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.