[trominos]

You've refuted a strawman, but you haven't given an actual justification for the original wording.

Using the phrase "poor people" instead of "poor black people" is equally effective -- more, actually, because "poor black people" makes you wonder why the hell it matters that they're black -- and has the virtue of not perpetuating (many) people's unconscious associations of "black" with "poor".

[jimmyjim]

I agree with your point, and although I'm not the original writer of that post, I'm guessing he was trying to give a more nuanced response aware of the racial tensions that exist in socio-economic contexts.