Mitt Romney's photo op with a Vietnam veteran.

[Jonathan]

Yes. That whole "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" thing. There are of course finite limits to the amount of causes any one person can champion, and everybody prioritizes according to their individual preferences or circumstances.

Of course, this opens the way for

or I guess "Stop Not Liking What I Do Like" as the case may be.

[AshleyO]

Am I the only one around here who seems to understand this whole thing as thinking it IS okay to consider what pop culture might consider evil people's actions that WERE beneficial or useful?

I'm sure that in the past, Romney did a few good things that were pretty cool.

But seriously... fuck that guy.

Even with his good points, I'm sure it's possible to find a much better candidate that can and do use these same good points as well.

Sometimes I feel bad for him; but damn...

[Alan]

See, people are still not getting it. I don't even give a fuck about what Mitt Romney did as a governor. I don't think I ever even mentioned something akin to "well, he used to be good, that's why I like him."
What I'm saying is that THIS incarnation of him. This caricature of a conservative politician IN THE PRESENT, this very presentation of an evil motherfucker, is what makes me like him, because it's IN THE PRESENT that you can see every time he stammers that he wishes he wasn't being told what to say and what not to say.
The problem here is not that people are disagreeing with what they think is 'my' perspective of 'look at the bright side'. It's that they can't possibly get through their heads what one could meant with 'you gotta like the dark side.' Is it just not something that Americans think about at all?

[Versus]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Yes. That whole "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" thing. There are of course finite limits to the amount of causes any one person can champion, and everybody prioritizes according to their individual preferences or circumstances.

Of course, this opens the way for

or I guess "Stop Not Liking What I Do Like" as the case may be.

This might help to explain why the two are not incompatible.

http://racismschool.tumblr.com/post/...n-is-huge-ally

http://racismschool.tumblr.com/post/...-up-and-listen

Let me know if you need more detail.

[Jonathan]

I read your links. I haven't seen anything here or elsewhere to convince me that racial circumstances are a bigger hurdle to social mobility and quality of life than economic factors. Is it the only problem? No. I just think systemic wealth disparity is a more immediate concern.

I think I get Alan. Romney's breaking the fourth wall. You're seeing hints of a human being underneath the character he's playing.

Most Americans seize on to a pet issue and have a conniption fit over anything that seems to step on it. Hence "X hates women / businesses / small furry animals" is still a valid political tactic. We don't like things getting complicated because thinking is hard.

[ape descendant]

I've just already heard all of Romney's "good points" from the racist, sexist, homophobes I am surrounded by in my adorable rural town. The really sad part is when they openly oppose social programs for "greedy freeloaders" that they... use. This shit's just old, not interesting and annoyingly asinine.


I'm sure its an adorable bit of fun to "embrace the dark side", a fun way to be abrasive and edgy. In this respect, I just don't have the patience for a pointless, irritating bit of mental masturbation, that would require me to ignore my own identity, which I've worked quite hard to be ok with and out about, just for the sake of idle conversation with an insecure little brat.


BTW, I don't even want to know what parallel universe you're from trying to compare Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to motherfucking Mitt Romney. *face palm* For fucks sake, trying to call MLK out for homophobia is just historically dishonest, as he died before the Stonewall riots which is what kicked off the gay rights movement, which has been the main force behind GSM acceptance. Romney is still a bigot after decades of progress for both women and GSM.


In the future, when you pick some one to try to prove a point with, either do a tiny little bit of research first, that or stick some moistened part of your anatomy in an outlet.

[Versus]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

I read your links. I haven't seen anything here or elsewhere to convince me that racial circumstances are a bigger hurdle to social mobility and quality of life than economic factors. Is it the only problem? No. I just think systemic wealth disparity is a more immediate concern.

The links I provided were to tell you that the " damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario that you described is false. Nothing more.

But since you brought it up: I don't know how you can justify your stance. You know people die and have their lives destroyed because of these pet issues, right?

[Jonathan]

Originally Posted by Versus

The links I provided were to tell you that the " damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario that you described is false. Nothing more.

But since you brought it up: I don't know how you can justify your stance. You know people die and have their lives destroyed because of these pet issues, right?

I justify it by seeing that poverty rates in the US is something 15%, and that number is made up of people from many different walks of life. Raising the bottom rungs up will give more people a better shot at a better life. I guess you can call it utilitarian. I see wealth disparity as a more destructive force consuming more lives. I think it's a bigger fire to put out, and solving it would do more good more faster.

