In a message dated 12/17/2007 8:37:35 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
While I understand the special case of the freedmen in the 1880s convict
lease program, my point was intended to be that race and class oppression
are
intimately intertwined in our country
I hear you, Sharon. However, I always feel a bit queasy when someone raises
the banner of class oppression, bringing abuses of the past into today's
political/social mix. Marx-like pronouncements are likely close behind
(Karl, not
Groucho). Playing the class card (if not MIS-playing the race card) has
become a cliche used by he mindless to bash complex issues. In a capitalist
country that is also a meritocracy, you will "always have the poor with
you" but
you always have the opportunities, however pinched in specific time/place,
for
economic (and thus social) upward mobility. Many feel that we have an
"inherently unfair" system. But where and when has there been one better?
While not
a completely classless society, most would prefer it to that of Britain,
with birthrights of all those social levels choking back the brightest and
the
best. Here the cream CAN rise to the top, which isn't to say that
injustices
do not exist. It has been, after all, the American EXPERIMENT, with ideals
based on "natural law" idealism. Such ideals, while seldom if ever are
fully
realized by all, answer for the greater good, and for the best standard of
living yet known to man.
To characterize America as a "class-oppressed" society seems to me to miss
the boat entirely, not to mention all the progress since Sam's time, in
equality of opportunity; the growth of the middle class, etc.
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