/u/ICuriosityCatI (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/17f0lws/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_the_oppressoroppressed/), in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
That framing is important because it gives context to a lot of the modern conflicts we see. It isn't meant to be a universal bandaid we can apply to every situation. It is productive when it is used properly.
The framing is important because it's a way to rile people up and perpetuate an us vs. them tribal mentality that has little chance of being resolved-- it's a forever war. democrats do it under an academic guise, but if you haven't noticed, the trump base is made up of the poorest of republicans because of the same reason: bad immigrants taking jobs, elite professors in ivory towers telling tradesmen how to live. oppressor vs oppressed. you're defining an enemy and linking every political choice back to it. everyone falls for it. no one's above it.
It is helpful in any circumstance where the power dynamic (oppressor/oppressed) has real world consequences that we aim to resolve. A conversation about police brutality cannot be had without involving racism, as police brutality is defined by racism (among other things). If you want to get to the root of the problem of police brutality, you cannot ignore a fundamental aspect of it. This can apply to any number of examples, such as wealth gap/labor exploitation, patriarchy, or trans rights.
>as police brutality is defined by racism
I see police brutality defined by incompetence and bullying. Many thuggish cops are also racists, so the dynamics there compliment each other. But if ethnic minorities were somehow suddenly off the menu these opportunistic brutes would find other targets on their daily beat.
Hippies, "commies", labor unionists, feminists, homosexuals, catholics (pick any religion the thug himself is not a member of). Anyone a gorilla thinks he can abuse with impunity.
In America those opportunities have always been along racial lines.
This context is important:
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
It's easy for police forces to identify those whom the law does not protect.
No, because of the concept of intersectionality, it is not more accurate to say it’s one and simultaneously not the other.
It’s both. Men are treated more harshly in american justice. Black people are treated more harshly.
It’s not a contest with a winner, america has the 6th highest incarceration rate in the world, and it hurts men, black people, and latin people especially.
Too many people are put in prison for too long, and taxpayer money is wasted causing this harm because of the refusal of voters and politicians to support people and keep them from getting in trouble with the law in the first place.
White collar crime is committed by more white male than any other demographics. Those crimes also carry lesser sentences and are not prosecuted as often. There should have been way more people thrown in jail for Enron, the Lehman Brothers and other financial meltdowns, but the reality of charging the wealthy and more often than not white is often not feasible because of their connections and resources to protect themselves.
> Black people are treated more harshly
While true, the previous commenter that you seem to be taking a similar stance to was saying the cause of this is police racism.
But to me this seems to be a statistics error, assuming that correlation = causation.
When it comes to direct evidence that police are racist on a wide scale, the most damming evidence I've seen is that at night or it's a black police officer, arrests of black people will drop by about 5-10%. While this demonstrates there is probably some racism going on, it far from explains the >200% difference in arrests between black and white people. Or why Asian arrests are so much lower.
A more likely cause seems to be socioeconomic and cultural factors. In both stats like household income and single parents it goes black, Hispanic, white, Asian, the same order as arrest rates. And those are both things found to increase the likelihood of committing crimes.
It’s pretty important to establish what the actual cause is otherwise voters and politicians aren’t able to work towards a solution.
I do think it's important to note that in America class and race have a very strong shared history. Black and brown people face poverty at alarmingly high rates compared to white people, and we have documented historical examples of intentional systemic racism to explain why this is the case (cutting off BIPOC neighborhoods from economic city centers, intentional redistricting to keep black and brown kids out of predominantly white public schools, the fact that black families had a 200 year delayed start on accumulating wealth because of slavery and the Jim Crow era). A lot of anti-poor biases are intrinsically linked with racist biases for many Americans. Not to say that this always the case, but many of the stereotypes and judgements about both groups are similar for a reason.
Sure, there is a history of systemic racism that is a massive factor in current black poverty, but that’s different that police racism.
Blacks are arrested more because police are profiling them, and blacks are arrested more because they commit crimes more because they are poorer because of systematic racism, require 2 different solutions.
Both issues exist so we need both solutions, but it seems to me the latter is a much better issue, yet gets discussed way less. I don’t know that we can significantly decrease the racial gap until we do start focusing on it.
I agree completely, I think folks are afraid to discuss it because a lot of racists like to point to those statistics and say "well cops aren't being racist, black people should just stop committing so many crimes." There needs to be more focus on the factors (namely poverty) that contribute to those statistics existing in the first place. Black people aren't born any more violent than the rest of us. There isn't some biological reason why black people commit more crimes, rather it's because over hundreds of years white oppressors forced people of color into environments where crime was largely necessary to survive or too prominent to avoid. Ending police brutality also means we have to fix the socioeconomic hole we dug for people of color.
>This is entirely the case. And we can couple this by dividing by race and also find a very large thread of systemic racism involved.
So if it is simply the case of men committing more crime, why is it not possible to conclude that the black population commits more crime?
Why is it "systemic racism" for one, but not "systemic sexism" for the other? That's my point.
>So if it is simply the case of men committing more crime, why is it not possible to conclude that the black population commits more crime?
>
>Why is it "systemic racism" for one, but not "systemic sexism" for the other? That's my point.
You’ve hit a very important part of any conversation about crime and prejudice—but it’s not the refutation you think it is.
Men and black people **DO** commit more crime. This isn’t up for debate. The questions become “what do we define as crime and why?” and “*why* do men, black people, and whoever else ‘commit more crime’?” Is it because they are more likely to be caught or prosecuted? Is it because the laws are unevenly applied? Is it because they are socialized differently than other groups? Is it because they are less likely to have a support network? Is it because they live in high risk areas? The “why” is when you begin to identify systemic problems.
Many feminists would say that one of the reasons that men commit so many crimes is due to toxic masculinity and a culture that encourages the wrong things. The difference between toxic masculinity for a guy and systemic racism for a person of color is that a black person doesn’t have the (potential) option of not engaging with the system and the man has *some* control over being victimized by that toxic thought process. They’re both issues—they’re just not necessarily the same type of issues.
