Nine Examples of Class Trumping Race in the USA Today

Because class is still America’s final taboo, I have to begin by stressing this: No one says class trumps race in every circumstance. I do not, which is why this list includes examples of race trumping class.

But where race trumps class, the effect is not as great as race reductionists think. For example, poor black people are more likely to be beaten by the police than poor white people, but middle-class black and white people are both very unlikely to be beaten by the police because the police primarily beat poor people.

1. Class trumps race in poverty

“You say poverty to most ordinary Americans, most ordinary voters, they think black ghettos, whereas over the last couple of generations, class, not race is the dominant — and becoming more dominant — dimension of difficulty here.”

“The class gap over the last 20 years in unmarried births, controlling for race, has doubled, and the racial gap, controlling for class, has been cut in half. Twenty years ago the racial gap was the dominant gap in unmarried births — and now the class gap is by far.”

Source: Robert Putnam: Class Now Trumps Race as the Great Divide in America

“Polite society seemed not to give a damn that it had become easier to get into Harvard or Cambridge if you were…