Also, white people are more likely to have healthcare coverage, which also contributes to the difference. No one is buying those things off prescription (until they're an addict).
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Dying of Whiteness - Boston Review a.k.a White racism is killing the white working class.
- Thread starter Veliladon
- Start date
OP
OP
They've actually polled it. When you don't call ideas liberal, even Republicans support them en masse.
Yeah and Hilary had it in the bag.
Polls mean nothing if Trevor is ready and willing to commit slow suicide and tons like him shoot themselves with guns. If you support "liberal" ideas but only for white people, it might as well not exist at all.
And its speaks volume that people would rather die physical deaths, not merely metaphorical, as long as all the "unworthy" go down with them. One thing is grumbling about Mexicans, quite another to die for really real.
I'd buy the "polling support" theory if they actually backed down at the specter of death. But they dont.
Works exactly the same in the UK - Labour policies poll really well in isolation, if they're called Labour policies then suddenly it's magic money tree crazed socialism that will turn us into Venezuela overnight.
Mass reporting isn't going to shit about this, it needs to be nuked from orbit ASAP.
I mean that's like asking people if they like sunshine, lollipops, and rollercoasters. The issue has always been the funding.
How was any of this in any way a response to the point being made?
I think all right-wingers across the world use Venezuela as the boogeyman these days.
Great article. I will have to read the book. I imagine these concepts will heavily influence developments in Canada in the coming years. We need immigrants to replace our aging population, but these new Canadians find homes and raise families in the city centers, leaving the rural areas white and politically powerful.
It is both easy and hard to feel sympathy for these types of people. Easy because the system that informs them is so much bigger and invested than they are. Hard because the effects and outcomes are so damn obvious and hate has been a self defeating driver for all of human history. Ultimately, sympathy or the lack thereof isnt going to change things sufficiently. This problem is at the core of the human condition and only real fundamental changes to the responsibilities of those in power will help change things in our life times.
It is both easy and hard to feel sympathy for these types of people. Easy because the system that informs them is so much bigger and invested than they are. Hard because the effects and outcomes are so damn obvious and hate has been a self defeating driver for all of human history. Ultimately, sympathy or the lack thereof isnt going to change things sufficiently. This problem is at the core of the human condition and only real fundamental changes to the responsibilities of those in power will help change things in our life times.
The alt-right has been successfully mass reporting videos and Youtubers they hate. See the retaliation to Crowder's demonitization.
I do feel sympathy myself. Even as a minority. Mostly because the white working class has an incredibly huge influence in politics due to the Senate and the disproportionate representation in federal politics.
The GOP have been experts at riling up white racism for their political gain.
Moreover, this doesn't absolve them of responsibility.
But white rural America is doing really badly. The opioid crisis is devasting communities. There is a huge skills gap, as a heavy reliance on manual labor jobs that will be displaced by tech, and mental health continues to worsen, with middle-aged rural white men leading in the suicide stats. They also lack resources in health, education, and jobs. It's why new doctors and nurses are given incentives to work in these rural communities. They continue to get older demographically. It's a ticking time bomb. The bootstrap fallacy is quickly becoming more and more exposed.
Wealth is concentrating in the bigger metro areas and surrounding suburbs.
Trump was the start of the whitelash, but the root cause is deeper. The GOP will better get ready because of this gloating about a great economy won't mean anything as these communities start getting decimated by technology and demographics.
The GOP will continue on their tirades against social welfare programs, but it's gonna catch up to them. People are not doing well financially. The GDP is doing great, but it's a shitty metric for personal welfare.
The GOP have been experts at riling up white racism for their political gain.
Moreover, this doesn't absolve them of responsibility.
But white rural America is doing really badly. The opioid crisis is devasting communities. There is a huge skills gap, as a heavy reliance on manual labor jobs that will be displaced by tech, and mental health continues to worsen, with middle-aged rural white men leading in the suicide stats. They also lack resources in health, education, and jobs. It's why new doctors and nurses are given incentives to work in these rural communities. They continue to get older demographically. It's a ticking time bomb. The bootstrap fallacy is quickly becoming more and more exposed.
