The history of the US is far more rasist then it is classist; and there has been far more social movements along racial lines then class lines.
While we have had (successful) class based movements in the past, there is no class based analog in US history to the civil rights movement, or abolition. Even school children understand what Martin Luther King day is about; most American's couldn't tell you what Labor Day is about.
When there was a global movement for class based solidarity, the US found itself on the other side of the fight. (I'm referring to cold war era communism).
Even if a class based approach makes more sense now; there is a lot of institutional and cultural inertia behind a race based approach.
The history of the US is far more rasist then it is classist; and there has been far more social movements along racial lines then class lines.
While we have had (successful) class based movements in the past, there is no class based analog in US history to the civil rights movement, or abolition. Even school children understand what Martin Luther King day is about; most American's couldn't tell you what Labor Day is about.
When there was a global movement for class based solidarity, the US found itself on the other side of the fight. (I'm referring to cold war era communism).
Even if a class based approach makes more sense now; there is a lot of institutional and cultural inertia behind a race based approach.