I understand why privileged people of all races are afraid of socialism and don’t even want to do as much for the working class as Bernie Sanders did. Y’all want your poor, desperate workers. But I will note that because the working class is disproportionately of color, anyone who truly cared about people of color would’ve supported him.

Poor white kids don’t live in expensive neighborhoods. Rich black kids do.

Ignatiev realized he was being a race reductionist. Here’s what Theodore Allen, who did the pioneering work on the invention of white people, wrote:

“In his “Afterword” to the second edition, Roediger, with exemplary professional courage and integrity, acknowledges errors committed in the original edition. Some unspecified sections of the first edition, he notes, were “embarrassingly thin.” He refers to “many shortcomings,” for which he presumes others will be able to make amends without much difficulty. But there is one, major, error that he “sharply regrets,” and for which he foresees no simple and easy amendment. That error, he says, was his acceptance of “the dominant assumption…[,] the unexamined and indefensible notion that white males were somehow ‘the American working class.’” Reflecting on this “flat mistake,” he recalls that he himself had expressed a contrary view. He frankly attributes the error to the effect of his “White Blindspot.” This political disability, he goes on to say, incidentally caused the tone of the book to be unduly pessimistic.”

An instant of googling will show you that Americans are much more willing to talk about race than class.