y ago
    >* Race is a social construct, not a biological fact.* Odd, given the known epidemiology of sickle-cell anemia and other known issues like the alcohol flush reaction (Asian glow).

angersock 9y ago

> white people have built up generational wealth on the backs of black people. This is quite the claim. Some did, say owners of textile mills, but rednecks and white-trash and crackers haven't really gotten much there--since they didn't have much generational handovers to begin with. Blue-collar tradesman didn't exactly make out well over the exploitation of blacks either.

rayiner 9y ago

> I mean, like it or not, white people have built up generational wealth on the backs of black people. This continued long after slavery ended and we subconsciously will do everything we can to maintain that wealth. This tone might look and feel disrespectful, but what it is is a memo to white people that if they don't wake up, they're going to lose it. I absolutely agree with this. But it's completely possible to talk about these issues without being flippant, dismissive, and disrespectful of white people. Indeed, your post does so.