What does a "white" working class Italian who's parents came over in the 50's have in common with a "white" old money millionaire guy who's German ancestors came over in the mid 1800's?
What does a "black" kid who went to a private school, then Ivy League, and now works at a Private Equity fund in NYC (this is my actual friend) have in common with a "black" kid growing up in Detroit?
The "white" and "black" descriptors of all of these people have little correlation with their daily lives... and yet it's the single adjective that media/Instagram etc speak the loudest about and make it into this huge thing.
Really the biggest separator in our society is socioeconomic wealth. And that should be the main descriptor.
You don't get to opt out of the primary ethnic conflict of your society. If you get read as white and treated as white then you are white. No one is going to ask you to pronounce parsley when the time comes.
Nothing! You’re literally describing intersectionality. Other than you don’t like the terms black and white for some reason as things that are part of people’s lives we’re saying the exact same thing.
A black kid who grows up rich and goes to an Ivy League school still will still have the conversation with their parents about being black to explain why the other kids treat them differently or why they get stares in convenience stores.
Class has more of an effect on your day-to-day life than race. Sure. Fine. But your race is still a part of who you are and affects how you’re treated at all incomes which is the point. Like Jesus, Obama is rich AF and was the most powerful man on earth and his blackness was front and center his whole political career. There is no way a white political figure would have to deal with his haters posting bad photoshops of him in tribal garb where the whole thing is that he’s a scary foreign African. They might have to deal with other bullshit but not that which is the point.