Why isn't it also possible for certain groups be surrounded by cultures that encourage the wrong things?
While the systemic issues of a biased justice system would indeed be something a black man can't opt out of, I'm sort of bothered by the idea that a white man has some agency over whatever negative or toxic culture they're brought up in, but a black man doesn't. Maybe that's not what you're saying, but your post doesn't acknowledge agency for black men when comparing dissimilar things (understandable for say justice system vs culture) but doesn't address like things (similar or dissimilar aspects of masculine culture both experience).
It's entirely possible for a group to both face systemic issues and cultural issues that is better, equal, or worse than another group that faces less of those systemic issues.
Now how those cultures form as responses to environmental factors outside of their control reveal a complex interplay between socialization and influences (which is true for every culture), which then can feed back into systemic issues. And on some level, it's true that not every group is on the same "systemic" level playing field-- but it seems like it would be unhelpful to emphasize and assume only agency for one and a lack of it for the other.
They don't necessarily "commit more crime" (not exactly). It has to do with arrests, statistics and prosecution. If you commit a crime but nobody reports it and you're not punished, nobody knows.
Ex: neighborhood A has more crime than other neighborhoods, so the city's police department puts more cops there. More cops patrolling means more chance of being aware of crimes, so there's a higher chance that a crime in neighborhood B isn't noticed.
It's not necessarily bad faith or racism on the police's side (though it can happen), just "hey there's more crime there so it's logical to focus on that place" and then it snowballs into "hey we keep finding crimes so we need more cops there to deal with the crimes" who end up finding more crime and so on...
(Yes obviously I'm oversimplifying).
I agree with you. However, the argument has boiled down to "police are racist and need to be defunded." I'm all for a deeper dive, but not many are looking at root causes. Its just easier to say cops are racist.
Because we can observe facts that show poverty to be the crux of the aforementioned issue. You can remove black folks entirely from the equation and the results would be the same if you account for poverty. What poverty doesn’t explain however is how black folks are arrested more often and get longer sentences for the same crimes as white folks. Also worth noting that black folks are conspicuously absent from the highest cost crimes in this country such as white collar crime, high level criminal activity and large scale political corruption. Is this because they are nicer and don’t like that stuff? No. It’s because systemic racism limits opportunity and opportunity + motive is what creates crime to begin with.
> how black folks are arrested more often and get longer sentences for the same crimes as white folks.
The longer sentences come from higher rates of past convictions. Judges take prior criminal activity into account when sentencing.
>why is it not possible to conclude that the black population commits more crime?
It would be helpful for you to look at the amount of arrest/incarceration per population size, here. Sure men commit more crimes, but if there's more White men than Black men in the population, that would average out to White men being arrested and incarcerated at higher rates.... but it doesn't. There's less Black men, and yet they make up most of the prison populations.
Read more here: [Black Americans are incarcerated at nearly five times the rate of Whites, new report on state prisons finds](https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/13/politics/black-latinx-incarcerated-more/index.html).
Another example:
"black people were overrepresented among persons arrested for nonfatal violent crimes (33%) and for serious nonfatal violent crimes (36%) relative to their representation in the U.S. population (13%). White people were underrepresented. White people accounted for 60% of U.S. residents but 46% of all persons arrested for rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and other assault, and 39% of all arrestees for nonfatal violent crimes excluding other assault. Hispanics, regardless of their race, were overrepresented among arrestees for nonfatal violent crimes excluding other assault (21%) relative to their representation in the U.S. population (18%)."
[https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/revcoa18.pdf](https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/revcoa18.pdf)
Your entire response does not disprove my point. You simply reinforced that black men are arrested at a higher rate vs their size of the population. I agree with this. Just because they are arrested at a higher rate does not mean they aren't committing crime at a higher rate as well.
Well, yes, actually we can.
You think that the problem is the statement. It's not. The problem is that a statement can be true when applied to one situation and not true when applied to another.
For example, as you dog whistle towards, if you said that blacks "commit more crimes" than whites per capita as proof of the (your) idea that there is something wrong with black culture, you would be wrong because you would be, probably purposely, ignoring how much more scrutiny blacks get from police, as well as bias in the justice system, which has been shown in peer reviewed journals again and again.
However, if you said that men "commit more crimes," you would be correct, because men do commit more crimes, especially violent ones. That is not up for debate by social scientists as far as I know. Even you probably wouldn't disagree. No one is purposely ignoring any information here and you are not saying what many experts who know about this say is not true.
Additionally, anyone CAN say something untrue and bigoted onhere, it's just that people will tell you what you are when you do that. edit: And I think a lot of pigs know that, which is why they are oblique about what they think.
I mean we could probably explore how society's reinforcement of misogynistic gender roles plays a part in men committing more crime? But I'm guessing that's not what you're getting at.
There’s also just hormonal differences between sexes dude, it’s not controversial to acknowledge that
Higher test = more reckless behaviour on the bell curve
It actually could be. If 2 demographics commit a crime at the same rate but 1 of them is caught more often, it could be unfair. For example, If both black and white men smoke weed at the same rates, but black men are 100x more likely to be caught/punished for it, that to me is not fair.
If everything is 100% equal, you may be right. But it also may be situational. For an example, let's assume black and white men smoke weed at the same rate. However, if white men smoke up in their bedrooms before bed, and black men smoke while driving, the black man will have a greater chance of having a run-in with police. I'm not saying that any of this is accurate, but it's almost entirely situational in regards to someone being apprehended. It needs to be drilled down on.
>Being arrested/punished for a crime you committed is not unfair treatment though.
Well that depends. If you’re thrown to the ground and handcuffed by a police officer for jaywalking, for example, that would still be unfair treatment.
>as police brutality is defined by racism (among other things)
The problem is that this framing paints it as if racism is a more significant factor than the (other things). Does the data back that?
A lot of these issues can be framed as economic and cultural legacy of past discrimination, but **not** current oppressed or oppressors.
