In most of the posts and responses on this website, I have rarely encountered an individual who has indicated that he is rich, working class, poor, etc. Yet, I have witnessed many a person making reference to his "race" or coloring as a pivotal vantage point for his being "better off" or "worse off" than others.

But, then again, this is not surprising. Outside of my wife, I don't meet that many people in the U.S. who are concerned with class more than color. In the courses I teach (and with associates at work), when I start talking about class, I get the same kind of blank looks as I've always gotten ever since I was a young man.

All of which makes me tip my hat to the long-dead men who invented hypodescent. By making "black-white" the pivotal divide which separates inclusion from exclusion, "normality" versus deviance and well-being versus victimhood, North Americans have been able to mute and stifle most of the resentments both "blacks" and "whites" should feel against those who are sticking it to most of us. Witness:

* The gap between rich and poor has been widening since the early 1970s;

* Most families need two breadwinners;

* Union membership (the great wage-equalizer for working men and women) is at an alltime low;

* Most new jobs being created are at the lower end of the wage-scale;

* Monopoly capitalism is getting more..........monopolistic.

But that apparently doesn't faze Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public in the United States. If it did, there would be a hell of a lot more articles and papers out on economics and how there should be a more equitable tax system and more equitable wages. What do I mean by "more equitable wages"? Try to explain this math:

My first job in the U.S. as a 17 year old kid was for........$1.66 an hour in 1965. Pretty low, huh? Until one realizes that my Dad's mortgage payment was $115.00 a mo., his car payment was $54.00 a mo. and his food bill was $40.00 a mo. In 2002, a comparable mortgage payment is $1,250.00 a mo., a car payment $540.00 a mo. and a food bill $400.00 a mo. If one looks at these numbers one can see that these expenses have risen tenfold in 37 years. That same low-wage job of mine in 1965 of $1.66 an hour would be the equivalent of a job paying $16.60 an hour in 2002. Do kids in 2002 start their first jobs at $16.60 an hour? No. Do most breadwinners? No. Working people, both "black" and "white" are making, in real dollars, less and less. But there are people doing well here in the U.S. The share of income reserved for the top one percent of households has expanded by over 50% in this period, while the real weekly earnings of the average worker has sunk. In 1979 the average CEO earned 29 times as much as the average factory worker; by 1988, CEOs were earning 93 times as much as factory workers. In the 1980s the combined fortunes of the 400 richest Americans more than doubled in real dollar value.

At some point public awareness of class will improve. I said earlier that, outside of my wife, I don't encounter that many people who talk about class. But that doesn't mean I don't encounter anybody. I do run across people who know. And that number will expand, as color and "race" are more and more neutralized as indicators for what kind of life one leads.

And what will happen as more and more people realize that their real "enemy" is not with each other, but with an oppressive class structure? Oh well...hypodescent served it's purpose while it lasted.

William Javier Nelson, Ph.D.

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