Well-to-do Blacks
(Malik Speaking)

 
 
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Race has always made it hard for whites to see the class structure of their own country. They don't see the advantages of wealth. The ordinary white guy reads about the Bakke case and identifies with Bakke. He thinks Bakke is being shafted because blacks are being favored. He doesn't stop to think that well-to-do white people have always been able to send their kids to the best law schools and medical schools. He doesn't see their privileges or fight against them.

But that just shows how important race is in this country. We will probably never make blacks equal to whites because if we did we would have to face up to the enormous inequalities of class. Blacks are a stabilizing force --even though they suffer because of it.

Reference: For more on the notion of blacks as a kind of stabilizing force in the class structure of American society, see Derrick Bell, Faces at the Bottom of the Well, especially pages 4 and 181.

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