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The Stranger Slog reports that two African-American Real Change newspaper vendors have been attacked in recent months in apparently racist attacks. Apparently a white vendor, since fired for the use of racial slurs, had threatened to put a hit out on a black employee who had been promoted over him. While it is unclear whether that incident is directly related to the attacks, this sort of incident seems likely to increase until the economy improves (or until racism is eliminated, but as bad as the economy is right now, it seems more likely that we’ll see improved economic figures before that happens).

Real Change is a newspaper that works to empower the homeless and poor. Vendors from Seattle‘s homeless population earn sixty-five cents per paper they sell, but that can only go so far. When people feel disempowered, they will often take it out on those with even less power. It’s safer to blame those without power than it is to challenge the powerful; if you can use words or actions to reify your own superiority to another then, at the same time, you may confirm to yourself that you are not at the bottom of society.

As more white people feel their position threatened economically, we are likely to see an increase in crimes committed against people of color, as well as other stigmatized groups, in an effort to reconfirm social status.

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