|
|
Racial Justice, Class Justice
http://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2021/01/25/racial-justice-class-justice/Date Written: 2021-01-25 Publisher: Working-Class Perspectives Year Published: 2021 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX24327 Unity in greater numbers has been the principal strength of working classes since the dawn of capitalism. Reducing economic inequality will routinely reduce racial inequalities unless specific actions are taken to interrupt that connection. Our lopsided levels of economic inequality are now so huge, with so much income and wealth concentrated in the hands of the super-wealthy, that even a relatively modest redistribution of economic resources – say, $2 trillion a year – could improve almost everybody’s lives. Progressive taxation of our infamous top 1% can provide more than enough to finance dramatic economic transformations for the working class of all colors. Abstract: - Excerpt: Because people of color suffer economic hardship and injustice at higher rates than whites, a higher percentage of Black and Latinx people will disproportionately benefit from anything we do to address these injustices. But the largest group of beneficiaries will be white. A $15-an-hour national minimum wage, for example, will benefit more than half of both Black and Latinx workers compared with a little more than a third of white workers. Nonetheless, the majority of workers affected will be white. By ignoring this basic reality, which applies across a wide range of progressive economic policies, we miss an opportunity for class to unite. And it’s not that hard to at least mention the impact on white folks at the same time as you highlight disproportionate effects on people of color. I can remember how Martin Luther King Jr. never failed to mention “poor whites” when talking about political and economic conditions they shared with African-Americans. That was part of King’s universalist if very Christian morality, but it was also smart political arithmetic. Subject Headings |