Placating the vulnerable

I finished listening to White Trash: The 400-Year-Old-History of Class in America by LSU history professor, Nancy Isenberg. If you believe that America is a classless society founded on the principle of equal opportunity for all, this book will burst that bubble. The following quote from the epilogue jumped out at me because it accurately assesses, in my opinion, how politicians have manipulated different sectors in society including the "Christian vote." 

Moved by the need for control, for an unchallenged top tier, the power elite in American history has thrived by placating the vulnerable and creating for them a false sense of identification - denying real class differences whenever possible. pg. 313.

I also highly recommend this Pass the Mic podcast with Andy Crouch, author and executive editor of Christianity Today. His take on the dynamics of the 2016 election, politics, and the treatment of the vulnerable is spot on.

Now when "class inequality" is mentioned, it makes people nervous. Don't worry. I am not advocating socialism. History has proven how that works, and it doesn't. (e.g. the Chinese Cultural Revolution) Maybe the real problem isn't that there are different socioeconomic levels but that we favor some and despise the others. (This doesn't exempt us from James 2:14-17.) So to avoid facing our own discomfort, shame, and prejudices (the sin of partiality James 2:9), we pretend there are no differences whatsoever. Is this why we unconsciously and consciously do tacit norming? Is this why we ape our betters? This applies to race as well and the fallacy, also my opinion, that colorblindness is the solution. But flattening out our differences dishonors the uniqueness of our humanity. Imago dei and God's providence do not produce cookie-cutter people. We may affirm this in words, but do we wield cookie-cutters in deed?

I don't know what the answer is, but there won't be a solution if we don't acknowledge there is a problem.