If you think race privilege and class privilege exist separately in their own cultural vacuums, then there is a lot you don't understand about American social dynamics. Race and class are intertwined, race itself being a political tool to create class distinctions, first on the grounds that one race was human and the other less than. Then, as it pertains to whiteness, certain European immigrants were able to enroll in "whiteness" as a social category, which granted them numerous benefits that black people were not given - at the very least, to no longer be excluded from certain opportunities on the basis of their race. This is white privilege, and it correlates directly to the ability of poor whites historically to amass wealth and emerge into the middle class.

As for Asians, while you may want to make a comparison between their struggle and that of black people for the sake of neither being white or having that privilege, the black dilemma is quite unique, as no Asians are contending with the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow. Each struggle is unique. Also, if any group is next to be able to enroll in "whiteness", it will be East Asians (Chinese, Japanese, mainly), but not the Cambodians, Laotians, Indonesians of South/Southeast Asia.

Point is, you're trying to aggregate a bunch of different things and explain them all away with one stroke, rather than looking at many complex dimensions of it. You also seem to want to elevate the importance of class privilege over race privilege, which is a very white tendency, especially for those who don't want to acknowledge the institution of white supremacy because of the social responsibility and psychic weight it carries.

This is an old article and my views on the subject have changed significantly. I will probably write a follow-up one of these days, but I've left this one intact just to be able to trace the evolution of my thoughts on race and racism.

Thanks for the comment; you've raised some important points.

Does that mean you won\'t be coming back? Blast!

Sure, you can disagree, but you'd be wrong. A simple look at her filmography shows that most of the characters have not been black. It's not like I'm making this shit up. Look at the voicechasers link I posted, or check IMDB.

I'm in.

Mm, I regard anarchism the same way I regard libertarianism: that it's only feasible for people with great amounts of privilege. Not that the government is doing much of anything for people without it, but I have less faith in humankind to right itself without laws than I do in the free market to regulate itself.

Yeah, definitely in favor of it. I'm struggling right now with the whole Target thing; haven't shopped there since hearing about their support for that idiot in Minnesota.

Pretty much. It helps them to think that resources are already being unfairly allocated to PoCs through "reverse racism".

And yeah, you should definitely read Alexie; his work is really rich and layered with meaning, to a point where I wonder if it's all intentional, or if it just bubbles up out of his proximity to the PoC experience. Either way, it's always thought-provoking.

I'm curious - and this is a comment for Mashow, AHW, and other white folks on here who at least seem to "get it".

What would you say is your incentive for trying to learn POC truth?

That's what it comes back to for me when I navigate these "anti-racism" spaces, when I think about what can be done to deconstruct and disempower Whiteness, like the "Unlearning Racism Project" I'm a part of through my school.

Incentive.

What reason do white people have - apart from the conceivable long-term psychic benefits - to address white privilege or supremacy? Clearly "being a good person" is not enough, especially amongst self-satisfied white liberals who already think they are.

I feel on some level that if I can understand the incentive of the few that "get it", maybe I can translate that into something I can use when broaching the subject with others.

Feingold does sound pretty decent; at a glance the only place he disappoints me is his support for that B.S. healthcare bill - Democrats had no reason to compromise on a single-payer plan.

They could've passed it if they wanted to, but...the Health Insurance lobby flooded them with a lot of money and got enough of them to back out.

A quick look at Open Secrets shows that even he received a good amount of money from "Health Professionals", so that's not much of a surprise.

All things considered though, I wish my state would've had a candidate like him on the ballot. He might've got me out to the polls.