[AshleyO]

Originally Posted by Alan

See, people are still not getting it. I don't even give a fuck about what Mitt Romney did as a governor. I don't think I ever even mentioned something akin to "well, he used to be good, that's why I like him."
What I'm saying is that THIS incarnation of him. This caricature of a conservative politician IN THE PRESENT, this very presentation of an evil motherfucker, is what makes me like him, because it's IN THE PRESENT that you can see every time he stammers that he wishes he wasn't being told what to say and what not to say.
The problem here is not that people are disagreeing with what they think is 'my' perspective of 'look at the bright side'. It's that they can't possibly get through their heads what one could meant with 'you gotta like the dark side.' Is it just not something that Americans think about at all?

This is why I feel bad for him.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by ape descendant

I've just already heard all of Romney's "good points" from the racist, sexist, homophobes I am surrounded by in my adorable rural town.

Originally Posted by Alan

I don't think I ever even mentioned something akin to "well, he used to be good, that's why I like him."

Learn to fucking read. I never said anything about the 'good points' of Romney. Nor am I 'embracing the dark side' in a teenage way, like you pretend I would. That accusation is absolute and utter bullshit. When you got something marginally relevant to say I'll come back and actually respect your point of view. Until then, it's clear you're just butthurt and are trying to see what sticks.

[Versus]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

I justify it by seeing that poverty rates in the US is something 15%, and that number is made up of people from many different walks of life. Raising the bottom rungs up will give more people a better shot at a better life. I guess you can call it utilitarian. I see wealth disparity as a more destructive force consuming more lives. I think it's a bigger fire to put out, and solving it would do more good more faster.

To be honest, I'm not even sure where to start with this.

Quick (maybe) question: You said helping those at the bottom will benefit everyone. I completely agree with that. The problem is that you're refusing to acknowledge who the bottom rung even is, to say nothing of intersectionality. Why? Why is it that you can be acutely aware of the fact that, regardless of class or economic standing, PoC have it statistically worse when you look at almost every conceivable circumstance, be it education, employment, health, violence, finance, art, science, whatever within our society and you can still think that?

I'm calling you to task; if you have the truth of the matter, you will be able to argue it.

[Jonathan]

Because a credit score is going to stop someone from getting a house or a car before their ethnicity or gender is a factor, and have a bigger effect on the actual cost of purchases like that. Communities seem to be segregated by wealth more than anything.

It's awesome to be rich and shitty to be poor, I mean that doesn't change no matter what someone's ancestry happens to be.

Are there examples of things like redlining and other shitty things? Of course, and they are awful and are illegal. That's why I take a sideways look at the concept of it being a systemic issue - a lot of awful practices have been identified and are being combated, a great deal of it presumably before you or I even existed. Racist hegemonies don't regulate against abuses like that. Sure there are individual racists and even groups of them, but I have a hard time seeing that as "systemic". If my definition is fucked then I'll have to review that.

[AshleyO]

Holy shit.

Jonathan, I do not understand why you want to ignore the struggles of PoC but are so laser focused on poverty.

What? Are you GENUINELY afraid that white people are going to somehow get left behind or they'll just become the new oppressed and impoverished class if we raise the standings of PoC?

It's fucking annoying. It's like you say you give a shit about poverty and then completely ignore the circumstances that make it that way.

Capitalism is NOT color blind, Jon.

[Versus]

He's not ignoring it, his argument is that economic standing plays a larger part.

I'm pulling up the numbers right now while trying to jungle some TA stuff so you'll need to give me a little bit.

[Jonathan]

OK, that actually brightens my outlook a lot - even if I turn out to be wrong I can know that we can actually talk. It was starting to seem like we were looking at two different g.net's. Take your time, got plenty of things going on and am mostly banging my head on a lower middle class libertarian acquaintance's wall for masochistic shits and giggles.

AshleyO, what makes you think I give a fuck about white people as a group? I've been personally screwed over by more white people than any other ethnicity I've run into, but I somehow get through life without thinking of them as oppressors or the home team.

[AshleyO]

Interesting, no?

You've been screwed over MORE by white people... than minorities.

Hhhhhhmmmm..............

[Versus]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Because a credit score is going to stop someone from getting a house or a car before their ethnicity or gender is a factor and have a bigger effect on the actual cost of purchases like that.

Communities seem to be segregated by wealth more than anything.

