The "Race Card"

There's this thing referred to as the "race card" that gets a lot of play from Very Serious People.

The same Very Serious People who tut tut liberals and conservatives for not compromising simply for the sake of compromise.

The race card, itself, is merely an illusion. A way to dismiss racial concerns, no matter how legitimate.

People are quick to dismiss racism. It's unpleasant. People seem to forget that racism doesn't need to be racist in intent. Policies and actions that disproportionately affect minorities are still racist.

However, once someone points that out, the race card has been dropped and the Talking Heads begin to cluck their tongues disapprovingly.

Never mind the history of our great nation. We forget that the railway system was built by minorities during a time of legal segregation and outright contempt for minorities in America.

The expression the "wrong side of the tracks"? That's not a coincidence.

The interstate system built in the 50s separated the inner cities from the burgeoning suburbs. Further establishing suburbs as isolated escapes from poverty. Poverty that--as a result of generations of de jour and de facto segregation--disproportionately affects blacks.

Legal segregation only ended in the 1960s. Barely one generation ago.

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Now, today, I believe that racism is less a motivating factor than a side effect. Poor whites are hurt by cuts to entitlements and social programs just as much as poor blacks. That's classism, not racism.

However, intentional or not, these policies still disproportionately affect blacks and other minorities. That's racist.

The threat with classism is that poor whites begin to use intentional racism as a justification. A crutch. As if to say, "This isn't the way things are SUPPOSED to be. There must be a reason." It's good old White Privilege. And, to anyone who rejects the notion, I challenge them to refute the endless literature and documentation on the subject.

Surprisingly poignant are studies of poor whites in the Antebellum South. This is precisely the sentiment that lead to continued racial resentment in the south today.

We can't be too quick to reject race. The effects of race in American history are simply too resonant to ignore. The southern strategy, still successfully used by conservative politicians today is deliberately built on racial resentment.

There is no "race card."