Penny Williams: Economic unfairness at the root of racial scapegoating

When the alt-right targets the real cause of their woes, instead of scapegoating people in the same circumstances they’re in or worse, I might develop some sympathy for them. Wages have been stagnant for years. CEOs are being paid a thousand times more than workers and receiving enormous bonuses in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Capitalism is a system that requires unemployment to keep wages in check. Lower-paid workers don’t want to lose their jobs and become unemployed, so they take whatever they can get.

It’s too easy to have a class of unemployed people when you add racism to the mix designating people of color to the ranks of the unemployed and low-paying jobs. Like Bob Dylan told us a long time ago, “the poor white remains at the caboose of the train ’cause they’re only a pawn in the game.” We’ll never be able to conquer racism in America until we have a fully informed discussion that looks at all aspects of our society.

This story was originally published August 22, 2017 at 11:14 AM with the headline "Penny Williams: Economic unfairness at the root of racial scapegoating."