Newsflash: Minority Does Not Equal Poor

For work today, I spent the day at a forum held by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Health and Human Services, on marketing and childhood obesity. It's been well established that there are higher rates of childhood obesity in minority communities such as Hispanics and African Americans. Toward the end of the forum, during a question and answer session, and audience member asked what will be done to address this disparity. Great question. So one panelist (from a somewhat radical organization that I tend to disagree with, which shall remain nameless) in her response immediately started to talk about "blacks and low income communities." What? The question didn't ask about low income communities. It asked about minorities. Why did she feel it was OK to make that leap, or to equate the two? This is not new...I've heard it done, unfortunately, many times before in political debates and talks of policy. It's really sad, in my opinion. Since when are all minorities poor, and all poor people minorities?