Racial politics

There's a great deal of justified public indignation currently, over what is being billed in the press as the “vast racial divide”, exposed in the aftermath of Katrina. And while there is a terrible truth that African Americans bear an entirely disproportionate burden of poverty status in the U.S., it is that poverty status itself that should be the real story here. Had a comparable disaster struck Logan, Mingo, or Boone Counties in West Virginia, for example, I’m willing to bet we’d have witnessed a similarly sluggish federal response, but in a slightly different hue.

Kanye West was only half right. The Bush Administration doesn’t like POOR people.

Even a cursory examination of White House policies and loyalties over the past five years shows clearly which social class is most favored by our President. It's that top one percent. It's the corporation with a Cayman mailbox. It's the "haves and have mores" that Conservatives call their base, an exclusive club that does happen to include members of more than one complexion.

Again, the serious and unique economic roadblocks confronting a majority of African Americans cannot be ignored, and in this day and age are a genuine disgrace. But I think we should remember that the “race card” has also been used historically by those in powerful places to keep the masses distracted from the real wall of separation in our society. And that wall has always been defined by income bracket, no matter where in the nation, or when in history, you look for comparisons.

If you really think about it, you, like me, have seen countless examples
in your lifetime of multi-hued groups united not because of a common race, but because of their shared rung on the economic ladder. Black or white, young or old, it has always been class that insidiously divides us. And as long as we allow the powers that be to keep us occupied, bickering over skin color alone, chances are we’ll once again lose sight of that Administration hand in the national cookie jar.

This dynamic is not unique to the Bushies. The class war has simmered in this country since that first George took that first oath in 1789, and has continued under Administrations of all political stripes. It’s just that this bunch in Washington is shockingly blunt about it. And, for perhaps the first time in our history, the slow disenfranchisement of the “have nots” has expanded to include significant numbers of the middle class as well.

Our leaders and the media have grown quite proficient at playing up the racial aspects of every topic, so that our focus and debates stop there. Of course, there still are glaring problems involving race that plague the country from coast to coast. But let’s not be duped again into looking only at the issue of black vs. white, while losing sight of the broader inequities being exploited by the Party in power.

The only color they care about is green.