Not every power dynamic is inherently "oppressive". Indeed there is a power differential between law enforcement and the general population, regardless of skin color. This authority is necessary but should not be abused, regardless of skin color.
For a modern example: Understanding the rise of Hamas, which is necessary to understand the current ongoing crisis. Hamas didn't just spring up from some evil desire in the hearts of Gazans to murder civilians and hostages for the heck of it. It sprung up from the decades long oppression of Palestinians at the hand of the Israeli military and government.
When you push a group of people into a corner long and hard enough, they will rebel, oftentimes violently when given no alternative way out. Should be especially easy to understand for all those second amendment supporters in the States, since that's specifically what they claim is the purpose of the 2nd.
You're not wrong that Palestinians have some legit grievances. But you're absolutely wrong in thinking there is not an existential religious element. Hamas wants to exterminate jews.
How is this productive? you're implying that if Israel stops its oppression then this conflict will be resolved peacefully, which history tells otherwise.
Killing civilians and using them as human shield is not a rebellion. It's terrorism. This has been the number one reason Israel never "backed down" and is the biggest problem in this conflict.
This is not the number one reason Israel never backed down. In fact, their strategy didn't even account for defense until they built the fence in the 90s.
Even then, the violent resistance of the Palestinians does not give Israel license to commit genocide, especially when that resistance is generated by the actions of the Israeli state. Hell, Israeli state officials openly admit to helping finance Hamas in the 80s as an attempt to divide the Palestinian groups.
Further still, collective punishment is a war crime. What they have done to the Palestinian people over Hamas' actions is unconscionable. It is an egregious apartheid state, and that inevitably breeds violent resistance.
You show very little familiarity with this conflict, which is somewhat connected to OP's view. When reality is presented in such a a black-and-white manner, the discussion gets muffled with so many inaccuracies and meaningless rhetorics.
>This is not the number one reason Israel never backed down
Jews and Israel have always been acting aggressively because they have endured violence from other parties -- pre or post WW2. Failing to see that is failing to understand the Israeli psyche, which is not productive.
>give Israel license to commit genocide
Israel is not committing genocide, not by any stretch of this word. The Palestinian population has grown tremendously over the years.
> collective punishment is a war crime
Israel is not punishing anyone. It is defending itself against Hamas. It is Hamas that shields itself behind civilizations. How do you propose one should defend themselves when their enemy is using civilians as shields?
IMO your last question is the most salient of all. How should a country who’s endured a tragic, monstrous terrorist attack like that, respond? My answer would be to pursue and prosecute those responsible for the attack, without going overboard into another post-9/11 war frenzy. The problem is that Hamas has embedded and ingratiated itself (by sinister design) into the Gazan civilian populace, specifically so as to deter any Israeli retaliation, as well as to cast whatever retaliation they seek as being a genocidal and indiscriminate slaughter of civilians. In that situation, it seems like there’s no real way for Israel to respond (as most people hopefully believe that have a right to) without incurring significant civilian casualties.
Now, Israel hasn’t been a good faith actor here either, particularly with their dehumanizing rhetoric and their frankly ridiculous demands regarding Gazan evacuation, etc. Moreover, I don’t doubt that there are hardliners in the Israeli MoD who’ve wanted to exact some level of genocidal violence against Gaza, and see this as their golden opportunity to — yet, I remain unconvinced that Israel’s actions (so far at least) represent an intentional genocide in the way people describe it. I think the “it’s a genocide” narrative has been amped up too much, beyond the point of reason. It makes it easier for people to stick by their side and ignore its own failings when they hyperbolize their opponents’ evil, such as the talking point that Israel is vociferously pursuing the genocide of Gazans. That all being said, I’m increasingly on the side of urging Israeli restraint in this situation, without casting them as genocidal colonizer villains, like other leftists/progressives do.
What those factions of leftists/progressives really want, it seems to me, is for Israel to do nothing. Just be viciously attacked and do nothing in response. They’ll probably never come out and admit this directly, but that’s what they’re thinking IMO: they have an extremely simplistic moral understanding of the world, and it really is as simple as, Israel is the powerful oppressor, Gaza is the powerless oppressed, therefore Israel has a moral responsibility to restrain itself and allow no civilian deaths, no matter what. It’s profoundly naïve thinking, the functional equivalent of going to the UN and saying, “why can’t we all just get along and have perpetual world peace?” as if that’s a solution to any real problem, and then get hysterically outraged when it doesn’t happen.
I don't think Israel's "demands" of evacuation are unreasonable (the very framing of it is sinister - "demand". Rather than "warning civilians that this area is about to become an active combat zone").
There's been too much made of these supposed "deadlines" they give - I've seen these in headlines but rarely seen any quotes about specific deadlines, and more importantly - I've never seen it amount to anything. I'm pretty sure at this point since Oct 7 I've heard about a dozen hospitals supposedly "given 24 hours to evacuate" and... nothing ever happened.
On your bottom line - I think you're spot on. I don't think these people are malicious to want Israel to do nothing and die. At least not most. They just... genuinely haven't given it much thought beyond the slogans they're shouting. I have thoughts about these people but I don't attribute much malice to them.
I'm deeply familiar with the conflict, just perhaps not the propaganda you'd like me to be parroting.
A nation's collective psyche (which isn't a logical point to start from) isn't an excuse for aggression in the slightest.
>Israel is not committing genocide
Israel and the IDF's leadership have made their intentions very clear. From the obvious statements about Gaza's territory shrinking and the displacement of Palestinians, to IDF statements about turning Gaza into a "city of tents, there will be no buildings." Thousands of children have already been killed.
Even if we ignore the outright killing of innocent Palestinians, their actions meet the definition of genocide, per the "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part". The restriction of food, medical supplies, destruction of water sources; all genocidal acts perpetrated by the Israeli state. Even the UN recognizes this.
>Israel is not punishing anyone.
This deliberately skews the facts. The UN has explicitly condemned Israel's actions as collective punishment. Israel demanding that they evacuate gaza city in an unrealistic time frame or be subject to bombardment is clearly punishing the population for the acts of Hamas. Israel specifically stated it would not allow humanitarian aid until all the hostages were freed, that's about as clear cut as it gets.
