Hmmm, “No do-overs” Can we start using this as the go-to response to the “South will rise again” “The rebel flag is my flag” assholes? “We won, you lost, get over it!” That would be nice.
13 Likes
What really puzzles me is the people who wave both the Stars and Stripes and the Stars and Bars, chanting ‘USA! USA! USA!’ in alternation with the Rebel Yell. Just what are they supporting?
8 Likes
White supremacy.
15 Likes
I find it interesting that as the push for reforms as well as a growing interest in socialism and in leftist ideas is finally happening, we get the issue of reparations. It sounds like an excellent way to divide and conquer by the 1%. Focus on each other while they laugh all the way to the bank.
The economy is hollowed out, the 1% are getting an ever increasing amount of the wealth while bottom 90% have wages declining for a few decades. That is, those people who have jobs and have just disappeared from the labor force. Not to mention the growing housing crisis affecting the poor and working class and slowly going up the classes.
I understand why many think reparations are a good idea, but please think about those who have nothing, and then ask yourself why they need to get at the back of the line. I have seen homeless families. Just how do you think that they will react to these reparations when their children live in a car or homeless shelter. Will sweet reason and appeals to justice work on them? As a poor person myself trying to remained housed talking about my “white privilege” is a sick joke.
Finally, What the Flying Fudge is with this white people crap? There are about two hundred million “white” Americans. Acting like they are all a monolithic group of deplorable racists is stupid.
1 Like
May I remind you, that it was, and is still the case, that the major driving force for economic justice sand systematic reform is people of colour? From the dawn of the 20th century to present, it has been people of colour that make the bulk of Union membership. It has been people of colour like Chavez who died for workers rights. It has been people of colour marching, with a handful of white counterparts, in solidarity with the Union movement.
But throughought the 20th century it was the capital W White Americans who conflated unions with communism. It was White America who broke strikes. It was White America who decided to shirk solidarity and instead fuck over their fellow Americans. It is a fact that capital W White Americans placed more importance on preserving and expanding the power and privilege of Whiteness than on achieving social and economic justice.
It isn’t people of colour dividing the nation, White America already did that.
Given that White America essentially has gobstopper social and economic justice, it is then prudent to work within White America’s prefered economic system to remedy the wrongs that White America did. And may I fucking point out that every time black folk had a success, White America went a-lynching and torching towns.
There are many capital-w White Americans who see themselves as White, not American first. Even today White America is cheering on literal ethnic cleansing. Even today White America rejects economic reform. The mentality of White America is this: it is OK for the world to burn as long as everyone else has it worse.
Not all Americans who are white are actively complicit. But those who prioritize their own Whiteness over being a goddamn decent human being are.
If you feel like this post is a personal attack on you, a person passing as white, rest assured it is not. It is an attack on the institution of Whiteness, the social construct that prioritizes the wellbeing of capital W White (like Laura Ingrham) over the wellbeing of everyone.
The capitalist machine that White People built is eating entire countries alive. If you dorks would have listened 200, 180, 150, 100, 80, 60, or even 29 years ago, society would be the better for it. But capital W White America chose to enrich itself and continue recklessly driving the cihntry into the heart of a tornado because at least White America had more collective money and power.
15 Likes
In what way is anyone being sent to “the back of the line.” The likely proposals (which don’t exist yet) will be done in parallel with current efforts to help everyone (these efforts, being currently inadequate, should have more resources as well).
12 Likes
tinoesroho,
thank you for the response.
I get where you are coming from, I think, but I still must point out that whatever the righteousness of one’s cause, if it is believed to be unfair, people will fight it; people who have nothing and for whom nothing is being done for them now believe it unfair if others are given what they do not have today.
Part of the problem of treating 200 million Americans as all the same, with the same agency and responsibility, is that not only can millions of people cannot individually have the same agency and responsibility, it is not only unfair, it will be thought of those who have nothing that they are considered nothing; also, it denies the fact that the white 10%, and even more, the top 1% have garnered almost all of the gains of the past forty years, while the whole bottom 50% of the American nation is sinking evermore into poverty.
Considering that a growing part of the population is being ignored while being used for political and monetary gain, there is an increasing chance of, bluntly, war within the United States between the haves and the have-nots. Pressing for the white have-nots to pay for injustices done against the black have-nots while ignoring not only the current, but the past injustices, done against both have-nots by the wealthy elites in these times will only encourage war. A war the elites are likely to win because they will have successfully spit the American nation into smaller, more easily destroyed, factions.
If this reparations movement could be transformed into a movement for all Americans, as in MLK’s Poor People’s Campaign, then not only would the entire 90% who have suffered under the current regime benefit, that unity and strength will be enable success because we will not have been divided and defeated by the powerful who want racism to be a successful tool of theirs.
2 Likes
It’s something that White men themselves started, back when they baked bigotry, hatred and classicism into the very foundation of the country that they built on the backs of POC.
