White Ethnic Class-Based Discrimination?

You can't make this stuff up!

It turns out there's something of a symposium on white privilege over at American Prospect, but Robert Farley really lays down the anectodal evidence for the white power elite:

At Patterson, we actually do line up thirty-five or so students and put them in suits, and it's really not all that hard to make educated guesses about social class. Since we cost quite a bit less than our competitor schools, we tend to have a considerable amount of diversity in class and social background. For starters, it's pretty easy to differentiate between someone who's comfortable in a suit and someone who's not. This isn't a 100% proxy for class, but it's an indicator, because people who are unaccustomed to wearing really nice clothes tend to look uncomfortable in them. You get more clues when you start talking to the students. A straight regional accent doesn't tell you very much, as we have more than a few well-off Southerners. But a lower class Southern accent is much different than an upper class, and in any case upper class Southerners will deploy the accent differently. With Northerners it's a bit different, but you can still find clues to class in the accent, speed of speech, and in the word choice. Finally, lower, middle, and upper class people talk about different things in different ways, even when the subject is international security. This has nothing whatsoever to do with how smart the students are; rather, it concerns the kind of discussions that they regularly have with their friends and families. Once you get to the resume and recommendation stage, the game really is up, because school and connections provide are a fantastic shorthand for class. Do you think that a Harvard education is 18 times better than a University of Oregon education straight on its merits? Assessments of class are never scientific and often aren't even really conscious, but I would guess that most people have some sense of the class background of people they meet without ever seriously investigating the subject.

But make sure you read the precious rest!

Poor Barack Obama!

He'll never, like über privileged George W. Bush, be able to "escape" the stain of race!

But no worries: Affirmative action queen Michelle Obama's to the rescue. Leave no quota behind!