Wealth is concentrating in the bigger metro areas and surrounding suburbs.
Trump was the start of the whitelash, but the root cause is deeper. The GOP will better get ready because of this gloating about a great economy won't mean anything as these communities start getting decimated by technology and demographics.
The GOP will continue on their tirades against social welfare programs, but it's gonna catch up to them. People are not doing well financially. The GDP is doing great, but it's a shitty metric for personal welfare.
These dudes are in every sense of the word an anchor to progress. Going to be infuriating to see them be the obstacle to every core issue coming at us and fast.
These will be the first group of people who lose their jobs to automation and oppose any UBI-ish ideas because it destroys the "dignity of work" that they would argue needs to be "given" to the "lazy parasites" who are typically non-white.
These will be the first group of people who lose their jobs to automation and oppose any UBI-ish ideas because it destroys the "dignity of work" that they would argue needs to be "given" to the "lazy parasites" who are typically non-white.
This.
What gets me about this thread is that not only are we presented by the 865th article written about the poor Trump voter, but then that list of what is and isn't allowed in the thread by the OP.
I don't want to hear about these morons getting burned. We've had that article. We've discussed their plight. Let's talk about the people who tried to help everyone involved, including those morons, and were unable to help anyone because of said morons. Let's talk about the people hurt by these morons and how they deserve our empathy. Why would I want to talk about the arson a thousand times before we talk about the people whose lives they ruined?
This is what I find frustrating.
I'm a black man and I don't take no shit from any family members, if there's a problem, a disagreement, or if I hear something said that's simply wrong you better believe I'm addressing it head on. I don't fear the consequences because I know what's right and I stand up for it.
I simply wasn't raised that way and I find it frustrating as hell when I read about people with openly racist family members (mostly "dad's") apparently talking slick af, yet no one's man enough to confront them?! Do none of yall have a backbone? A conscience? An ability to speak?
How does this family dynamic even work? I read a lot of them don't even live at home with their parents and still allow this shit to take place, but they supposedly don't agree with it?
Fuck that...let my father say some slick shit that I don't agree with, he's going to get a mouthful and I won't rest until he changes his ways, even if that means that we won't speak indefinitely if ever. Thankfully, my father is a great man so it's never come down to that, but if it did, well there you go.
If you can't at least reason with your family, there really is no hope for you or your community.
Read the article and I feel the same way. As a brown person who constantly feels hated by our current administration, why should I feel sympathy for their racist stupidity.
I also hate articles like this that play up a sympathy for the "poor white working class". Where are the articles for the poor working class brown/black people who choose to make the best of their situation even when people like the moron in this article make it harder for them. They deserve what they have done for themselves. I'm sure they will find peace in death knowing that in "no way I want my tax dollars paying for Mexicans or welfare queens." Fuck these morons.
Black and brown people have bled and died over and over again for centuries since the formation of the US. They've written, preached, filmed, protested, & voted to right this rickety broken ship we call a country. You could fill a thousand libraries with the works of disenfranchised people of multitudes of intersections straight up saying that humanity can only grow when it stops chaining itself to bigotry; written by some of the best minds to ever grace the earth. In the context of generations of struggling to relay this message again and again, I have no interest in sympathizing with people who still side with bigotry or treat them with kid gloves. Too many people don't get that there is something inherently wrong when we look at the trail of bodies in the wake of US history and yet somehow our modern society hasn't actually learned or grown and is still fighting the same fights of hundreds of years ago. We are not playing a game where bigots are one nice word from granting us equality. The people who are still bigoted and who vote for bigoted policies have run out of excuses. They ran out of them all they way back in Antebellum. Yet they still trot out this stale shtick where they're just poor middle classers who don't know no better. And these freaking journalists and centrists and "liberal allies" keep fucking eating it up. Minorities have tried to pull away the poison they're drinking time and time again and yet straight, white, "Christian" America continues to snatch the poison back and guzzle it down again. At that point you're dealing with people who aren't "ignorant" but actively invested in making the wrong & catastrophic choices as long as they can see marginalized people suffer. In the face of the history of this country it should be fucking ludicrous to expect something profound out of picking the brains of bigots yet we still do it as thought the key to ending bigotry is somewhere in them rather than with the people who regularly face the consequences of political apathy and political malice.