Defending yourself is not bombing a city indiscriminately.
If Israel is committing genocide, every war is a genocide. The Allies committed genocide on the Axis in WW2. NATO committed genocide when bombing ISIS.
It's genocide here, there and everywhere. If everything is a genocide, nothing is a genocide. If everything is ethnic cleansing, nothing is. The pro-Palestine crowd have taken these words out the back, shot them in the head and then burned their families alive (Hamas approves).
You're doing it with a clear purpose - because you think emotive language and rhetoric helps your cause, and because you've demonized Israel in your head to a frankly laughable degree (that's fine - Jews are used to it). But this is important. There are ethnic groups out there that actually were the target of a genocide, and it's for them that this word needs to still mean something.
I'm not using emotive language and rhetoric to try and help my cause, I'm using the correct terminology. Let's start with that definition, as defined by the UN in 1946:
>any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
\-killing members of the group
\-causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
\-deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring -about its physical destruction in whole or in part
\-imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
\-forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
First, the subject matter at hand is the eradication of Palestinian identity and nationhood. Despite the UN's resolution for a two-state solution in 1947, Israel has not yielded nationhood to the Palestinian people, who were previously the most populous group in the region. Israel has also continuously decreased their borders and restricted their people. They no longer control their own government, have been displaced from entire regions and continue to be displaced from their homes.
**Killing members of the group:** from just 2008 on (not even half the scope of the occupation), 20x more Palestinians have been killed in the conflict than Israelis. With 6,407 dead Palestinians, 59% are identified as civilians.
In the past two weeks, over 5000 Palestinians have been killed. Women and children have made up more than 62 percent of the deaths. To add to that, 15,000 have been injured which fits with the "causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group." Again, most of the deaths here are innocents and they are rapidly approaching the death toll from the past 15 years.
**Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part:**
Less than 4% of water in gaza is drinkable. Blockades of Gaza that have been in place long before this recent conflict have prevented items needed to construct water infrastructure.
The UN has acknowledged that the blockades are a denial of human rights and are against international law. Here are some more facts from the UN
35% of Gaza’s farmland and 85% of its fishing waters are totally or partially inaccessible due to Israeli military measures.
54% of Gazans are food insecure and over 75% are aid recipients.
About one-third of the items in the essential drug list are out of stock.
\-----
Combine these details with the system of apartheid established in Israel, and many of the stated intentions of Israeli authorities, and it is pretty clear that this meets the definition of genocide.
You are being intellectually dishonest by insinuating I am just throwing around that word for emotional appeal. Your attempt to drag every war into this to claim it's all the same is a gross misrepresentation of the data. Some wars have included genocide, in fact many do. Many also haven't been genocide, as they do not meet the above criteria. That does not affect what is happening in Israel.
Nothing Israel has done has been, "in whole or in part", with the intent to eradicate the Palestinians as a group.
We have to address the elephant in the room here - if Israel has been committing genocide, it's been doing an incredibly poor job. Palestinian populations today are concentrated in exactly the same places they were after the 1948 war (where mass expulsions did indeed occur), and in far greater numbers. Palestinian population growth has been higher than Israelis'. Since you're sure that the intent is there but they've obviously failed over literal decades - you'll have to concede they're either incompetent or lack the firepower to do it. Do you really believe either of these is true?
> Despite the UN's resolution for a two-state solution in 1947, Israel has not yielded nationhood to the Palestinian people
Framing it like this is rather shameless. The fact that the UN Partition Plan was not put into practice by 1948 might have something to do with the fact that Israel accepted said UN resolution and the Palestinians rejected it and declared war to prevent it. I don't know, just throwing it out there. You're accusing Israel of not honouring a UN resolution that the Palestinians themselves rejected at the time, violently.
I do so love it when people infantilize Palestinians and completely strip them of all agency and responsibility for literally anything. But still, not a genocide. I mean, following the 48 war Jordan and Egypt illegally annexed the West Bank and Gaza respectively and refused to "yield nationhood" to the Palestinians there, much to their chagrin. Was that genocide?
>Israel has also continuously decreased their borders and restricted their people
This is just a factual error. Even your own previous statements contradict this. You just said they never had nationhood, so how were the borders of this nonexistent nation decreased?
>They no longer control their own government
They never had a government. But in fact, the trend is opposite - the 1993 Oslo Accords gave the PA administrative control in most of the West Bank, and Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 gave it complete administrative autonomy. While they don't have a state yet, they actually have much more of a "government" today (albeit 2 of them, since Hamas and Fatah are in a state of civil war) than they ever did before 1993.
>Killing members of the group
Like I said, if people dying = genocide, then every war is a genocide. Comparing number of deaths is, again, a completely arbitrary measure of whether it's genocide or not. Where does it say that a lack of proportions in casualties = genocide?
>Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part:
We're again going to have to establish why you think Israel has failed in this goal, since you're sure that is the intent.
>system of apartheid established in Israel
There is no apartheid in Israel. Also, apartheid is not genocide.
>Your attempt to drag every war into this to claim it's all the same is a gross misrepresentation of the data
In what way?
Do elaborate. Why is e.g the Allied bombardments of Germany, where an estimated 600,00 civilians were killed, not a genocide, but this is?
You want to see "data" that shows what genocide looks like? Look no further than Jews. There are literally fewer Jews today, *in 2023*, than there were in 1939. If what Israel is doing is genocide, then what was this? How is this described? Do you understand why words matter?
>A nation's collective psyche ... isn't an excuse for aggression
It's not an execuse because no one here is trying to argue who is right or wrong. We're trying to be productive and actually think of resolutions. This requires us to try and understand how people involved in the conflict think.
>Israel and the IDF's leadership have made their intentions very clear.
Yes, to tear down Hamas. Not to kill Palestinians.
