Ehhhhh, I think it is more complicated than that. My first wife is QUITE black, and not even African American, she's just plain straight up an African girl. So, she comes over here, busts her arse, gets trained in a lucrative field, and starts working as a professional. EVERY SINGLE DAY she could tell me about the people who threw her racial appearance in her face. It was often not exactly vicious, but it was all pretty cruel and hurtful. Now, she was obviously not poor. She is also just incredibly good at what she does and super capable, found the very best people in the world to train her, etc. She is a person whom NOTHING will really hold back, and AFAIK she's done quite well. OTOH she did NOT grow up in the 'you are trash' culture of the US, and to her 'poor' would mean 'lives in a mud hut' etc. However I had quite a few black friends in college, and man did they usually get short shrift, poor or not. I agree, being poor is no picnic, it holds a lot of people back in various ways, but I'd MUCH rather be poor than be a minority, as its actually pretty easy for competent people to fix their wealth problems. Heck, I've been dead broke a couple of times. It was annoying, for sure, but then I didn't grow up that way either. Both are bad, anyway.