As people have already pointed out: fucking children are in cages, women across the country are loosing their bodily autonomy, black and brown people are being slaughtered by law enforcement, trans people are one stray bit of political malevolence from being classified as fourth class citizens and stripped of their humanity, the ill and disabled are all on a razors edge of being pitched into perpetual suffering because they can't get reasonable medical treatment and yet we are still inundated and drowned in these bullshit articles about the "poor ignorant middle class whites" who are just "victims of their own ignorance". No. We're done. Fuck them. I don't care if it's someone's dad, or auntie, or brother, or gramma or whatever the fuck. People who vote for these bigoted policies and politicians deserve to get screwed. They reap what they sow and I'm done pretending they have any interest in progress. The work that actually needs to be done requires an end to fucking coddling them & instead dragging them kicking and screaming into an actual equitable and fair society and not just a poor imitation of one; as well as actually lifting up the voices and stories of people actually fucking suffering.
As people have already pointed out: fucking children are in cages, women across the country are loosing their bodily autonomy, black and brown people are being slaughtered by law enforcement, trans people are one stray bit of political malevolence from being classified as fourth class citizens and stripped of their humanity, the ill and disabled are all on a razors edge of being pitched into perpetual suffering because they can't get reasonable medical treatment and yet we are still inundated and drowned in these bullshit articles about the "poor ignorant middle class whites" who are just "victims of their own ignorance". No. We're done. Fuck them. I don't care if it's someone's dad, or auntie, or brother, or gramma or whatever the fuck. People who vote for these bigoted policies and politicians deserve to get screwed. They reap what they sow and I'm done pretending they have any interest in progress. The work that actually needs to be done requires an end to fucking coddling them & instead dragging them kicking and screaming into an actual equitable and fair society and not just a poor imitation of one; as well as actually lifting up the voices and stories of people actually fucking suffering.
I don't think too many people are following your Rule #3 OP. Kinda hard to sympathize for someone who received their racist monkey's paw wish.
Am I supposed to feel bad they didn't get their entire wish granted or that said wish is actively fucking them over?
Am I supposed to feel bad they didn't get their entire wish granted or that said wish is actively fucking them over?
Understanding =/= Sympathizing =/= Agreeing with
Seeing some confusion in this thread about conflating those terms. Should make things easier to know the mindset of enemies for strategizing, and neutralizing the winnable for those of yall without first-hand knowledge of what you're seeing here.
By using it to justify using it.
They would sacrifice EVERYTHING for this and Individual-1. EV. ER. Y. THING. Their health, their livelihood, the quality of their community, their kids' futures, the country, EVERYTHING.
And they will sever the ties and ostracize anyone who dares go against it from "their" demographics. Everything must be sacrificed. Everything. Kids in cages or innocent black men gunned down by a cop registers even lower.
Even the idea of living in a world where everything they hate is ascendant and they take potshots at the weaknesses would be cold-blooded torture by this point. Living in a world where the very viability of rural and/or WWC, American democracy, the rule of law, and global respect for our country is attacked daily only has them defending the architects of that damage like a mama bear defends her cub: blind hate-filled rage. And they are happily miserable about it.
Seeing some confusion in this thread about conflating those terms. Should make things easier to know the mindset of enemies for strategizing, and neutralizing the winnable for those of yall without first-hand knowledge of what you're seeing here.
By using it to justify using it.
They would sacrifice EVERYTHING for this and Individual-1. EV. ER. Y. THING. Their health, their livelihood, the quality of their community, their kids' futures, the country, EVERYTHING.
And they will sever the ties and ostracize anyone who dares go against it from "their" demographics. Everything must be sacrificed. Everything. Kids in cages or innocent black men gunned down by a cop registers even lower.
Even the idea of living in a world where everything they hate is ascendant and they take potshots at the weaknesses would be cold-blooded torture by this point. Living in a world where the very viability of rural and/or WWC, American democracy, the rule of law, and global respect for our country is attacked daily only has them defending the architects of that damage like a mama bear defends her cub: blind hate-filled rage. And they are happily miserable about it.