That's not how you do it. Racial, gender, education, ect. factors combine to get you the net result of a person's wages and salary; they are an additive. It doesn't suddenly stop being a factor if you ignore it or take it out of the equation. This it what intersectionality is. You cannot sample between only the rich and only the poor. The largest contributions of what makes up these differences in wealth is how much a person is paid, and if what you are paid is determined by something like your race then why are you using these racial numbers and not acknowledging it?

Think about it like this:

The difference between the rate of violent crime suffered by people that earn less then 7,500 annually and more then 75,000 annually if you ignore race between white and black people is 30.6%. For white people only, it's 28.5%. For black people only, it's 45.4%. The race difference of that difference is 16.9%. From this, you can see that income has a larger impact then race* on the rate that a person will suffer crimes of violence.

And this is where you stop. I don't know if it's because you've found the answer you were looking for or if you didn't consider to look deeper or what. You don't consider that income is also a factor of race,*

In the first quarter of 2012, the median weekly earnings for white men working full time were $891, while Hispanic men earned 37.1% less at $576.

You don't consider that income is a factor of education, which is also a factor of race.*

Consider the link I gave you in the other thread that stated caucasian students receive more than three-quarters (76%) of all institutional merit-based scholarship and grant funding, even though they represent less than two-thirds (62%) of the student population. Caucasian students are 40% more likely to win private scholarships than minority students.

You don't consider that income is a factor of employment opportunities, which is also a factor of race.*

In 2010 black and hispanic people had twice the unemployment rate of white people. In 2009, the poverty rate was 9.9% for non-Hispanic Whites, 12.1% for Asians, 26.6% for Hispanics, and 27.4% for Blacks."

You don't consider that income is a factor of criminal records, which is also a factor of race.*

In 2008, of prison population under federal and state correctional jurisdiction, 20% were hispanic (compared to 16.3% of the U.S. population), 34% were white (compared to 63.7% of the U.S. population), and 38% were black (compared to 12.6% of the U.S. population).

Additionally, black males were imprisoned at a rate that was 6.5 times higher than the imprisonment rate of white males.

The list goes on, and those few things that I mentioned all have multiple factors that contribute to their value, and all of those factors are influenced by race.* Literally, it is contributing to everything that leads up to a person's class. So it's easier to visualize how you're thinking, try this:

Class = (wages and salaries - racism) + (skills - racism) + (wealth condensation - racism) + (labor markets - racism) + (globalization - racism) + (technological changes policy - racism) + (reforms taxes, tax loopholes, and tax havens - racism) + (education - racism) + (computerization/growing technology - racism) + (gender - racism) + (culture - racism) + (development patterns - racism) + (personal preference for work, leisure and risk - racism) + (innate ability - racism) + (nepotism - racism) + racism.

It's awesome to be rich and shitty to be poor, I mean that doesn't change no matter what someone's ancestry happens to be.

To put it simply, we both know what being poor is like to some degree. We have a shared experience and I'm very certain that we both can imagine what being wealthy would be like; all we have to do is think of the things we don't or can't have. To contrast, we don't have a clue what seeing in four dimensions would be like. To imagine seeing the front, back, top, bottom, and all the sides of every object in front of us is mind boggling. But that's okay. Our brains don't think that way, and we don't pretend like they do. When I describe directions to you, I describe them like you actually would see them and there is no confusion. Similarly, we don't have a shared experience in being a minority, and you can't imagine what my ancestry happens to be is like.

You are marginalizing how much it sucks to be a ******. Check your fucking privilege and acknowledge this.

Are there examples of things like redlining and other shitty things? Of course, and they are awful and are illegal. That's why I take a sideways look at the concept of it being a systemic issue - a lot of awful practices have been identified and are being combated, a great deal of it presumably before you or I even existed. Racist hegemonies don't regulate against abuses like that. Sure there are individual racists and even groups of them, but I have a hard time seeing that as "systemic". If my definition is fucked then I'll have to review that.

Frankly, your definition is very white. Try this:

Color-blind racism

It is hypothesized by some scholars that in the post-Civil Rights era, the United States has now switched to a new form of racism known as color-blind racism. Color-blind racism refers to "contemporary racial inequality as the outcome of nonracial dynamics." The types of practices that take place under color-blind racism are "subtle, institutional, and apparently nonracial." These practices are not racially overt in nature such as racism under slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow laws. Instead, color-blind racism flourishes on the idea that race is no longer an issue in this country and that there are non-racial explanations for the state of inequality in the U.S. There are 4 frames of color-blind racism that support this view:

Abstract liberalism – Abstract liberalism uses ideas associated with political liberalism. This frame is based in liberal ideas such as equal opportunity, individualism, and choice. It uses these ideas as a basis to explain inequality.