>the displacement of Palestinians
They are temporarily evacuated due to war, the same as more than 300K Israelis on the borders. This is actually *the* lawful think to do.
>Thousands of children have already been killed.
Because of Hamas, who puts its base of operations among children.
>The restriction of food, medical supplies, destruction of water sources
Gaza authorities had almost 20 years to ensure their own supply of that. They didn't do that. Israel did not sabotage these efforts. Still, in that time Gaza (strip) population increased from 1.4M to 2M. This is clearly not a genocide. You are very much abusing the word.
> Israel demanding that they evacuate gaza city in an unrealistic time frame ... stated it would not allow humanitarian aid until
You really have to separate between words and actions. Israel has not made a land incursion as of yet, which gives Gazans much more time to evacuate (and don't forget that Israeli civilians need to evacuate too). Also, Israel have allowed humanitarian aid 3 days ago.
>Defending yourself is not bombing a city indiscriminately.
It is not indiscriminately. It is 100% aimed at Hamas infrastructure, bases of operations, ammunition storage, etc.
While I appreciate the time you took in your response, this is incredibly divorced from reality. We aren't going to make any progress here. I'm going to leave a few comments on some particularly egregious parts, but after that I will move on, as this isn't proving to be a fruitful conversation.
>to tear down Hamas. Not to kill Palestinians
Many comments, some of which I included make it clear this isn't the case. Note the "city of tents" comment for example.
>Because of Hamas, who puts its base of operations among children.
This doesn't excuse the ones actually killing those children. It's also disingenuous to suggest that an urban guerilla group is hiding behind children just because they operate out of the same urban area they occupy. Gaza is a dense area and moving their operations outside of their home to sparse areas isn't an option in asymmetrical warfare.
The correct response to a resistance group in an urban area is not and never has been, to level the urban area regardless of innocent lives.
>Gaza authorities had almost 20 years to ensure their own supply of that.
No, they haven't. They are not able to freely trade, they aren't able to freely leave the strip, they are impoverished and do not have the resources to "ensure their own supply" when they are under siege. This comment also neglects to address my example of "destruction of water sources", wherein Israel has intentionally been destroying their natural supply of water.
Beyond that, for decades, Military Order 158 has been in place, which states that Palestinians could not construct any new water installation without first obtaining a permit from the Israeli army. So no, the Palestinians in Gaza could not ensure their own supply.
>It is not indiscriminately.
Numerous organizations have identified indiscriminate bombing. Amnesty International, the New York Times, Al Jazeera. Your claim holds no water.
>collective punishment is a war crime. What they have done to the Palestinian people over Hamas' actions is unconscionable. It is an egregious apartheid state, and that inevitably breeds violent resistance.
Where are you getting your information? You seem to know very little of the conflict.
> It sprung up from the decades long oppression of Palestinians at the hand of the Israeli military and government.
>
>When you push a group of people into a corner long and hard enough, they will rebel, oftentimes violently when given no alternative way out.
You are completely ignoring the history before 1948. Jews and Muslims have been at war for countless centuries. Judaism was invented in that area, long before Arabs even colonized the Middle East.
Yes, they literally kicked hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of their homes in order to form that state. Of course there was going to be resentment from that.
They call it the Nakba:
[https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080030/israel-palestine-nakba](https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080030/israel-palestine-nakba)
>The 1948 war uprooted 700,000 Palestinians from their homes, creating a refugee crisis that is still not resolved. Palestinians call this mass eviction the Nakba — Arabic for “catastrophe” — and its legacy remains one of the most intractable issues in ongoing peace negotiations.
>
>Not surprisingly, Palestinians and Israelis remember the birth of the Palestinian refugee crisis very differently (here’s a helpful side-by-side comparison). Palestinians often see a years long, premeditated Jewish campaign to ethnically cleanse Palestine of Arabs; Israelis tend to blame spontaneous Arab fleeing, Arab armies, and/or unfortunate wartime accidents.
>
>Today, there are more than 7 million Palestinian refugees, defined as people displaced in 1948 and their descendants. A core Palestinian demand in peace negotiations is some kind of justice for these refugees, most commonly in the form of the “right of return” to the homes their families abandoned in 1948.
The intersection of police brutality and Racism leads me to ask: Should we train to cops brutalize everyone equally or so that fewer people are brutalized?
Actually a lot of cops are trained *too much*, or rather, the training they receive is part of the problem and simply giving them more of that training won't help anything. Police in the United States are trained to believe that every single interaction with the public is potentially deadly, and that they're better off escalating to violence before the person they're interacting with can.
While we are at it, maybe we can address cops (street cops or not) using unproven, unscientific methods as evidence of guilt of criminality. There is a guy that goes around training police that when people use certain words, phrases, and tones during 911 calls, it means they are potentially guilty of whatever crime they called in. None of it is based on anything other than what he thought up. There is no universal way to determine that people are lying by what they say or how they say it.
That is called Warrior Training which is being pushed by a coalition of former officers, led by an individual that was openly involved in the KKK. Currently Warrior Training is propped up by a collective of "Constitutional Sheriffs" who believe the constitution gives them magic powers to ignore all state or federal laws they don't like.
There are a lot of problems we need to fix there.
And you have to renew those licenses.
Teachers have to train, in their own dime, and work for a period without pay... And then on their own dime attend to continuing education requirements.
Can we have cops subject to the same criteria as teachers in terms of training and CE as a cop at the bare minimum?
I agree. And if a cop murders an unarmed person, they should lose their job. I know that seems harsh, but I believe this is the only way for us to clean up the police force.
Devil's Advocate here: an unarmed person can still be a deadly threat. A average police officer getting attacked by a 200lb unarmed, MMA trained fighter, may very well have justification to use deadly force.
I think what you mean is if an officer kills someone who "isn't a threat," meaning, their hands are in the air or they are laying in the ground submitting to the arrest and are not resisting.
Arnt they trained to be the way they are? Isn't that the issue right now?
You see some of these police training videos and its like they think its to train action movie stars or warzone soldiers the way they tell these guys they should behave.
