[SudoNhim]

> That's precisely the problem with race in America: race is a decent first-order approximation of class, with all the bad that entails.

Not really. I mean in my state (WA), 48% of people below the poverty line are white, 18% are hispanic, 14% are asian, 14% are black. Sure some approximations of some classes are heavily involved with race, but if you're discussing class dynamics in general race isn't a necessary distinction.

> If we could address that head-on, if people didn't automatically assume that others of the same race are 'like them' and others of a different race are 'unlike them,' and not have those things be true, then racism would be a thing of the past...

Except that humans can't ignore race. The feel-good stories we tell each other about how we are naturally colorblind and taught to be racist, about how racism is an unnatural malignant artifact in our culture, are just that; stories. In reality children will show a strong preference for members of their own race by age 3, and it's not something we can just disappear.

[IkmoIkmo]

> I mean in my state (WA), 48% of people below the poverty line are white, 18% are hispanic, 14% are asian, 14% are black.

You may just be getting numbers back based on the ethnicity that predominantly lives in your state.

Look at relative poverty numbers. i.e., of the number of people who are of ethnicity X, how many are poor? I think you'll surely find a correlation that OP describes as a decent first-order approximation.

For example: white 9%, hispanic 18%, black 37%. That's 2x and 4x more likely to be poor vs white depending on if you're hispanic or black.

[0] http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceeth...

[SudoNhim]

Right, there will be a correlation, but that's not the point. The point is that class as a concept exists very much outside of race.

You can easily read the essay pretending that everybody in the US who isn't white simply doesn't exist, and it still makes completes sense.