18 Likes
Capital W White Americans - those of wealth and those aspiring to it - don’t want economic reform, they want to be in First Class even as the boat called society sinks. That’s the kicker: some people just want to Lord over others.
We can’t save the petty bourgeoisie. And without taking drastic action, rebuilding society in America isn’t possible because of the aforementioned petty bourgeoisie (mostly, White America). But we CAN on local levels fight for proper school funding and social programs to help the disadvantaged. And while we’re stuck in a fucked up society, we should try to right the ongoing and historical wrongs.
It’s like poop on the wall. You know one of your two kids smeared it, but neither is speaking. Can’t just leave it on the wall, we gotta clean it up. Systemic racism IS that poop, and it’s fucking killing people every single day.
10 Likes
No. Again, we can do both. To ignore the issue of race and how it compounds class issues will not help.
It’s absurd to believe this is the case.
Do you imagine that this is only white people or predominately white people?
Try saying that to the parents of all the black children shot by the cops…
History? Reality?
15 Likes
Time once again for this article, I see. It’s sort of shameful that I usually find myself presenting it for the edification of self-described progressive cishet white males (usually those who, like their Libertarian opponents, have the privilege of thinking only in terms of traditional economics):
A movement that doesn’t first examine ways to put all citizens/“player characters” on “easy mode” regardless of gender or skin colour or sexual orientation is not one that will truly benefit all Americans.
12 Likes
Thank you. I was about to grab that.
6 Likes
Perhaps because they’re the only ones who don’t seem to realize it, aside from their conservative counterparts.
When you’ve spent so much time crafting and reinforcing the personal mythos of being ‘the best thing ever since sliced bread’ with the deeply ingrained assumption that of course the entire universe is supposed to revolve around you as the ‘natural master of all you survey,’ at some point, you’re actually going to start to believe your own hype, even if it has no actual basis in reality.
10 Likes
And the privilege-blind conservatives don’t hang around BB long enough that I have to roll it out for them. In any case, it’s a small subset of liberal and progressive white guys here; most of them do get it.
9 Likes
I like to think so, too; and I’m thankful for every one of them that is legitimately conscious, self aware and actively trying to effect change for the better, for everyone.
10 Likes
Dear fellow white people tempted to claim that you have never experienced “privilege”:
Have you ever been told that you should change your name or adopt a nickname, because your name is too “weird?”
Have you ever been told that you have to destroy your hair (not just the style, but the physical structure of the hair itself) for it to be considered “suitable” for the workplace?
Have random strangers asked (or not bothered to ask) if they can touch your hair?
Do people cross the street when they see you coming?
Ever gone to a job interview and the people who were super-enthusiastic prior to meeting you in person are suddenly cool or visibly uncomfortable, now that they can see you, and before you can say a word?
Do people randomly shout racial slurs at you?
Was “how not to get killed by the cops” part of your education?
Do you constantly see cases where successful people who look like you are harrassed by the cops for going into their own home or just trying to join their team for a post-game celebration?
If someone murders you, can you be fairly confident that the media will pull out the nice pictures of you, and not dig for “evidence” that somehow suggests you deserved it?
When you go to a bank, can you be pretty damn certain that your credit score is the only thing affecting your loan?
Ever talked about knowing who your great-grandparents are?
Ever had people call the cops on you for acting suspicious when all you did was take your dog for a walk?
When the cops showed up while you were walking your dog, did they approach like it was a hostage situation in a bank, with guns pointed at you from every direction?
Are you afraid to fall asleep in your car lest you be shot by the cops before you can wake up?
Can you flag down a cab? Or does your Uber driver approach, see you, then keep on driving?
Do people avoid getting in an elevator with you, or stand super-far away, all the time?
Did your teachers just assume that you couldn’t learn the material, so spent their time helping other kids?
If you get a nice car, would you think “Wow. I finally have a nice car.”, or would you debate buying it at all lest someone think you stole it?
Ever had to worry about water fountain you drank from on a hot day, for fear of being arrested?
Ever been accused of shoplifting because you bought a shirt in a store a year ago and happened to be wearing it when you went back this time?
Ever been constantly followed by security while you’re just trying to shop?
That’s all just the tip of the iceberg. That’s what I, as a white person, can come up with on a Saturday morning while getting ready to go out. When people say “white privilege”, it doesn’t mean you didn’t have to work hard or that you’re one of the 1%. It doesn’t mean you don’t have stress. It means you don’t have extra stress piled on top because of the colour of your skin. If it’s been hard for you, it means it would have been worse, if you weren’t white.
18 Likes
Well - we’ve already introduced one reparations bill.
Personally- I think this one can wait until we figure out the one being discussed here.
11 Likes
10 Likes
I don’t think he’s asking you to pay out of pocket. The point isn’t that you PERSONALLY injured him. The POINT is that white American has materially benefited from first slavery and then segregation.
The entire American economy was tied to the slavery economy of the south.
No. Go read his article and try again. This is an absurd conclusion to reach.
13 Likes