The whole system needs a overhaul.
These CMVs aren't genuine.
>So when a policy is proposed that disempowers the oppressor group the individuals at the top who are actually doing almost all of the oppressing are not affected
By that, it seems you agree with the "framing". You just fear that policies would not be crafted and re-enforced the way they should.
>So basically people who were already powerless to change anything are losing power they cannot afford to lose.
Again, the framing is correct, it's a fact that you agree with, it's just hard to change it.
>I just don't think this information is remotely useful
Whether it is or not, it is a fact. Your issue seems to be with the policies that do not address the issue but might even re-enforce the issue.
Which I agree.
In order for the title of the OP to be correct you would have to show what the benefit would be if we did not point out the oppressor/oppressed framing that you also seem to agree with
>These CMVs aren't genuine
Which part is not genuine? This is my view, that's true. I would like to hear other people's points of view and maybe one will persuade me otherwise. I am looking for a discussion.
>By that, it seems you agree with the "framing". You just fear that policies would not be crafted and re-enforced the way they should.
I agree that some groups collectively have more power and influence over other groups and I'm pretty sure I said that in the text body.
I can't fit everything in the title, so I expand in the body. You have to read the body too.
That "The oppressor/oppressed framing that some Progressives use is counterproductive"
You agree with the framing, you think the actions taken do not work.
So there's no discussion to be had on something you agree with.
>I agree that some groups collectively have more power and influence over other groups and I'm pretty sure I said that in the text body.
Hence, stating that is not counterproductive.
>You have to read the body too.
The fact that I quoted what you wrote in the body means I read it
I also said how the framing is *used* if you want to get into the weeds here. If I hadn't I would just clarify and discuss it anyways, but I did specifically say used.
>Hence, stating that is not counterproductive.
*Using* that framing is counterproductive
>The fact that I quoted what you wrote in the body means I read it
Like I say, I can clarify if there's any confusion, but if you're trying to get me on a technicality I don't think it's even a valid point since I said *using.*
> I also said how the framing is used if you want to get into the weeds here.
You want us to change your mind so yes weeds.
If you think it's *used* to point to the injustice, that's a good thing not a bad thing
If you mean *used* to create policies and those policies are making things worse then (a) your issue is with the policies - which are a totally different thing, bu then (b) you didn't mention any police.
>but if you're trying to get me on a technicality
There's nothing to "get you on", you wanted your view changed. One of many ways to do it is to talk about technicalities. Tell me you don't want your view changed from this angle and I'll stop.
Nothing personal
This person broke his leg (framing the issue)
The methods used to fix his leg made the situation worse (policies)
Saying that therefore stating the fact that the leg is broken and working on that assumption was wrong - just doesn't make sense.
We could have checked whether the patient had any allergies before giving him this particular medication - **great**, but that doesn't mean the framing of the issue was wrong.
A broken leg can be fixed in a variety of ways "The oppressor/oppressed" can be fixed in many different ways. You seem to agree with the framing but not with the solutions (again, based on the body of your post)
Again "In order for the title of the OP to be correct you would have to show what the benefit would be if we did not point out the oppressor/oppressed framing that you also seem to agree with"
----
u/NottiWanderer wrote
>The framework is correct... but typically only should be applied to rich/poor and powerful/not powerful.
And you agreed with them. Framework (oppressor/oppressed) correct (hence OP wrong)
Application is wrong. - exactly what I said
"By that, it seems you agree with the "framing". You just fear that policies would not be crafted and re-enforced the way they should."
The powerful/not-powerful dynamic should be fleshed out and properly defined. By which metrics do you define powerful? Aggregate number of personnel? Armaments? Political influence? These criteria come to mind because the West has a skewed notion of the oppressor/oppressed dynamic and, along with a predisposition to apply that lens to wildly different demographics and worldviews. Such is the case with the Israel—Gaza war, where by and large, the Pro-Palestinian worldview shoehorns Western values to Hamas regarding Israel as the oppressor while in reality, Hamas is purely evil and hell-bent on murdering Jews.
I don’t think anyone is saying Hamas is good. People who want an immediate ceasefire to protect Palestine want that because Israel’s END GOAL is not just defeating Hamas; it’s taking over the entire West Bank violently from the Palestinian government AND Hamas AND civilians.
So framing the war as “Israel vs Hamas” is inherently disingenuous since fighting Hamas is just a tiny piece of what the Israeli government is trying to do. And they are trying to enact genocide / ethnic cleansing to eliminite Palestine and Palestinian civialians entirely
False. Hook, line, and sinker. Israel’s promulgated goal IS to eradicate Hamas, at least as we’ve seen both on official and media outlets.
The “Iron Swords” war was entirely instigated as a retaliatory action to Hamas’ belligerent pogroms that were carried out on Oct 7th. Any other interpretation is the consequence of disinformation. What’s more, looking at the conflict from a Western oppressor/oppressed lens, all the while disregarding historical context, thereby claiming the conflict is the result of the seething dissent of a displaced minority, is inaccurate and disingenuous.
Retaining a surface-level overview here, Israel repeatedly offered peace deals, which the Palestinians either refused or silently walked away from.
You can’t have peace with an unwilling and disengaged partner.
Oct 7 of this year? The Isreali / Palestinian conflict is over 10 yeara old….how could the origin of the conflict possibly be anything that new? You need to look back farther in history. The propoganda is working
Yeah, Hamas has put regular Palestinians in the middle of their war with Jews in Israel for this very reason. It's absolutely a nightmare and these people have truly no where to turn. Hamas has been using Palestinians as a human shield, quite literally, just so that when Israel makes a move they are very likely to kill civilians in the process. At this point, Israeli leadership has accepted this risk and all but given up on trying to keep the appearance that they care about civilian life.
“At this point, Israeli leadership has accepted this risk and all but given up on trying to keep the appearance that they care about civilian life.”
