Since we're rewriting the dictionary for the sake of Social Justice Warriors, let's not forget how they're redefining words like "racist" or "sexist" so that, conveniently, only whites can be racist and males can be sexist.

A good example of this doublespeak is argued by the former diversity officer at Goldsmiths Bahar Mustafa (who was forced to resign in disgrace). "I, as an ethnic minority woman, cannot be racist or sexist towards white men, because racism and sexism describe structures of privilege based on race and gender."

(And I notice, in Mustafa's case, she claims that her ethnicity means that she cannot be racist, despite the fact that she's white. Her "ethnic minority" status is supposedly due to the fact that she's half-Turkish (who are white, by the way). Can I claim ethnic minority status because I'm Italian, and therefore cannot be racist?

Of course, these troglodytes seem to believe that guilt is inherited. Worse, that it's inherited by skin color, not necessarily what your actual ancestors did.

I have zero slave owners in my ancestry. Barack Obama has two. Nonetheless, I am guilty because I am white, and Obama isn't because he's biracial and identifies as black.

"Inclusion is a white supremacist tactic that really means assimilation," Totten said. "What exactly are you attempting to include people in? A system that has proven to be traumatic and violent? A system that labels them as other? It's not the way to go."

Actually, the system we have in place now is pretty good, though I feel that we've overcompensated and been too accommodating. You only have to look at the contemptuous attitudes that European blacks hold of American blacks to see that.

And "inclusion" will remain very much in my vocabulary, thanks. Of course, that goes against the agenda of the SJWs and cultural appropriation fascists, who are determined to keep us divided, because there's money to be made in being perpetually aggrieved.

Source reference for my previous claim that Obama has two slave owners in his ancestry. Meant to include it in my previous post. Sorry.

You only have to look at the contemptuous attitudes that European blacks hold of American blacks to see that.

I don't know about this. Please tell.

How about pointing out that if you think that diversity is a good thing, you cannot sanely claim that there are no differences between people?

It's a color game, played for money, nothing more.

That "trauma" showing up in their knees and backs is joint damage from obesity, not some weird-ass referred psychic pain from their slave ancestors 200 years ago.

No doubt, in their minds, the sky-high rates of black obesity is whites fault. Somehow.

You only have to look at the contemptuous attitudes that European blacks hold of American blacks to see that.

I don't know about this. Please tell.

Amy Alkon at April 11, 2016 5:49 AM

Probably similar to the attitude of an African emigre black man I met at a party once. He owned several convenience stores and told me he preferred not to hire American blacks because their work ethic was bad (not agreeing with him, just reporting his attitude). He told me he preferred to hire American whites, Caribbean blacks, and African blacks because they were willing to work.

He also puzzled at the fact that "everyone" in the US describes themselves as "middle class."

"I, as an ethnic minority woman, cannot be racist or sexist towards white men, because racism and sexism describe structures of privilege based on race and gender."

I love it when people say this, because under this definition, no individual person can ever be racist/sexist as no single person is a system or a structure

Also given the laws of this country, it is patently obvious they form a structure that privileges females on the basis of their gender

Ergo, all women are automatically bigots no matter what

Amy, I'm afraid my experience is only anecdotal. Similar to Conan, I have encountered European blacks with similar attitudes toward American blacks. Such as during my time in the service, one European black man told me that he preferred not to be in charge of work details with a lot of American blacks. He said, as I recall, "Once you get a bunch of black people together, they don't want to work."

I love it when people say this, because under this definition, no individual person can ever be racist/sexist as no single person is a system or a structure

And also, based on that definition, who can be a racist? I don't know of anyone, white or black, who has the backing of institutional power to oppress anyone.

Why were Jim Crow laws put into effect? Because not enough white people were being racist, and blacks were getting ahead. So the government put laws on the books to prevent that. Yes,that is racist and "the system" but note that it was because not enough whites would enforce this racism on their own. The idea that all white people are part of a "system" or "conspiracy" is simple-minded and false. There ar all sorts of advantages that people have. If you are tall, athletic, good-looking, well-dressed,well-spoken, etc, you will be treated better and get advantages. Women get special treatment. All of the disadvantages any given individual has can be compensated for. Remarkably ugly people have become famous actors or presidents. Think about Abe Lincoln--not handsome. The labeling of members of a group as guilty of that group's sins is a racist act, because it assigns blame to individuals based on the actions of others.