Naturalization – Naturalization explains racial inequality as a cause of natural occurrences. It claims that segregation is not the result of racial dynamics. Instead it is the result of the naturally occurring phenomena of individuals choosing likeness as their preference.

Cultural racism – Cultural racism explains racial inequality through culture. Under this frame, racial inequalities are described as the result of stereotypical behavior of minorities. Stereotypical behavior includes qualities such as laziness and teenage pregnancy.

Minimization of racism – Minimization of racism attempts to minimize the factor of race as a major influence in affecting the life chances of minorities. It writes off instances and situations that could be perceived as discrimination to be hypersensitivity to the topic of race.

You don't understand racism as very much more then then actual racists and the things they do. Look at the Vietnam era draft as an example of systemic racism:

While black people in America only amounted to something like 10% of the population, they were disproportionately drafted to something like 16%, and of all of the combat casualties that were suffered by the U.S., black Americans contributed to 25% of that number.

Ever hear about how the government was trying to control and down size the black population? Not likely. If anything, I'd wager that they had no idea what they were doing most of the time. More likely, it was because they didn't consider that because black people were disproportionately poor, they couldn't afford attorneys who were experts in the loopholes of draft system, or doctors who could prove that they were medically unfit for duty, or college so that they could get a deferment from the draft. More likely, it's because they didn't consider that black people were disproportionately represented in all bodies of government, so they didn't know anybody that could vouch for them to get deferments for civil services like the police or national guard, or get approval from the deferment boards that had known Klu Klux Klan members residing within them. More likely, they didn't consider that black people were disproportionately educated, so when they were drafted and took their general military aptitude battery of tests, they scored very poorly academically and were deemed best suited for military occupational specialties that had low skill requirements, such as the infantry, armor, and artillery branches - the same branches who were significantly more likely to engage in combat, receive friendly fire, become casualties or fatalities, and be exposed to the horror of war.

Nobody was intentionally trying to kill more black Americans. That's just sort of how it turned out because white folks like you think that the rest of us have an equal opportunity for The American Dream and don't realize that when their argument is regurgitated ad nauseam it's very easy for those in control of our system to deny that there is a big problem here.

*Race is just the word I chose to use. I acknowledge things like gender, sexual orientation, and yes - economic class.

[Saya]

Somtimes I wonder why anti-poverty activists refuse to acknowledge oppressions like racism or sexism or ableism (and so on and so forth), refuse to acknowledge that oppressions intersect. Its cutting off a whole ton of allies.

But then, I think its part of a denial that we are all players in systems of oppression. We all internalize is and deconstructing it and breaking free from it, its kinda like a spiritual process (not to sound cheesy, I'm thinking of Foucault's definition of spirituality). Its work! I know it took me a long time to really begin making a good effort, and even now I still really struggle, particularly with ableism and fatphobia, for example, the most I've really accomplished is to keep my damn mouth shut and not verbalize what is my own issue that no one can sort out for me.

On one hand, you want to forgive people because the whole damn system is wrong and set us all up to be ignorant. On the other hand though, you can only be educated so many damn times before it essentially boils down to a person being too defensive and not want to admit that they've internalized oppression, that the problem is within our (in this case, white) selves and not just a problem outside that we can protest against or Occupy.

[Versus]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

I justify it by seeing that poverty rates in the US is something 15%, and that number is made up of people from many different walks of life.

That number is 2/3 PoC, by the way.

I guess you can call it utilitarian.

For who?

I see wealth disparity as a more destructive force consuming more lives. I think it's a bigger fire to put out, and solving it would do more good more faster.

Saya! Tell us about WoC and feminism.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Versus

Saya! Tell us about WoC and feminism.

You mean how the first wave completely ignored women of colour? That pretty much the only woman of colour during American first wave feminism that ever gets a mention in a text book is Sojourner Truth, who famously said, "Ain't I a woman?" Well, wasn't she? Why were white women so much more deserving of a movement, deserving of leadership, than a woman who suffered from poverty, from racism, from sexism?

You mean how in the second wave, NOW totally refused to acknowledge WoC in its constitution? How WoC were even blatantly told when they tried to join collectives that they didn't belong? How famous feminists like Mary Daly tried to speak for them instead of to them? How, fed up with white women, some WoC started to call themselves womanists rather than share a label with white feminists, which many WoC still do today?

