>>> "Joseph Catron"
First Charles Brown argues that blacks cannot be elitists; now you apparently state that neither they nor any other people of color can be anti-elitists. (I know enough exceptions to each claim to avoid any danger of taking either seriously.)
^^^^ Put it this way. Just because you know some person of color who has a snobby attitude toward some poor whites, doesn't mean they are a member of the elite. You need a more objective definition of "elitist". The point is that in the US the elite, the ruling class ,is not open for membership to coloreds. It is a Jim Crow system, whites only. Regardless, of the attitude of some Black person who lives in the suburbs in Maryland, they are significantly not in the elite, whether they think so or not, and whether you want to think they are or not.
Worse, claiming that somebody like Barry is in the "elite" is to take a first step down the slippery slope of one of the worse parts of current racism. It's a self-victimization trope from the KKK , who say things like what Ferraro implied: Black people are now the privileged group or elite and white people are the disadvantaged group relative to Blacks and Hispanics, etc.
In the particular case of Barry's comments, I want to add, the whole media discussion of his comments has craftily pared off the end of his comments, which were to the effect that small town people (whites) turn not only to guns and religion , but to diss'ing immigrants and people different than themselves. In other words, they LOOK DOWN at people of color and other different people as an escape from their economic hardtimes/bitterness. Saying it that way immediately makes my point- Poor white people thinking of themselves as an _elite_ in relation to people of color as an escape from their unhappiness about being in an economic lower class. Perhaps using " lower class/upper class" would be better than" elite" There's no escaping the Lower class for almost any Black people and other people of color in America. Blacks are an inherently lower class in America, even with lots of education or money. I'll said almost without exception, which you ignored in your last response.
A Black person might be an elitist vis-a-vis poor Black people.
Of course, scapegoating workers of color by white workers is the central division of the working class in US history. I just saw a PBS or History Channel program on the history of racism against Chinese workers in the 1870'. I learned some particulars I didn't know of before. There actually was a named "Workingmen's Party" tragically founded on anti-Chinese racism and mass murders and attacks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workingman%27s_Party
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist6/kearneyism.html
^^^^
While I understand (but do not accept) the historical-materialist basis for Charles' position, I cannot imagine any possible justification for a sweeping - and absurd - claim such as yours with so many glaring flaws. Have you really never encountered any mistrust of academic and cultural authority among anyone but Whitey & Co.? If not, do you ever leave your house?
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."
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