On Sep 28, 2011, at 2:16 AM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
> People of color are disporportionately jailed and punished for crimes that white people walk away from. Of course, they are also poor. But if poverty were the only variable, then there wouldn't be the disproportion.
>
> How do I talk about this without talking about prejudice against people of color?
It's the "prejudice" problem. Having identified it, what do you do about it? Just pointing the finger and saying "racism" often is a form of moralizing and celebration of the anti-racist's own virtue, but what is the political action that you subsequently take? It's more a subjective/psychological category than a political one.
On income disparities, there are cumulative effects of race, e.g., the fact that black people have only a fraction of the wealth of white ones at the same income level. But again, having identified that, what do you do? The liberal foundations are into promoting saving among black families, but where's that going to get, really?
Doug