General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why Liberals Separate Race from Class [View all]starroute
(12,977 posts)Capitalism is built on exploitation of the poor and powerless. In the US, that has mainly meant poor black people. Racism is a way of sweeping that fact under the rug -- either through the racist arguments that black people are poor because they're lazy/stupid/inferior or through the "you can't change people's hearts" way of implying that racism is wrong but there's not much you can do about it.
But if you stop taking racism as a given and start thinking about what needs to be done to eliminate it, you immediately come up against the problem of exploitation. And the only ways to end black exploitation are either by substituting some other oppressed minority -- which would be morally unacceptable to almost everyone at this point -- or by moving towards an economic system that doesn't require exploitation to wring profit out of what would otherwise be a healthy, self-sustaining system.
So by all means, let's strive for racial justice -- but let's also look beyond that to the larger context.