The forum began with the question of whether or not a black community could extend beyond race. Nkhongo argued that being black is not necessarily a matter of race, using the example of a white student who had joined his fraternity. Nkhongo also stressed the need to seek a common goal that will unify the black community. But as Jones pointed out, these goals are hard to establish when blacks tend to be split along class-lines. But they experience it differently.
Blacks suffer racism in different ways.
The black businessman doing well can't help out the poor black man. Economic power is so important. Internal wedges such as class make the creation of a political coalition based strictly on the race of its members a difficult endeavor. Opening another topic of discussion last night, Jones addressed the idea of the civil rights movement by attributing much of it to an economic boom that enticed groups into thinking they deserved a share of the prosperity. But now the prosperity is gone, he said.