[AnthonyMouse]

> The idea that everybody's equal starting... now! is lovely if you can ignore the fact that some people have a 600 year head start.

Except that nobody is claiming that, and even if they were, you would then be having a class dispute rather than a race dispute anyway.

[cookie_monsta]

So if you understand how historic injustice leads to present day disadvantage then there's no point distracting from the discussion by claiming to be bewildered by the fundamentals.

I agree that class distinctions are becoming less useful except if you define class in terms of opportunity in which case it's hard to argue that it and race live in two completely separate petri dishes.

[AnthonyMouse]

The point is that, for largely existing political coalition reasons, people are trying to make a class problem be about race because it makes it align with the base of a particular political party. Police unions lean Republican, so Republicans have a political need to defend them, so if you can pit black people against the police then you can get them to vote the way you want without actually giving them anything. And then you don't have to worry about them getting together with poor white people to ask why housing costs so much and there isn't more economic opportunity for non-megacorps.

[cookie_monsta]

So, the civil rights movement is a Republican campaign strategy?

LOL.