"Racism is a way to gain economic advantage at the expense of others. Slavery and plantations may be gone, but racism still allows us to regard those who may keep us from financial gain as less than equals"
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Racism, in Alveda King s framing, is not mainly a personal defect; it is a profit strategy with a moral alibi. The line lands because it drags the conversation away from the safer terrain of attitudes and into the more indicting terrain of incentives. If racism is a tool for economic advantage, then it survives precisely because it still pays dividends, even after the formal machinery of slavery and plantations has been dismantled.
The subtext is a critique of how respectability language can hide extraction. By saying racism lets us regard potential obstacles to financial gain as less than equals, King points to the psychological work prejudice performs: it softens the conscience so unequal pay, unequal schools, exclusionary hiring, predatory lending, and punitive policy can be treated as normal market outcomes rather than engineered outcomes. Dehumanization becomes the lubricant that keeps the system running without constant moral friction.
Her context matters. As a clergyman and a member of the King family legacy, she speaks from within a tradition that treats racism as both sin and structure. The sentence implicitly rebukes the idea that America has already paid its debt because the most visible symbols of racial domination are gone. She is also intervening in a modern debate where many prefer to locate racism in fringe extremists or bad language; she insists the real engine is mundane and respectable: the protection of advantage.
The intent is less to score a rhetorical point than to reassign responsibility. If racism is tethered to gain, dismantling it requires more than personal enlightenment; it requires surrendering benefits some people have been taught to see as earned.
The subtext is a critique of how respectability language can hide extraction. By saying racism lets us regard potential obstacles to financial gain as less than equals, King points to the psychological work prejudice performs: it softens the conscience so unequal pay, unequal schools, exclusionary hiring, predatory lending, and punitive policy can be treated as normal market outcomes rather than engineered outcomes. Dehumanization becomes the lubricant that keeps the system running without constant moral friction.
Her context matters. As a clergyman and a member of the King family legacy, she speaks from within a tradition that treats racism as both sin and structure. The sentence implicitly rebukes the idea that America has already paid its debt because the most visible symbols of racial domination are gone. She is also intervening in a modern debate where many prefer to locate racism in fringe extremists or bad language; she insists the real engine is mundane and respectable: the protection of advantage.
The intent is less to score a rhetorical point than to reassign responsibility. If racism is tethered to gain, dismantling it requires more than personal enlightenment; it requires surrendering benefits some people have been taught to see as earned.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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