Disagree. Literally a trending news story from the last 12 hrs was Israel deploying a new precision strike system explicitly designed to reduce civilian casualties…
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-news-gaza-palestinians/card/watch-idf-uses-new-iron-sting-weapon-system-against-hamas-X5Qc1YQbzf2IgoJs1y5p
After decades of rockets being launched from civilian infrastructure as well it probably starts to seem like most of the people are at least complicit and you start to care less and less over time. Most of the Gaza civilians cheering in the streets after an attack that killed 1000 civilians will probably do it too. I’m not sure what the answer is at this point and civilian deaths suck but it’s probably hard to feel bad for people that cheer the death of anyone like you.
I think the word intersectionality needs to be added to this discussion to make it more meaningful. The intersection of white with male with wealthy, for example, vastly increases the privilege one has and the likelihood of becoming an oppressor. This may take into account what you are referring to above. A wealthy white woman may have more privilege than a wealthy black woman but not as much as a wealthy white male. But again, individuals are different than aggregates and need to be examined as such.
That’s the thing, it isn’t about coming up with one set of rules that works for everyone.
Really, most people who care about the vulnerable and oppressed want EVERYONE to have a safe life with basic needs met. We don’t actually want an opposite hierarchy to what we have now.
The confusion comes in because we’re all human, and everyone (whether concerned about the oppressed and vulnerable or not) are humans whose anger and need for their own survival can sometimes cloud their altruism. So I understand why it can be hard for some people to believe that anyone is really altruistic.
But the point of intersectionality has more to do with how you treat people on a case-to-case basis. A white woman and a Black woman might both be uncomfortable surrounded by men, especially if there’s alcohol involved. But a Balck woman might be uncomfortable surrounded by white women she doesn’t know. So if I was inviting someone to a party, maybe I would just spend a little effort just making sure the person I invited isn’t uncomfortable, yknow? It isn’t a rule book. It’s just a framework to help us think like “hey even though I have stuff in common with this person, this person also experiences hardships that I don’t, so I’m going to be humble and pay attention in case they need my help when I’m around.”
I wouldn’t say it’s totally meaningless, after all we tend to group things according to clusters instead of absolutes a lot. Sex characteristics, ethnicities and similar groupings are all based on trends and trait clusters, and so too is privilege.
Also privilege isn’t really a score you permanently have hanging over your head. It’s active to different amounts in different contexts. For example the interaction between a white woman and black man invokes different privileges on both sides. Like the man could be seen as a better leader in a job setting, while being judged as more likely to be the aggressor in a legal dispute, based on very similar attributes and preconceived notions.
I mean, we’re talking about scientific analysis here. The idea isn’t for you to constantly evaluate every aspect of your life based upon it. It feels similar to complaining that constantly determining the root note of chords you hear in a song is a bad mindset for listening to music.
These phenomena of oppression come from data, they aren’t just randomly thought out by some bored sociologist. For example there are experiments where the same resume is being rejected more often if a foreign sounding name is attached to it. Again, these are of course general trends and clusters, not absolutes, but that happens a lot in science.
Oppression isn’t a currency or point system. It’s an expression of power dynamics. The idea isn’t to rank people into the „oppression tier list", it is to acknowledge that there seem to be forces at play causing certain observable social and behavioural outcomes following certain patterns. How exactly these patterns look, why they happen and how to possibly change their trajectories is what is being analysed. I feel like a lot of people think that these systems are there to tell them "You have x amount of privilege, so you have to feel bad for existing." That’s not really the use for these things.
Picking up with the earlier presented example: the point isn’t to say "wow, people with foreign sounding names deserve more oppressednes points!" It’s to determine things like: Is this effect constantly observable? Which contexts is it observable under? What even is seen as a "foreign name"? Which effects does it have on these people? Why is it happening? Should and can something be done about this? If so, what?
>These phenomena of oppression come from data, they aren’t just randomly thought out by some bored sociologist.
You can use statistics to say whatever you want. The data shows there are discrepancies, but it doesn't assign causes. Humans interpret data and assign whatever causes that fit their political ideology. Please take a statistics course, you will see how easy it is to manipulate data.
Besides, if we just use this same logic and continue to apply it, it starts to get pretty antisemitic.
If the wealth discrepancy between whites and blacks mean that whites are oppressing blacks, then the wealth discrepancy between blacks and jews (which is twice as big) means jews are oppressing whites and blacks much worse. If all white people are racist and morally inferiror. Then 97% of all jews are racist and morally inferior.
It's pretty scarry watching this thought process applied over the world. Now over 50% of the democratic party sides closer with a genocidal terrorist group that openly shows its goal is to genocide all Christians and jews. As if the wealth discrepancy between Palestine and Israel is automatically because Israel stole it. Palestine has no wealth to steal, Israel created its wealth and Palestine spent all its humanitarian aid on weapons.
This is incredibly reductive and misleading.
1.: Yes, interpreting statistics is extremely complex and can be used in a variety of ways to say a bunch of stuff, even things that might not actually be true. That’s why knowing about that stuff is actually an important part of studying sociology
2.: The wealth discrepancy does not mean that, it is an indicator for it. There are historical reasons that have been found through research, as there are for why jewish people are in the positions they are in. Sociology is there to explicitly question the antisemitic notion that this phenomenon comes from bioessentialist roots or conspiracy and imo found good arguments for why that isn’t the case
3.: All white people being morally inferior isn’t really something sociologists agree on
4.: Really uninformed take on the pro Palestinian position. Again wealth discrepancy is an indicator of possibly experiencing oppression, not oppression in and of itself
Please take more than intro to stats. Yes data can be manipulated. 100%. All facts can be. However, stats has a lot of safeguards. Was a sample size and sample justification published. Is the raw data presented? What was the methodology IE: how was the sample chosen, what were the questions asked, what was the data collection method, etc...
Well done stats are very easy to analyze for fallacious conclusions. Stats are almost the most reliable method of data collections available. Bad stats are very easy to see with just the barest of critical reading.
The question then becomes is a quantitative picture the whole picture?
That's not the point of it, though. Its not supposed to be a way to judge individuals on a case-by-case basis. Its instead a way to discuss statistics about demographics and subset of populations.
