Than white people are, so "race vs. class" is a false choice to begin with.
Also, racism respects no economic boundaries. To illustrate the point: It doesn't matter if a black man is a janitor, a manual worker, an educated professional, or the President of the United States. White society will always treat him as a BLACK janitor, or a BLACK professional, or indeed, a BLACK President. And black is always suspicious, if not threatening, to white society.
When white people on DU say, "It's not race, it's CLASS", what they're really saying is that only white poor, working and middle class people should be listened to, catered to, and have their demands met. In their view, black people and other people of color don't have their own unique and diverse issues that matter-to say nothing of PoC having to face the reality of a racist society every. Damn. Day. Of. Their. Lives.
To these self-described white "progressives", having black and brown people vote overwhelmingly and consistently Democratic is great, because it is "evidence" that the Republicans and right-wingers are racists! Yet they never expect (much less welcome!) black and brown people to issue their own demands and expectations to the progressive/Democratic community-which is ironic, when you consider that middle-class white people have NO PROBLEM in demanding, oh, say, the first Black President of the United States to do more things for them! (the middle-class white folks!)
The double standard is pretty obvious to people of color. I wish it was more obvious to more of (my fellow) white people, if nowhere else but a progressive Democratic Party-supporting community. I guess even THAT is too much to hope for...
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