LOL you're right. Goddammit :-(
Assuming you are white, your blind spot is understandable. People like Trevor are common and I'm sure in general most White Americans will have racists they know and love in their lives, hence some of the calls for empathy or understanding towards regressive Whites.
From my end I been putting up with anti-Blackness and disrespect in multiple avenues of life for more than 3 decades, know more about the past than the average person (i.e. how much Black contribution to America is ignored and taken for granted, the hopes dreams and human potential crushed in our history and during my lifetime) and know world-wide Black people and nations have had a war waged on them for the last four centuries. Sympathy for people and communities like Trevor is impossible from my end. Course correcting the ship, making them see the light is up to goodwhitefolk, who also have a dog in the fight since the entire country is at stake.
I do appreciate that you kept the thread open though.
I'm not sure it can be defeated (at least not for two more centuries at the least)but in my opinion what would greatly help is real integration. Unfortunately, neither political party wants an integrated America and neither do most White folks for that matter. The Republican standpoint goes without saying and the Democrats don't have integration as a priority. By 1968 MLK was very disappointed in post-Civil Rights America and American schools and neighborhoods are as segregated as ever. Politicians did not protect the housing market in liberal San Francisco, liberal NYC is hyper segregated and people are getting priced out. Dem politicians don't care as long as the real estate lobby keeps their pockets fat. Minorities in the housing projects, Whites everywhere else is going to be Manhattan's future if this keeps going.
Growing up with non-whites, especially real relationships with Black folks, allows more opportunity for White people to fully humanize those that don't look like them.
Yeah it's crazy, a lot of folks are lost causes. One thing I never saw coming was how divisive politics have become just within the White community. As time goes by the "it's just a difference of opinion" mentality no longer becomes acceptable. I don't know if that Civil War II button is going to get pushed. We will see.
Lmao damn. Suicide cult is a good description.
Please re-invade us!
Chuuuuuuuuch!
Lmao gotdamn
OP
OP
It's purely practical. From my perspective, we won't get any sort of large scale change in this country while 3/5 of the Senate is tied up by members elected by racist assholes.
Black people have been pointing out for decades and centuries that the policies shaping American law short term would hurt African Americans as they were created to do, but long term would utterly decimate white America because these laws long term don't stay contained and pointed specifically to African Americans.
And both democrats and republicans are guilty of pouring gasoline on the fire.
And both democrats and republicans are guilty of pouring gasoline on the fire.
Yeah, but that's the least is what required here. They need to stamped out completely.
I don't disagree with any of the problems you laid out, but I still refuse to believe that an artificial structure can't be dismantled. Maybe we won't see it destroyed. :( But we can fight it.
As a lifelong Missourian none of this surprises me. The red states are turning into dystopian wastelands and these people are happy to let it happen. Their mental feelings of superiority more than make up for their physical suffering, and it will stay like that until the day they are dead. That is the potency of white supremacy to them.
They don't need kickbacks from whiteness, it's enough to see black/brown people being caged and murdered, that is truly what they are voting for.
I've spent my entire life living with these people and let me assure you they deserve no sympathy whatsoever. The smart ones will eventually realize the truth and start voting Democrat (i was born in missouri to republican parents and i'm now a leftist) while the dumb ones will reliably vote republican until it kills them.
As far as not being allowed to call these people "dumb hicks" and not being allowed to say "they deserve it", just because you want to ignore the truth doesn't make it any less true.
They don't need kickbacks from whiteness, it's enough to see black/brown people being caged and murdered, that is truly what they are voting for.
I've spent my entire life living with these people and let me assure you they deserve no sympathy whatsoever. The smart ones will eventually realize the truth and start voting Democrat (i was born in missouri to republican parents and i'm now a leftist) while the dumb ones will reliably vote republican until it kills them.
As far as not being allowed to call these people "dumb hicks" and not being allowed to say "they deserve it", just because you want to ignore the truth doesn't make it any less true.