Once again the Left, thinking they are near the Final Victory, takes the mask off. Inclusiveness? That was just a recruiting slogan, comrade.

"Her 'ethnic minority' status is supposedly due to the fact that she's half-Turkish (who are white, by the way)"

That's the hilarious part. Anyone who knows anything at all about European history finds the idea that Europe was a "white culture" laughable. Europeans never thought of themselves as white. They thought of themselves as English, Scottish, French, Prussian, Austrian, etc. And they fought bitter wars driven by these thoughts. Caucasian? That was yet another ethnicity.

Finally, I'll back what Conan and Patrick said. I used to live in South Florida and I knew some Caribbean blacks. Without exception, they regarded the American urban black culture as low class. And in some cases, they saw American blacks as what is referred to now as "cultural appropriators", as they took up elements of Rasta culture in the 1980s.

Remarkably ugly people have become famous actors or presidents. Think about Abe Lincoln--not handsome.
Craig Loehle at April 11, 2016 10:56 AM

I know that Lincoln put down his own looks, but other people didn't necessarily think he was bad-looking. Here's what William Herndon wrote (I don't know whether this was before or after Lincoln grew his beard, which was in 1860):

http://www.lincolnportrait.com/physical_man.asp

"The foregoing list of traits hardly adds up to a flattering sum. The physical Lincoln, the external man, was made for caricature, was the delight of cartoonists. But there was more, far more, to Lincoln's appearance than all this. He cannot fairly be depicted by a mere catalogue of his peculiarities. To the people he met he made an impression which no such inventory can convey."

"At first glance, some thought him grotesque, even ugly, and almost all considered him homely. When preoccupied or in repose he certainly was far from handsome. At times he looked unutterably sad, as if every sorrow were his own, or he looked merely dull, with a vacant gaze. Still, as even the caustic Englishman Dicey observed, there was for all his grotesqueness, "an air of strength, physical as well as moral, and a strange look of dignity" about him. And when he spoke a miracle occurred. "The dull, listless features dropped like a mask." according to Horace White, an editor of the Chicago Tribune. "The eyes began to sparkle, the mouth to smile, the whole countenance was wreathed in animation, so that a stranger would have to said, "Why this face, so angular and somber a moment ago, is really handsome!" "He was the homeliest man I ever saw." said Donn Piatt, and yet there was something about the face that Piatt never forgot. "It brightened, like a lit lantern, when animated."

"Here was a Lincoln the camera never caught. When he went to the studio and sat before the lens he invariably relapsed into his sad, dull, abstracted mood. No wonder, he had to sit absolutely still, with his head against the photographer's rack, while the tedious seconds ticked by. It took time to get the image with the slow, wet-plate process of those days. There was no candid camera, no possibility of taking snapshots which might have recorded Lincoln at his sparkling best. "I have never seen a picture of him that does anything like justice to the original." said Henry Villard, the New York Herald reporter. "He is a much better looking man than any of the pictures represent."

"The portrait painters were hardly more successful. "Lincoln's features were the despair of every artist who undertook his portrait." his private secretary John G. Nicolay declared. A painter might measure the subject, scrutinize him in sitting after sitting, and eventually produce a likeness of a sort. But "this was not he who smiled, spoke, laughed, charmed." said Nicolay. The poet Walt Whitman commented after getting a close-up view: "None of the artists or pictures have caught the subtle and indirect expression of this man's face." And again, some years after Lincoln's death: "Though hundreds of portraits have been made, by painters and photographers (many to pass on, by copies, to future times), I have never seen one yet that in my opinion deserved to be called a perfectly good likeness: nor do I believe there is really such a one in existence."

"The word pictures do much to supply what the photographs and paintings missed, yet these descriptions also fail to show the man complete. All who tried to describe him admitted that the phenomenal mobility and expressiveness of his features, the reflections of his complex and wide-ranging personality, were beyond the power of words. "The tones, the gestures, the kindling eye, and mirth-provoking look defy the reporter's skill." the reporter Noah Brooks confessed after seeing Lincoln deliver the Cooper Union speech (1860)."

He also puzzled at the fact that "everyone" in the US describes themselves as "middle class."

Conan the Grammarian at April 11, 2016 7:54 AM

I may have mentioned this before; in England, at least, it's OK to be poor, or rich - but being middle-class is/was considered an embarrassment.

So maybe the American tendency is to do the opposite for just that reason?

