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Some days, I wonder how John Cole has such a heavily trafficked blog.  (Though I read it devotedly, skipping past most of the pet-posts.)  Then he says something like this:

The problem, as far as I see it, is that too many privileged people can’t get it through their damned heads that most poor people aren’t lazy, drunk, or just living large on the welfare, but were born into far shittier situations than most of the wealthy people in America. I’m willing to agree that most rich and poor people work really hard for what they have. Just the rich have it a helluva lot better and their concept of “hard” is a little different.

It's possibly the clearest and most succinct explanation I've ever heard of the matters of "structural inequality" and "privilege" that social scientists have been trying (and mostly failing) to articulate to the lay public for the past 40 years.

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