It’s a good piece. One thing I would nitpick about is that I see the whole ‘twice as many whites on welfare as blacks’ thing quite a lot these days—it seems to be a Thing To Point Out now—and I have two problems with it. One is that it quite simply ignores the ratio of white Americans to black Americans—there are a hell of a lot more white Americans, and a higher percentage of black Americans on public assistance. We don’t let the wingnuts get away with statistical silliness like that, and we shouldn’t do it either.

And building from that, I feel as though it dismisses the whole issue of black poverty and economic disadvantage for a throwaway gotcha point. “Twice as many whites on welfare as blacks!” OK, am I supposed to think now that white Americans are twice as economically disadvantaged as black Americans? Should I assume black Americans are doing fine in this economy? Well, no. So what is the point of this point?