We live in an inherently inegalitarian society. Why? Because this is a capitalist society. In any capitalist society equality is a concept that is severely circumscribed by a pyramidal social structure that capitalism demands. Not everyone can be a capitalist, otherwise who would do the work? You have to have a working class too, who necessarily are below the capitalist class. Within this context what kind of racial equality is possible? The answer is one that simply reproduces identical pyramidal social structures across all races, where race is substituted by class distinctions. In other words, the struggle against racial injustice in a capitalist society is burdened by this contradiction, where one form of injustice is substituted with that of another.

Yet to struggle for this form of racial equality is to demand that the historically racially privileged white middle class (to take the example of U.S. society) shed some of its privileges and join the ranks of the black working class on an equal footing. Which member of the white middle class is going to agree to this? (We can also apply this same reasoning to the white working class. Which one of them would be willing to join the black underclass?) The political difficulties involved are best illustrated when we see the frequent inability of, say Jewish Americans and Asian Americans (many of whom today are middle class) to come together with, say, African and Hispanic Americans (many of whom are working class), and yet they all face racism/ ethnicism to varying degrees.[1] (See also Capitalism; Class; and Democracy.)

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NOTES

[1] It is important that I strongly emphasize that in any discussion of the subject of race/racism in this course, the objective is not to try and prove that whites are an evil and nasty people or that this society as a whole is an evil and nasty society that is beyond redemption. Rather, the objective is to try and understand what racism/ethnicism is, how it originates and what role it plays in this society, in order to see how we can work toward a society where such forms of prejudice and discrimination no longer exist. 

In advocating a society that is free of such prejudices and discrimination I am not only concerned with issues of morality and social justice, but my position is that, in the long run, such a democratic and civilized society is good even for the racists, sexists, etc. themselves. Remember: that a society that tolerates and even encourages discrimination (in whatever form: racist, sexist, ethnicist, etc.) in the end only hurts itself. Since no single group has monopoly over intelligence and creativity, imagine how far advanced this country would be to day if it had from the very beginning given all minorities, including women, and the white working classes, every opportunity to realize their fullest potential. To further underline this point: a racist society is in one sense like a racist individual. Such an individual has a very narrow and shallow life experience because he/she denies himself/herself access to the rich tapestry of cultures, love, and friendship that non-racist/ non-ethnicist contacts with other racial/ ethnic groups permit. For example: a Euro-American who wants to be truly a racist should refuse to be a Christian, because Christianity is not a European religion, it is a Semitic religion. 

Take another example: a Euro-American who wants to be truly racist should refuse to listen to rock (because rock has its origins in African American music), or eat tomatoes, potatoes, chocolate, and so on because they are not of European origin. In other words, racists do not realize how rich their lives are because of the contributions of the very people they reject; but how much richer their lives would be if they gave up their racism. To immerse one's life in hate (as opposed to love) surely is not only unnatural, but mentally unhealthy--perhaps requiring psychiatric treatment. To engage in prejudice and discrimination is to engage in self-hurt, but let me go one step further and state that it is also to engage in self-destruction. The best example I can give here is that of the Nazis in Germany: in the end their racism/ethnicism brought on to themselves nothing but death and destruction. Think about this: Hitler and many of his henchmen eventually committed suicide. If you are a racist (whatever color you may be), or a sexist (whatever sex you may be), etc., I hope that you will work toward eradicating this prejudice in you and in society; it is not good for you and it is not good for society.