[beyelzu]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

Of course individuals can be seen as dangerous based on class prejudice and some white neighborhoods can be seen as criminally dangerous. The point I was trying to make is that terms like "poor white trash" do not pathologize a race and are thus not even on the same scale as anti-black racial slurs.

The "meth capital" reputation is an insulting generalization for the honest working poor in that neighborhood, but that doesn't get extrapolated into de facto assumptions of criminality based on white skin, just as idiotic college open container riots are never characterized as race riots even though they are massively, overwhelmingly white.

How many of those working poor, for instance, get arrested a couple of times a year for being in the wrong neighborhood? I'll wager exactly none of them have. Class bias and its attendant slurs just don't operate on the same principles that racial slurs against black people do.

Oh, and what Shake said.

blacks commit a disproportionate amount of crime, and I am perfectly willing to accept that it is almost certianly because of economic reasons.

and while I probably cant speak for others, I rarely feal uncomfortable in any environment. I think that certain cultural identifiers are probably what people key off of more than simply skin color. The hiphop look if you will. I just dont think that people are going to fear a middle age black man in a suit.

I think the mixture of gangsta rap with its glorification of crime and violence, the fact that blacks are more likely to commit crime and the fact that many black youth's embrace the thug look is as much responsible for the stereotyping as the evil white man.