You don't cut down a tree by just lopping off some branches. That's called pruning.

It is best to uproot it.

is that rich white Southerners convinced poor white Southerners to fight and die in their thousands to defend the rich folks' right to own black people.

And by the way it was a big White house that was getting on the hill. We need to take it back.

what she said.

She talked about two poor white farmers discussing whether they'd fight for the confederacy. One of the farmers said, "You know, old Mr. Beauregard ain't gonna pick his own cotton."

Thus, Trumpism. It’s that simple, and this mindset has proven to be intractable.

-Laelth

conditions across racial lines will not eliminate racism.

I'd still like to see more equity for the poor, regardless of skin color.

I think the wealthy are still trying to foster racial problems, as they live comfortably out of view from most of the population. (Like the absent slave owners of years ago, usually hiring the dregs of white society to be the overseers.)

Very true! Ty!

This is more coming from the perspective that we want to tell the people living on the other side of the river from the slaves that their life really isn't all that much better and there's a solution! I've definitely not saying that it's the slaves fault here and that's not my perspective at all. This is about placing blame where blame is due, up on the hill in the White House.

I was born and raised in Georgia and I have seen the LBJ quote in action.

There's a hierarchy to racism. The who am I better than today thinking that keeps it going.

There is a crossover with classism but, as the quote lays it out, all it takes is an appeal to prejudice to stop struggling white people from thinking about who is actually holding them down.

If all it took were economic equality, racism would decrease as income levels rise, and that's certainly not the case. No, undoing racism will take deliberately anti-racist efforts. They may certainly overlap or intersect with economic changes. But economic changes are not enough.

Wealthy African-Americans still experience racism. Money didn't change that. Less the economic impact of racism does not eliminate the daily racism people encounter.

Money doesn't make white people less racist.

Exactly as you said, it takes people rooting out racism in themselves and anti-racist efforts on the local, state, and federal level.

There's no reasoning with people who reject reason.

against each other so the business/money interests can do what is in their best interest.

It is literally "Look! Squirrel!" to keep both groups distracting and from recognizing their common interests and voting for politicians who will make their lives better.

It doesn't get as much attention as it should, but that is what Rev Dr Barber's "poor peoples" campaign and "moral Mondays" are all about.

I'm worried you're saying that we should stop focusing on racism specifically and just look at classism. If that's so, I strongly disagree. We need to specifically focus on both and each.

Bernie Sanders ran to expensive but ultimately losing presidential campaigns with a similar approach. The reality is economics don’t solve racism. Period.