A Quote by Michelle Dean
Hillbilly stereotypes have always made it easier for middle-class whites to presume that racism is the exclusive province of 'that kind' of person.
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The problem is that white people see racism as conscious hate, when racism is bigger than that. Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of whites at other people's expense, whether whites know/like it or not. Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn't care if you are a white person who likes Black people; it's still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don't look like you.
Whites often respond defensively when linked to other whites as a group or 'accused' of collectively benefiting from racism, because as individuals, each white person is 'different' from any other white person and expects to be seen as such.
As a person of color, you're in a PhD level racism class, every day. Every day, I'm in a deep racism seminar. And I'm not saying that white people aren't taking that class, but they don't show up that often and they're auditing it.
It's hard to improve our schools. It's hard to redistribute wealth created by the concentration of technological and financial power or to increase middle-class wages. But it might be easier to lower middle-class costs by building more housing.
Racism is a global problem and it is as damaging to Whites as it is to non-Whites. Everyone must fight against it.
The American middle class always wants to be upper class and is scared to death of being lower class. It's a highly mobile group of people. They're not like the people that want to be shopkeepers forever, have always been shopkeepers and want always to be shopkeepers. These people mostly are insulted by being called middle class.
We do not need to minimize the poverty of the ghetto or the suffering inflicted by whites on blacks in order to see that the increasingly dangerous and unpredictable conditions of middle-class life have given rise to similar strategies for survival. Indeed the attraction of black culture for disaffected whites suggests that black culture now speaks to a general condition.
I was not from a middle-class family at all. I did not have middle-class possessions and what have you. But I had middle-class parents who gave me what was needed to survive in society.
Poor whites didn't have rights. They made all kind of restrictions on voting. So person meant relatively well - off, free white man.
The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.
In the U.S., while individual whites might be against racism, they still benefit from their group's control. Yes, an individual person of color can sit at the tables of power, but the overwhelming majority of decision-makers will be white. Yes, white people can have problems and face barriers, but systematic racism won't be one of them.
Most middle-class whites have no idea what it feels like to be subjected to police who are routinely suspicious, rude, belligerent, and brutal.
There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.
I feel like I'm the luckiest person alive. I'm always waiting for that phone call: 'Hello. We've just realized you're really a no-talent hillbilly. We've made a horrible mistake and we'd like you to leave now.
I feel like I'm the luckiest person alive. I'm always waiting for that phone call: 'Hello. We've just realized you're really a no-talent hillbilly. We've made a horrible mistake and we'd like you to leave now.'
As long as the factories are in the hands of the whites, the housing is in the hands of the whites, the school system is in the hands of the whites, you have a situation where the blacks are constantly begging the whites can they use this or can they use that. That's not any kind of equality of opportunity, nor does it lend toward one's dignity.
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