You mean how third wave and present wave (whatever it is) continued the proud tradition of totally ignoring WoC, of firstly bemoaning of how there's few (white) women CEOs, of how there's a (very racialized) wage gap between white men and white women, without acknowledging the racial wage gap? That white women still make more than men of colour? That aboriginal women make 49 cents to a white man's dollar? Of not acknowledging how differently slut shaming affects WoC? Of not acknowledging the racialized nature of sex trafficking? Of only asking WoC's opinions and presense for token purposes, to try and wear them as a badge of "we totes aren't racist"? Of how WoC still very rightfully give white feminists such a side eye? Of how our racism and Orientalism prevents us from being truly transnational and get the fuck over our Islamophobia?

I could easily write my masters thesis on this. And in between waves, of course, once things got better for white women, suddenly those who still needed allies, WoC, queer women, transwomen, disabled women, those who still had a real fight, those white women who were more or less satisfied with what they won weren't around anymore. And yet every single time we get offended that they don't trust us. And every single time we repeat the same mistakes and nothing really gets done and we wonder why and just try to accept what little concessions were made. There's no putting out a "big fire", its all intersectional. Poverty is perpetuated by racism and ableism and sexism and xenophobia and a whole myriad of oppressions. And if things get better for you and you're happy, you'll move on and forget the rest of us that still have to suffer, and poverty continues, just not the color-blind kind you receive. Because some of us as Audre Lorde once said, were never meant to survive. Let alone live comfortably.

[BourbonBoy]

Earlier I was going to post something regarding the Hispanic side of the argument, but I'm a little too buzzed at the moment to create coherent sentences. I'm just going to say this much (which is the basic argument that I wanted to bring up so if anyone thinks it's tl;dr, let me know but this is just the perspective I have from my family's experience spread across several states in the U.S.)

Imagine your ancestors driven from their homes simply because of the color of their skin or because of their surnames that your neighbors decided to act upon because they felt it was their patriotic duty/wanted property for their cousin in Virginia since the capital in D.C. decided it was best for the country to go to war after our own citizens thought our country sucked and wanted to buy cheaper property in another country that we were now invading.

Fast forward half a century, the new people in the area completely forgot that your family ever lived on the property. Fast forward another ten years, the descendents of the people who kicked you off your property not only consider you a foreigner despite the fact that there's a portrait of your great-grandfather/mother with their great-grandmother/father, but view you with xenophobia and have named the property that you now work on after the person who kicked your ancestors off of the property. If you raise any form of descent they will do what they can to prove this area belongs to them and not you by either burning a cross on what little property you own or hang you from the nearest high tree or simply go to the local sheriff who will agree 100% with what was said because who's going to believe a brown man/woman over a white man/woman?

By far I'm not trying to be a victim here, it's just what I've witnessed where I've spent my adolescent and adult years experiencing. Far too often you hear a person of (primarily) white heritage talking down to people that they considered below them. Imagine the rage that a girl you dated in high school was with you simply because your name was white enough to pass the old man's verbal test at the dinner table but the second he saw you his body language betrayed his verbal language that you were welcome to take his daughter out to a skating ring for the evening.

Or the fact that you looked white enough to pass for Italian only to be told without being spoken to directly "Too bad she didn'a date an Italian rather than a Mexican..."

[BourbonBoy]

This is the reality a multi-ethnic person has to deal with. I went through that bit of history as a build up for what's happening at the moment. Whenever I've been through an airport checkpoint, I've gone through everything but a cavity search. One could argue, "Once or twice shouldn't seem so bad..."
However, when you go through the same shit every fucking time, that's when it's time to plant the flag and say, "the Department of Homeland Security is a bunch of racist assholes!"

Except I'm sure you would prefer to hear about the economic factors.

Economically, here's what I've had to put up with:

"Why did you mark Hispanic if you don't speak Spanish?"

"You aren't what I expected reading your resume! =) (iow: have a white name but are still brown enough to pass the EO act)

"How can you claim Hispanic if you don't speak Spanish?"

"For a former military type, you sure seem to put up with less than we'd expect a G.I. would (iow, how can a half-Mexican be daring enough to raise questions about wages, medical, and time off? Why's he demanding to be let go when he was scheduled at 5 but it's only 5.30?")

Etc.

[Versus]

Hey, I'm about to crash but I'll respond the first thing in the morning.

[BourbonBoy]

No prob, just after reading this thread it seemed like a black and white issue to the non-informed and I thought I should throw in my two cents. Sorry if I sound like I flew off the handle

[Versus]

Naw, I feel you. I talk black and white, but I get it's very similar for other minorities. I just don't feel right jackin that stuff.