The difficult thing about racism is that everyone is racist (not to mention classist) to a certain degree. To solve it in a systemic way requires that everyone acknowledge and admit it, and then work to overcome it.

"Nigger," "Mick," "Heebie", "Spic/Wetback," "Gaigin," "Gwailo," "Gringo" . . . every language has a word meaning "other, and therefore lesser." In my view, until we all acknowledge it, we're not going to make much progress.

Who do racist policies benefit and how are they perpetuated?

Here's one example.

shaun hannity the radio hate show host patterned himself after the known racist bob grant.

During his beginnings on the radio he had as a call in guest one hal turner a known racist.

The nation long ago documented how turner was given a special number to call and how he and hannity created much of his radio audience.

The point is these talk shows are ALL built around a code speak of racism.

I would argue that people like hannity and grant and imus all well payed by their corporate sponsors are doing their job of keeping the race pot boiling.

Anyone listening to fox news or the hate radio shows knows this to be the case.

But, unless it becomes to obvious like imus yelling "nappy headed ho's", no one takes them on.

Go to you tube and play some palin crowd interviews from her followers.

Who feeds them?

So, since the media is in large part the problem don't expect much change when racist talk show hosts are payed up to 50 million a dollars a year to do their jobs.

Remember the chatter about the pre-election polls being questionable since people were presumed to be hiding racist views hence Obama's numbers were skewed high? it didn't materialize.

Anecdotally, I noticed some people with general negative views of blacks were frankly surprised at Obama's nuanced, intellectual, performance. Encouraging. One brick at a time.

that said, there is a significant racist minority, generally uneducated, that may be increasingly alienated. Not good.

Life goes on.

"Employers want "tall, good-looking" people in the living wage jobs at the front of the house. They want "hard workers" who will put up with dangerous conditions and low wages in the back of the house. Even a cursory look around most high end restaurants makes it clear that to these employers, only white people look good enough, that the only people willing to put up with dangerous conditions for low pay are Latinos and Bangladeshis and that black Americans don't belong in there at all."

This statement betrays a rather startling lack of critical thought. You see the problem correctly: the racial disparity between the front and back ends of a restaurant... but you analyze based on the prism of outward appearance.

Now, I am going to say something controversial... our society has become more color-blind, but the racism has become more pervasive because the "coralling" mechanism that perpetuate disparities are now built on language and eriquette.

The reason, therefore, that Latinos or Bangladeshi are in the back braving the dangers is because they have a limited facility in American English and American manners. If you were to go to a white linen Mexican restaurant, you would have Latinos in the front who speak English and in the back would be Latinos who spoke English with less felicity.

There needs to be more analyses and studies that go into the sensory cues that define culture and class... and how these cues are defined by those who classify themselves in certain socioeconomic categories. I theorize that most people make immediate unconscious appraisals of individuals and situations based on cues that come to us from enculturation. Anyone who speaks clear English with the accent of the region or of a more "upper crust" region and has American manners and posture will get the "good looking" job. The fact that these traits tend to scheme on racial lines will point the who to exactly how the bars of the black iron prison (patriarchy) are set into place.

It is called the "Great Dilemma."

Once a ruling elite introduce racism as a form of social control on the masses, they cannot withdraw the preferential treatment from the class they bestowed the benefit on without eroding support from the society leading to the collapse of the ruling class...

Stay with me here. America was founded on two corporations, British Hudson Bay and Dutch West Indies.

The British used the same policy in Ireland as India and America. So as to maximize corporate profit by minimizing cost, chattel slavery and share cropper serfdom was always the answer. In Ireland, the British gave the protestant Irish a more privileged social deal if they would enforce British rule on the majority of Irish.

The Dutch brought the first chattel slaves to New York in 1624 for cheap labor. The British offered white indentured servants a better deal if they would enforce chattel slavery on Africans around 1680.

From that time on, working class whites under a wealthy elite got a better deal if they helped enforce elite rule and subjugate Africans and Native Americans. Although denied and white washed from history and reality by the majority of white Americans... how are you going to remove the privilege that white Americans enjoy because of institutional racism?

It would immediately be called attacking the middle class. If the elite wealth and power that own this country withdraw the preferential treatment of the white middle class at the expense of minorities and women, the white middle class would no longer support the moneyed elite and Wall Street would have to find a new home.

Once introduced, the privilege can never be withdrawn without the collapse of the power structure. Hence the "Great Dilemma."

Read Theodore Allen "The Invention of the White Race: Racial Oppression and Social Control" for a detailed historical analysis of America and Ireland as comparative social control in colonies by the British.

http://www.amazon.com/Invention-White-Race-One-Oppression/dp/086091660X

The societal institutions were already in place PRE industrial revolution. It is called "path dependency."

The actions and decisions of the past, be it political or economic, we live with to this very day. Institutional racism IS a method of social control by an elite ruling class.

Technology advances, economies industrialize but the institutions of social control remain the same.

Middle class is simply a component of the working class, which is a wide strata in the society. Elite ruling class, the wealthiest 1%, political class, has the highest strata of differentiation, the best deal... then the masses are essentially the working class with numerous levels within it, including the middle class.

Industrialization does not change the method of social control by the elite.