On Tue, 29 Jun 2004, John Thornton wrote:
> whites benefit from
> discriminating against people of color. Is society better off? No, but
> whites are. We can disagree about this if you wish but disagreeing is not
> the same thing as being mistaken.
>
> John Thornton
I don't know if this is the same thing that Luke notices, but consider: if white people live in our society, something that makes our society worse off makes whites worse off. --e.g., if there is a huge reserve army of disadvantaged minority workers, that takes the teeth out of white workers' strike threats. --if African Americans are selectively imprisoned in huge numbers, that increases the tax burden on whites. --if racial antagonisms divide the working class, all poor workers suffer, regardless of race.
I'll side with Oliver Cox on this one: racism in the U. S. is an ideology that benefits the wealthy and powerful, not whites per se. --I'd go so far as to say that poor whites would be better off, in economic and social terms, if racism did not exist in our society. (And wealthy, conservative African Americans would be worse off, because they'd have fewer desperate minority proles working for shit wages.)
Miles