(Or, of course, maybe we just don't like to admit that a class system exists - and would exist - in the U.S. even if we had always been one color/ethnicity. BTW, this is something Dr. Helen Smith certainly ignored in her book "Men on Strike.")

BTW, my late American, baby-boomer mother decided to read the first Harry Potter book, years ago, to see what her young music students were always talking about (though not to her, per se, I would guess) and she groused afterward that "it's PROBABLY better for kids than reading comic books" but she also complained about the portrayal of the Dursleys as a nasty stereotype of England's middle class. Why that would bother her so much, I couldn't tell you.

"He also puzzled at the fact that "everyone" in the US describes themselves as "middle class.""

That is remarkably true. It seems like making under $20k/year household income self identify as poor. Making over $125k/year unearned income self identify as rich (i.e. over $5M in invested assets). Everyone else is 'middle class'. And that unearned bit is important. There are people making over $10M/year who self identify as middle class for some crazy reason.

There are people making over $10M/year who self identify as middle class for some crazy reason.
_________________________________________

Well, leaving aside that particular income level, from what I've heard, plenty of rich people choose not to LOOK rich - that is, you couldn't pick them out of a crowd unless you already knew them personally. They also don't have fancy homes or take fancy vacations, they avoid debt like the plague, they put retirement savings first,and they teach their kids not to expect anything in life unless they work for it. So, in a sense, they feel middle class.

It's important to teach kids that you can look rich or be rich, but seldom both - and those who look rich are often deep in debt. Or are just renting things that you think they own.

That is very true Lenona. The car of choice for millionaires is the Ford F150. It's a good truck and useful for hauling stuff. BMW and Audi drivers on the other hand are often up to their eyeballs in debt.

I was commenting more on where American's feel rich/poor. Income quintiles look like a good objective measure to me. The bottom 20% in income is ~$20k/year. So people who self identify as poor match quite well. The median is $52k/year. And the top 20% starts at $100k/year. For me that makes those people 'the rich'. But they don't self identify that way. Guys like Jimmy Kimmel who make ~$12M/year call themselves middle class or average joes. By any objective measure they aren't.

The dividing line where Americans feel like the rich is when they make ~$125k/year without working. As long as they work for their money they will still call themselves middle class no matter how ridiculous that claim becomes.

I must confess I don't know how other nations feel about that.

"the trauma they experienced at AU"

Man, I grew up with a lot of working class kids (as my own family was working class) who would have loved to have THAT chance at such "trauma"!

I was one of the lucky ones who did get to go to college.

Life is what you make of it. They need to learn that lesson.

I have this one friend from high school, who didn't get to go to college, yet, today he runs a successful business cleaning offices. He has about 20 people, give or take, working for him.

He started out after high school doing just that - cleaning for someone else. He soon found that cleaning offices was a better deal than cleaning homes and switched. Then he got more contracts and hired others to help.

Here it is decades later and he OWNS his own company (until Bernie takes it away from him; we all know that according to Obama my friend didn't build that business; so good luck hanging onto it)

But, he was smart and saw opportunity where it was. He didn't gripe about what he didn't get. He just made the best of what he got.

Those kids need to grow up.

You gotta feel sorry for those poor American Negroes. They are more sacred than Muhammed himself, completely immune from criticism, drowning in American luxuries. They really have to stretch to find things to complain about.

"All who tried to describe him admitted that the phenomenal mobility and expressiveness of his features, the reflections of his complex and wide-ranging personality, were beyond the power of words. "The tones, the gestures, the kindling eye, and mirth-provoking look defy the reporter's skill."

Thus went the article about Jim Carrey!

"but she also complained about the portrayal of the Dursleys as a nasty stereotype of England's middle class. Why that would bother her so much, I couldn't tell you."

I can tell you why. It's because since the late 1960s, the group that they call "the 68'ers" in Germany have been hell bent on creating a cultural impression that it's uncool to be middle class. Being poor is OK because, in their minds, poor = bohemian, and bohemian is cool. And being rich is OK, because the rich people throw great parties. The middle class? All they do is go about their business, wanting nothing more than to be left alone. Boring! Un-entertaining! Of course, when there's a mess to be cleaned up, it is the expectation that the middle class will come and take care of it. But that just makes them even more uncool.

