• Hegar@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    Why do you make this a white vs not white issue?

    Because that’s what the intention is.

    Republicans (post civil rights, Dixiecrats before that) specifically target non-white communities with laws designed to hurt them. They can’t be as explicit about it as they once were, so they have to find proxy targets. Instead of just jailing blacks, we’ll over-enforce drug laws in certain communities. Instead of saying we’re trying to starve black families, we’ll use ‘welfare mothers’ as a proxy. The goal is still the same as it was for all of US history - to win votes from whites by promising to take from non-whites. School vouchers. Stop and frisk. Zero tolerance approaches. Gang enforcement units.

    But using proxies instead of specifically targeting leads to some collateral emiseration. Luckily, white communities have vastly more intergenerational and communal wealth, so those crafting the laws know that white communities will be more resilient to the kind of damage they intend to inflict.

    not a problem with whites, it’s a problem with the rich.

    Crowdfunding success is heavily racialized. It strongly favours people with more wealth in their extended community or identity group. Poverty is incredibly racialized in the US, especially at the communal rather than individual level.

    I certainly agree that rich people enjoy watching all the poors suffer, but here in the US there’s still a large demographic beyond just the rich that feel safer when black and brown people are disproportionately targeted for misery.

    • Melkath@kbin.social
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      6 months ago

      As productive as this conversation has ever been.

      Yes, rich people are more likely to crowdfund their rich friends.

      Yes, an century ago America was deeply racist against freed slaves and their children.

      My blonde haired blue eyed ass grew up in Chicago regularly having those PBJ cracker rations the nurse had for lunch because my family was dirt poor and getting my ass kicked by my majority black classmates because of the rhetoric people like you spread.

      You see your hardships, can’t look past the color of your skin, and project.

      Again, it’s not a race issue, it’s a financial class issue.

      • Hegar@kbin.social
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        6 months ago

        You see your hardships, can’t look past the color of your skin, and project.

        I don’t see how my ‘hardships’ as a middle class white australian-american who moved to the US come into it. I’m describing how I observe the US to work.

        Yes, rich people are more likely to crowdfund their rich friends.

        White people are just more likely to be successful in their crowdfunding, even when poor.

        I’m not arguing that there are no poor white people, that’s silly. My wife’s dad’s grew up shoeless and white in rural illinois. The existence of poor white people doesn’t disprove the fact non white people are a greater target for deliberate impoverishment.

        I’m not deaf to class-based analysis. But this is the US. You just can’t talk about class without also talking about how racialized poverty is in most of the country. Crowdfunding is one of the many facits of our society that very clearly reflects that.

        • Melkath@kbin.social
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          6 months ago

          I don’t see how my ‘hardships’ as a middle class white australian-american who moved to the US come into it. I’m describing how I observe the US to work.

          Oh, so you are just some rando with no business in the conversation throwing muck at the wall.

          Gotcha.

          Makes it worse that you are spreading that kind of rhetoric.

          • Hegar@kbin.social
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            6 months ago

            throwing muck

            You seem to feel like you’re being attacked by a description of how some people suffer. It doesn’t imply that others don’t.

            • Melkath@kbin.social
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              6 months ago

              Nah, just irritated about an Aussie trying to stir up racial conflict in America with bullshit rhetoric.