I'm not black though I am a minority and I don't live in a particularly racist area but it was always my experience that education and especially wealth trump race any time, meaning that people discriminate first by wealth, then by education and only afterwards by race, if they do at all. Does it not work like that in other places?
Your viewpoint is a bit simplistic. There's not a hierarchy of discrimination, but rather an intersection. Under various circumstances, certain aspects of your identity might subject you to discrimination or give you privilege. You can't really rank facets of identity, because their impact, regarding privilege or lack thereof, is completely situational.
The author's story speaks to a similarly reductive (or overly hopeful) viewpoint, of which he was disabused. The good news for him is that his son will probably retain enough advantages to overcome the disadvantage being black in America often bestows.
It only takes one person to be racist. And there's nothing stopping a white person with far less education and wealth from calling a black person with far more education and wealth a nigger.
In many areas of the USA, a black person with money or a nice car is automatically assumed to be a professional athlete, rapper, or drug dealer. Whereas a Chinese person with money or a nice car, people will assume they are a doctor, or own a business such as a restaurant, nail salon, or laundromat.
Go and read anonymous message boards. Race dominates. At least in the US.
There's a good bit by Chris Rock where he talks about how no white guy would want to trade places with him, and he's rich.
The show Blackish had a counterpoint though, where the black dad is trying to get his black son to be friends with other black kids -- so they can share in the struggle together. Until he realizes that his son's struggle is more about being a nerd than being black.
Actually in the US it seems to me at least that wealth is a far bigger means of discrimination than race. It does not seem likely to me that a multimillionaire would prefer socializing with a poor person of the same skin colour over socializing with another multimillionaire who happens to be black.
And anonymous boards do not break my rule. They do not discriminate by wealth and education because they are poor and uneducated so they resort to discriminate by race. But wealthy and educated people do seem to me quite likely to consider uneducated and poor people as far less worthy human beings.
It does not seem likely to me that a multimillionaire would prefer socializing with a poor person of the same skin colour over socializing with another multimillionaire who happens to be black.
Ah, but it's the other side of the socioeconomic coin that's key; southern plutocrats blunted the sharp tip of progressive unionization by convincing poor white sharecroppers and field hands that they had more in common with the wealthy white landowners than their fellow black workers. Similar political strategies dominate today -- some race-based (and sharper than ever!), some on other social issues.
But I suspect you'll find a lot more wealthy people marry poorer people in the same race more than they marry wealthy people of a different race. That data can probably be dug up somehow.
I know that blacks I know of who are well off get pulled over a lot more than well off whites. In fact a black guy in a Benz is almost a target in itself.
>It does not seem likely to me that a multimillionaire would prefer socializing with a poor person of the same skin colour over socializing with another multimillionaire who happens to be black.
You might want to test or research that, rather than taking your intuition as fact.
Yes, speaking from personal experience, I'd say that it does depend on the area and the way people are in that area. I agree with you, there are places/circumstances where classism is more prevalent/destructive than racism. In the US on the whole, however, classism still hurts black people more than it hurts anyone else.