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i'm listening to a podcast series on the haitian revolution and it's an interesting exemplar of this.
the colony before the slave uprising had a tiny cadre of rich whites who owned everything, a small number of poorer whites who worked for them, a small but growing number of free and mixed race "coloreds" who themselves often owned profitable slave plantations, and a huge number of chattel slaves. meanwhile france proper was trying to keep everything on an even keel and stop the colony from trading with the rest of the new world because it was so immensely profitable. socially racism was obviously a thing, but legally all free men had the same rights in the eyes of the government.
for a very long time things ran smoothly and the rich made loads of money while everyone else was ground under heel, but after a while the free colored population started accumulating more money and clout because they tended to keep their profits local and reinvest in the colony while the rich whites took their money back to france as soon as they'd earned enough to guarantee themselves a life of luxury in the homeland. at the same time the colonials saw that the rich property owners up north in the US had just been able to break away from london and keep all of their wealth for themselves, while down south they still existed under a military governor with no amount of self rule and unpopular mercantilist policies coming across the ocean from france.
since france itself had just lost canada to the english during the 7 years war they were extremely keen to remain in control of their biggest cash cow in haiti. they instituted reforms intended to placate the locals, including ending military rule and granting a measure of self determination. but in conjunction with that they also instituted a system of legal racism, taking away rights from the free coloreds and putting any number of onerous proscriptions on them including banning them from living in many places or working in particular occupations. they did this with the express goal of keeping the interests of the free coloreds and the whites divided, because the french ruling class recognized that those groups shared a class interest that was at odds with the mainland and wanted to keep them from uniting and pursuing those interests together.
and it worked. for a little while, anyway.
Because if we can find a way to solve that problem, the world will be a much better place.
Can you get us the name of the podcast?
Haiti has such an interesting history.
it's a really great show. his first series was on the english civil war, followed up with the american war for independence, then the french revolution. i just got to the haitian revolution, the stuff i talked about there is in 4.03
This right here!!
Why is the OP mandating empathy when they literally would rather die because of their hatred.
This guy gets it. I grew up in the Bible Belt and I am done sympathizing with people who relish in cruelty towards those different than them. Fuck em.
I think it's cute you think you can set rules for the thread, lol
That said, it is important to witness how ill-informed destroy themselves just to spite those their bigotry targets. As an abject lesson, I mean, more so than as something to feel sympathy for. I grew up in a poor dumb-hick "white is right" town, with multiple neurological disorders and significant childhood abuse, and even I knew racism is fucking dumb and ultimately self-defeating.
It's funny that as a society we have no problem rightfully trashing & lampooning individuals who deny climate change and demonize vaccinations. In those cases, those are people who deny evidence and make decisions for and support causes that harm themselves as well as their community and humanity at large. Yet in this case where people are similarly denying facts and acting in ways that pointedly harm others as well as themselves, suddenly it becomes important to have empathy for them and "understand things from their perspective". Suddenly when it involves the humanity and equality of marginalized people, we have to play nice with the bigots lest we be pegged as being "counterproductive".
The difference is two-fold:
One, climate change denial and anti-vaccination views don't have a reputation as being a symptom of evil like racism does because of their close ties to other conspiratorial views and behaviors. To hold these views is to be stupid for whatever reason, but it doesn't really signal any real morality on part of the beholder. It is okay to declare someone stupid, but to declare someone evil has a higher burden of proof.
Second, racism is so rampant that most white people have at least a few really close family members or friends who are racist. In a bid to protect them from the consequences of anti-racist work, however deserved and overdue those consequences are, it is imperative to beg minorities for forgiveness constantly, to make them think of the poor whites who "don't know any better," regardless of whether or not those poor whites are willing to do anything to actually earn forgiveness. Black folks gotta be patient with Uncle Bob even though he's gonna call one of us a nigger in a few days anyway.
I mean, yeah, the political function of white nationalism and fascism in 2019 (and arguably always) is nothing more than class warfare. If you can convince the privileged that they'll retain the security of their privilege (since racial identity and social security are conflated) and turn workers against each other by tricking them into thinking that their vanishing piece of the pie is the result of competition between each other, then our society will remain mired in our bullshit problems that are merely symptomatic.