As hilarious as Monty Python was, the fact remains that a lot of their stuff consists of poking fun at the British middle class, in a whole bunch of different ways. At least one of them, Eric Idle, came to regret this later, as further generations of "humorists" continued ragging on the middle class, but without the actual humor part, while simultaneously complaining about how society was becoming less civilized. I read a quote recently, that I can't find now, that went something like: "Upsetting applecarts is fun. But after you've done that, where do you go for apples?"

And the top 20% starts at $100k/year. For me that makes those people 'the rich'.

When I saw that I'm decently into that top quintile based on income.. I was shocked. I am nowhere near "rich" and could just as easily lose my home if I were laid off and couldn't get another job quickly enough. Granted, I've got at least 6 months of a cushion compared to many having none, but I'm even struggling to come up with the money to do a remodel on my home I want to do (stupid company stock dropped a ton, if I'd sold it early last year, I'd have had the money already). I know, 1st world problem.

When you live in SoCal, the cost of living is huge, so what makes one rich overall, doesn't really apply here.

That really is first world problems Miguelitosd. You say you don't feel rich but you also claim to have over $60k in savings. The median US net worth excluding the home is only $17k. You are well over the 50% mark. And probably over the 80% mark. A sad statement indeed (about the US not you).

You also reference the location effect. But that is something you chose. As people increase in income they then move to where people with a similar income live. So no matter how much money you make you will be surrounded by people making a similar amount. Which is why Jimmy Kimmel feels middle class. (And why he claims Obamacare doesn't affect the middle class. When you make $12M/year insurance costs aren't a big deal.)

This is also why it is a bad idea to help relatives (mainly kids) live in an area they can't afford. So you bought an affordable (for you) house and you let your kids live in it rent free. But can they afford the cars, the food, the services, and the entertainment that their neighbors can? Or do they feel poor and oppressed because they are living far above their means? It is often much healthier to live below one's means. Being the rich person on a poor block feels better than being the poor person on the rich block.

On the cost of living issue, that is real but again it is mainly by choice. As people can afford more they move to areas with higher costs of living. Or in California's case they use government to increase the cost of living. If you include cost of living in the calculation California has the highest poverty rate in the US. Residents of Mississippi may be poor but it also costs nothing to live there.

My advice is to be proud. You may not be Bill Gates or Oprah but you are well into the top 20%. You may still work for your money but you are paid well.

P.S. When politicians talk about 'Tax the Rich' they usually mean anyone making over $20k/year.

"Everyone" in the US considers themselves "middle class" regardless of their income . . .

Just remember, "class" isn't just about income level. It is also about attitude and values.

If there are only three basic classes (of course, there are many more - but, let's just stick with three basic ones) the breakdown into these three:

Lower class - they are the ones who have no hope for a better future. They live in the "here and now". Expecting and getting handouts. They don't expect to work for a living.

The upper class, or more properly called the "leisure" class. They are the ones born to wealth. They also don't expect to "work" for a living. They expect that their wealth and others will work for them. ("only the little people pay taxes") Sure, there are occasions when some of them might feel a "noblesse oblige" to give back to society; but, not so much any more. In the old world this class as inherited. In the new world, one can be born to this class, but, there is no guarantee that one's children will also enjoy it. They or their children could very well fall to "middle" class and have to earn a living. The horrors!

The "middle" class that most Americans think they are in - regardless of income - is those who expect to work for a living. Expect to take care of their own. Sure, a government handout now and then when things are tight would be nice. (soc. sec. and Medicare come to mind) But don't hold your breathe. The middle class holds these and several other values that make them more or less the same regardless of income.

So, whether someone is working at a blue collar job or the owner of his own business where that guy works - both are middle class because of their shared values. Those values are what make them "middle" class.

I can buy that claim Charles. A lot of my point was how fluid the terms are mainly due to no one knowing what the statistic are. There really isn't a clear definition of 'middle class' in the US. Talk to one guy you get one answer and talk to another you get a different answer.

So, just to be clear, middle class is makes over minimum wage and works 40 hrs a week.

Doesn't matter if you make $10/hr or $5,000/hr you are still middle class. That doesn't reveal much about your values or even life style to me so I consider it a throwaway term. Same with 'rich'. 'Tax the rich' or 'the rich aren't paying their fair share' really means 'go make someone else pay for it. I don't want to.'

Fits in with all those other squishy terms like 'fair', 'inclusive', 'privilege' and what not. We are in humpty dumpty land where words mean what I wish them to mean when I wish them to mean it.

Read Class by Paul Fussell. He does an interesting job breaking down the American class system. It's a bit dated, but still interesting.