I Don’t Miss the Old Racism
We should not overlook the racism that was once openly accepted in America. There was nothing better about a time when Black Americans faced segregation, racial violence, denial of voting rights, and laws that treated them as inferior. What concerns me today is how race, class, immigration, religion, and politics can become so tangled together that ordinary people begin seeing one another as enemies. Meanwhile, they often face similar struggles with housing, wages, health care, and financial security. That does not mean racism has disappeared or that everyone experiences hardship equally. It means we should ask an important question: who benefits when working people spend more time fighting one another than examining the systems that shape their lives?
What Class Consciousness Really Means
Class consciousness means understanding that working people often share the same economic concerns and can accomplish more by working together. Nurses, teachers, truck drivers, construction workers, and warehouse employees may have different experiences. However, many share the same concerns about wages, benefits, housing, and job security. Race, gender, and where people live still shape their opportunities and struggles. Recognizing these differences does not prevent cooperation. It helps working people find common ground and work together to improve their lives.
How Race Became a Tool of Power
Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia in 1676 is sometimes described as the event that led wealthy colonists to use racism to divide poor Black and white workers. However, the history is more complicated. The rebellion involved disputes over land, political power, frontier conditions, and violent attacks against Native Americans. The growth of racial slavery in Virginia was also driven by economic interests, changes in the labor supply, and racial attitudes that already existed. By 1705, Virginia had established laws that firmly supported racial slavery. Historians still debate how much the rebellion influenced these developments, but the larger lesson is clear. Racial divisions became part of the laws and economic system, giving poor white colonists certain advantages over Black people even though they continued to struggle financially. These divisions made it harder for poor Black and white people to recognize their shared economic interests and work together.
When Economic Anger Becomes Racial Violence
The 1863 New York City Draft Riots demonstrate how economic resentment can become entangled with racism. During the Civil War, federal draft rules allowed men to avoid a particular draft call by paying $300, a sum beyond the reach of many working families. Anger over this unequal burden was understandable, but much of the violence was directed against Black New Yorkers. Black residents were attacked and killed, and the Colored Orphan Asylum was burned. The riots showed how people struggling financially can direct their anger toward those with even less power. Instead of challenging the policies behind their problems, they blame others who are also struggling.
Wilmington and the Threat of Political Cooperation
In 1898, Wilmington, North Carolina, became the site of a violent white supremacist overthrow of an elected local government. Black Republicans and white Populists had participated in a Fusion political movement that challenged Democratic control. White supremacist leaders responded with racial propaganda, intimidation, and organized violence. The attack destroyed Black political influence and demonstrated how racial fear could be used against a coalition crossing racial lines. Wilmington was not simply a spontaneous riot. It was a political assault on Black citizenship and a government that threatened established power.
King and Hampton Understood Economic Solidarity
During the final years of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. increasingly emphasized poverty, labor rights, and economic inequality. Through his Poor People’s Campaign, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for economic justice for people of all races. In 1968, he traveled to Memphis to support Black sanitation workers demanding better working conditions and the right to have their union recognized. Fred Hampton, a young Black Panther leader in Chicago, also worked to build alliances among poor communities from different racial backgrounds. Hampton was targeted by the FBI and killed during a Chicago police raid in December 1969. Their experiences show that racial justice and economic cooperation could be pursued together. However, the historical record does not establish that King and Hampton were killed as part of one coordinated plot to prevent working-class unity. The documented history of political surveillance, repression, and racial conflict is serious enough without unsupported connections.
Racial Appeals and the Decline of Labor Power
As openly racist language became less acceptable in politics, racial messages sometimes appeared in less obvious ways through discussions about crime, government policies, and social change. Political strategists understood that racial resentment could influence voters without being openly expressed. At the same time, labor unions were losing power. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired more than 11,000 striking air traffic controllers, marking a turning point in American labor relations. However, unions were already facing challenges from globalization, automation, employer opposition, and changes in the economy. Union membership declined from 20.1 percent of wage and salary workers in 1983 to 10.0 percent in 2025. As unions lost members, many workers also lost some of their collective power to negotiate better wages, benefits, and working conditions.
Concentrated Wealth and Political Influence
America’s wealthiest citizens now control extraordinary financial resources. According to the 2026 Forbes 400 figures cited in the original discussion, the country’s richest 400 people collectively hold approximately $8 trillion. Wealth concentration does not prove that every billionaire acquired money unfairly or that one person’s success automatically creates another person’s poverty. But enormous wealth can also provide unusual access to political campaigns, lobbying, media organizations, and decision-makers. That influence crosses party lines. Wealthy donors support both Republicans and Democrats, making concentrated political power a concern that should not disappear whenever the donor supports our preferred party.
Is America Becoming an Oligarchy?
The United States remains a constitutional democracy with competitive elections, courts, opposition parties, and independent organizations. Calling it an oligarchy is therefore a political judgment, not an uncontested description of its government. Still, democratic elections do not automatically guarantee equal political influence. Wealthy individuals and organizations often possess resources that ordinary citizens cannot match. The important question is how much concentrated influence a democracy can tolerate before people begin believing their voices matter less than the money surrounding political decisions.
Racism and Economic Inequality Can Exist Together
Understanding shared economic struggles does not mean ignoring racism. A wealthy Black American can still face racial discrimination, while a poor white American may struggle financially without experiencing anti-Black racism. People can share the same economic concerns but face different barriers because of race. Heather McGhee explains this through the history of public swimming pools during desegregation. Some communities chose to close their pools rather than allow Black and white residents to swim together. This denied Black families equal access while also taking away a public benefit from white families. Although racism harmed Black Americans more directly, these decisions hurt entire communities. The lesson is simple: fighting racism and working together for economic fairness can go hand in hand.
The Danger of Fighting the Wrong People
Political arguments often lead ordinary Americans to blame one another for their problems. Immigrants, racial minorities, and rural voters can become easy targets for blame. The same is true for people receiving government assistance, union workers, and those with different political beliefs. Some disagreements are real, and people do not always share the same values or interests. Blaming entire groups can distract people from serious economic and political problems. These include low wages, rising housing and health care costs, weak worker protections, corporate power, and a lack of government accountability. Those with political or economic power do not have to create every division to benefit from disagreements that already exist.
Solidarity Requires More Than Shared Hardship
Working people will not always agree simply because they face similar financial struggles. They may have different views on immigration, taxes, education, religion, policing, and government policies. Labor unions also have a history of racial discrimination that cannot be ignored. Meaningful cooperation requires recognizing these differences and past injustices rather than pretending they never existed. The goal is not to agree on everything, but to find common ground and work together on issues that affect their lives.
Summary
American history shows how racial divisions and economic interests have repeatedly shaped political power. From colonial slavery and the New York Draft Riots to Wilmington, labor unions, and modern campaign finance, race and class have shaped American history. These divisions have often determined who worked together, who remained divided, and who benefited. These events do not establish one continuous conspiracy directed by a single ruling class. They reveal recurring patterns in which racial fear, economic insecurity, and political interests have interacted in ways that deserve careful examination.
Conclusion
I don’t miss the old racism, and I certainly don’t want America returning to it. What I want is greater clarity about the problems working people face and the forces shaping their opportunities. Racism remains real. Economic inequality remains real. Political manipulation remains real. We weaken our understanding when we pretend that any one of them explains everything. We can confront racial injustice without treating every white worker as an enemy. We can challenge economic inequality without pretending racism has disappeared. And we can disagree politically without allowing those disagreements to prevent cooperation where our interests genuinely meet.
The question is not whether race or class divides America. Both can. The more important question is who gains power when we become so busy fighting one another that we stop asking who is writing the rules.