It's just like the liberal call to 'ethical consumerism'/voting with your wallet, or the single use plastic ban. If you reduce global ecological problems to the responsibilities of individual ethics (like lowering one's carbon footprint), you re-frame the issue as if it can be solved by individuals (when in fact it can only be solved by giant corporations responsible for most pollution). Or in the case of the plastic ban, you make it seem like you're really doing something, when that kind of action, while perhaps making us feel good, is really a pathetically small course correction by our current economic system that is otherwise pathologically intent on carrying on as usual.
So if it's just a sleight of hand, of course white people will suffer, they're falling for a lie. But people of colour have to suffer under even worse socioeconomic circumstances, while finding that their local ethnocult of national identity is actively malevolent towards them. Frankly, it would be absurd if whites were better off for buying into this. And it sucks that anyone is being treated as sacrificial pawns in some proxy for class war, but these white nationalists also need to wake the fuck up, and until then they've earned some share of their suffering.
It's just like the liberal call to 'ethical consumerism'/voting with your wallet, or the single use plastic ban. If you reduce global ecological problems to the responsibilities of individual ethics (like lowering one's carbon footprint), you re-frame the issue as if it can be solved by individuals (when in fact it can only be solved by giant corporations responsible for most pollution). Or in the case of the plastic ban, you make it seem like you're really doing something, when that kind of action, while perhaps making us feel good, is really a pathetically small course correction by our current economic system that is otherwise pathologically intent on carrying on as usual.
So if it's just a sleight of hand, of course white people will suffer, they're falling for a lie. But people of colour have to suffer under even worse socioeconomic circumstances, while finding that their local ethnocult of national identity is actively malevolent towards them. Frankly, it would be absurd if whites were better off for buying into this. And it sucks that anyone is being treated as sacrificial pawns in some proxy for class war, but these white nationalists also need to wake the fuck up, and until then they've earned some share of their suffering.
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So I can appreciate that people are largely creations of their surroundings, and this is ultimately a larger problem than any one person with their prejudices.
Despite that, fuck these people. As the article points out, for however painfully white people are killing themselves in the name of racism and misplaced pride, minorities are suffering much worse as a result. No one "deserves" to die but as others have said, many white Trump voters are so indoctrinated that nothing will ever open their eyes and Jesus, what a miserable waste of life.
Despite that, fuck these people. As the article points out, for however painfully white people are killing themselves in the name of racism and misplaced pride, minorities are suffering much worse as a result. No one "deserves" to die but as others have said, many white Trump voters are so indoctrinated that nothing will ever open their eyes and Jesus, what a miserable waste of life.
Ah, speaking of this, I thought you might find this interesting: https://grist.org/article/the-bad-news-about-nudges-they-might-be-backfiring/
It's possible "nudges", whether in climate science or in social relations, hurt more than they help, because they hide the magnitude of problems. The liberal dream that people will gradually inch towards progressivism and sustainability is a fantasy at best and manipulative at worst.
Thank you for this, I've been trying to articulate my skepticism for the possible outcomes of the (painfully slow) trajectory of liberal politics, and this is exactly the kind of deception I find myself most worried about, when liberals simply insist that leftists must be infinitely patient.
Wow, I can kind of respect people like this. I don't agree with them at all but to die for your beliefs...you must really believe. Typically I see people like this change their mind when a situation personally effects them, but to just be okay with dying....wow.
Could also be construed as laying down and dying, which is something people are more likely to do when they're in the sunken place. If you're prevented from correctly diagnosing the real problem, then the eventual logical conclusion becomes a kind of empty fatalism.
Sort of like the word socialism. Socialism, communism, and liberalism seem to be the words they know by name even if not by definition it seems.
Anyone remember how Bill O'Reilly and Fox News tried to make "secularism" into a thing as well. Seems to have gone by the wayside. But maybe that has much to do with progressives having been abysmal when it comes to framing church state separation at face value like reproductive and lgbt rights.
The snail's pace is killing me. I expected more from the public at this point and "my side" politically constantly undermines progress. I agree the fight still has to be had no matter the chances of victory.