is “white” code for “rich”?

I just visited Stuff White People Like. The most recent posts are all about class: gentrification and studying abroad. The third, “Being the only white person around,” seems confused: are white people funny if they want to be in ethnically authentic restaurants or if they don’t?
The posts make more sense if you realize that “white” [...]

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will white Southerners vote for Obama?

Obama took South Carolina with Edwards in the race. With Edwards out? In South Carolina … 24% of white voters chose Mr Obama. In Georgia the figure was 43%.
If Clinton falls out of the race, Obama will do fine. This may say more about what I read than the truth, but it seems the people [...]

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why the rich focus on race, ethnicity, and gender (plus politics!)

In a discussion about feminism today, pompe, who lives in Sweden, wrote:
A migrant-descended Swede woman argued that the reason why we (here) focus a lot on ethnicity (and I suppose that’d be what goes for “race” in your country) instead of class is that class issues we actually _can_ do something about. Ethnicity is a [...]

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why I like Obama’s win in SC

Because it’s getting harder and harder to maintain the claim that the US’s greatest problem is racism. This is South Carolina, state of my birth and birthplace of the Confederacy. Yes, Edwards did well with white men like me, but his butt was kicked by people who prefer a physical embodiment of change with a [...]

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justice is not proportionate

People who focus on race in the USA think these figures from the US Census are most important:
Poverty rates in 2006
Non-Hispanic Whites: 8.2 percent
Blacks: [...]

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a question about race and class

If rich and middle-class people don’t care about poor blacks and Hispanics because of their race, why don’t they care about poor whites?
Remember that there are nearly twice as many poor whites in the US as poor blacks or Hispanics. According to the US Census Bureau’s Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United [...]

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Sundown Towns

A sundown town was a town where people of a particular race were warned to be out of town by sundown. Forgotten story of America’s whites-only towns notes this: “The overwhelming majority of sundown towns were in the North.”

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can we only care about one thing at a time?

Two people I respect recently said things that bother me. One claimed I think race is not an issue in the USA; the other said he disagreed with my take on racism and capitalism.
If I’ve ever said something as idiotic as “Racism is over” or “race doesn’t matter” or anything to suggest that race is [...]

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the nigger or the bitch

note: I may have edited this post more than any I’ve written in ages. When you use words like “nigger” and “bitch”, tone of voice is a wee bit tricky.
For Democrats this week, it’s down to deciding whether to be sexist or racist. That nicely sidesteps the simple truth: The D.L.C. loves Obama and Clinton [...]

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Kucinich: blacker than Obama!

At Black Agenda Report: “If 2008 presidential candidate, Ohio’s Dennis Kucinich were a member of the Congressional Black Caucus he would have scored 100% on the CBC Monitor’s report card, while Barack Obama only scored 70%. If Kucinich stands where black voters do, and others don’t, just who IS the ‘black candidate’ in 2008?”

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