Class vs Race: Where is The Real Issue?

Thalia gave her final presentation on a dangerous little article that attempted to link the recent riots and movements sparked by Ferguson and the like to class as opposed to race. The way the author argued was a bit disconcerting, as he seemingly aimed to eliminate our need for racial focus in exchange for a focus on class. I can see how these two things are definitely linked... When a white officer shoots an unarmed black man, they aren't doing so because they don't like the color of their skin; they shoot them based off of their assumptions made about this person because the color of their skin. They see a black man approaching them and link their skin color to thievery, aggression, murder, and poverty. One can argue that these assumptions are based on class, poverty to be exact, but this is where the author starts to make very dangerous assertions. The idea that Michael Brown was shot, not because he was black, but because he was assumed to be poor is a bit misconstrued and leads to a call of very dangerous, ineffective actions. The notion that we should take a stance of "racial-blindness" is to ignore a massive factor in the occurrence in these events. People don't make the same assumptions about a poor black man as you do a poor white man. In addition to this, if you're black, you don't even have to be poor to come off as threatening. The idea of a stereotype is that certain attributes are applied to you based off of one small characteristic of your being which, in this case, is the color of your skin.