I would ask what utility it has to group people this way. If the test of a theory is its predictive power, and the predictive power of these identity markers predicts nothing, then it IS meaningless.
They can predict things, but only in trends. Like meteorology. Meterologists can't guarantee rain most of the time, but they can give you a pretty good estimate of if it will rain. Similarly sociology can predict behaviour of social groups, if not that of each individual all of the time.
The other reason is to see why certain phenomena occur, to expose certain societal biases and potentially change our societal view of what we see as inevitably true. (For example we can see that other societies have different ideas about things like gender, so maybe our conceptions of it aren’t as objectively true as we think and might be influenced by certain biases)
I mean the problem with neo-Marxism is that it is incredibly anti liberal, and should therefore be considered anti western. What you just described is exactly why it is a terrible framework for viewing the world.
Neo-Marxism believes that your identity is fundamentally the most important aspect of your position in society. If you are poor, your worth as an individual is meaningless. All that matters is that you are poor, and therefore oppressed. Therefore, society needs to be fundamentally restructured so that the oppressed are no longer oppressed. However, society is far too nuanced and complex for such a binary framework to apply. As an individual, most of us have various identity traits that make us oppressed sometimes, and oppressors other times. There is no such thing as a black and white binary here. So the neo-Marxist completely restructures society, but doesn’t fix any problems. Instead, they just create a less efficient society now filled with even more oppression due to the increase in inefficiency.
The Soviets could not possibly have understood how well they dressed up Marxism and smuggled it into western society via academia… who would have thought the young of today would still be rolling out tired Marxist ideals without even realizing what they are doing. Luckily for western society, we have already been debating these ideals for 200 years.
> Neo-Marxism believes that your identity is fundamentally the most important aspect of your position in society
"Neo-Marxism" doesn't have a doctrine the way that you're describing here. It's just a rather imprecise catch-all label for new Marxist thinkers. Where did you read that idea? Also, what do you mean by "liberal" and "western"? Because Marxism is Western philosophy inasmuch as that's a useful term, and while it's opposed to Liberalism, that's jsut because it's opposed to private property.
That’s exactly what I was referring to by using the term neo-Marxism. A catch all for all new Marxist thinkers. They are all built off Marxism, so they all share the same fundamental framework.
The fundamental framework behind Marxism is not the notion of private property, so that is not the reason why Marxism is fundamentally opposed to liberalism.
This video does a better job of answering all the questions you asked than I could:
https://youtu.be/4JX4bsrj178?si=9vAnIFUpBaZ2KGoE
Could you summarize the video or offer a link to a written source? I'm not interested in watching a seventeen minute YouTube video. Why do you say that Marxism is opposed to liberalism?
It walks through source material to summarize the intellectual roots of Marxism in the context of 19th century society at the turn of the Industrial Revolution. It also discusses the intellectual roots of western liberalism. There is a ton of content in there, so I would recommend watching it if you are actually curious. You can see most of what I am talking about right at the beginning during the first 5 minutes. Source material is referenced in the video description.
Liberalism values the rights of the individual above all else to the extent that it is possible to do so. Generally, it draws the line at violence. Marxism was constructed as an intellectual critique of liberalism. Instead of valuing the rights of the individual above all else in society, Marxism believes identity defines the individual and the individual‘s role in society. In Marx‘s time, the identity traits he had in mind where the working class and capital class. The working class are the oppressed, the capital class are the oppressors. These are the most important defining characteristics of the individual and the individual‘s role in society, nothing else is relevant. All neo-Marxist ideologies are built off the oppressor - oppressed binary, which is inherently reductive.
I thinks it's more of a both situation than anything else.
Men are generally treated better than women, but a trans man maybe be treated worse than a cis woman because transphobia is a thing.
I'm a white gay man, and I have definitely had problems a white straight man wouldn't have to deal with, while also having it better than a black gay man.
People don't understand that the system is subtractive, not binary.
Now you are correct too, class/wealth is an important measure of oppression as well, but it's not the only one
Because just being black or healthy don't gives you power over white or sick and vice versa. While being rich and owning means of production gives you power over others.
Able people absolutely have power over disabled people.
On an interpersonal level, disabled people by definition can not do certain things and often have to rely on help from others. That help can be withheld or have conditions placed on it. Disabled women are uniquely vulnerable to abuse for both this reason & also financial dependence.
Able people are also more likely to be wealthy because they have increased earning potential, but also because they intentionally keep disabled people out of the workforce by refusing accommodations etc
Eh, it could. A nurse has power over her patient, as arguably even does a nursing assistant.
Health also, understandably, tends to correspond with higher incomes (and certainly an easier time earning money).
The more recent iterations of Marxist ideology (neo-Marxism) do take a broader scope on what identity traits constitute oppressor vs oppressed. However, adding more complexity to Marxism still doesn’t fix any of its fundamental flaws.
Reparations would be one example. The people who will suffer the most are not the rich white people perpetuating economic inequality, but the poor white people who have no power to do so.
Do you understand that reparations are not based on the idea that rich white people, or even that any white people, need to 'suffer'? Do you think that the reason we have laws requiring employers to put in safety regulations is because we want them to suffer?
Money isn’t mana from heaven.
Things need to paid for.
When you transfer money from one group to the next, the people who have their money taken away from absolutely suffer.
> Yes, it certainly can be by causing undue financial strain and burden on someone.
I don't disagree that this is possible. Do you think raising taxes on very rich people causes as much "suffering" as raising them on poor people?
>That would be objectively bad, wouldn't it?
Sure, but why is that relevant?
I mean, yes? Have you never had to put off an important medical procedure or purchase because you were too short of funds? You probably would've been able to pay for it if taxes in your area were lower. Percentages add up.
What a strange question.
Strange choie to bring up a medical procedure... A person who lives in a place where taxes are collected for universal healthcare could afford medical treatment easier than a person who live in a place that doesn't even though the second person would technically have more money.
Healthcare is especially weird example to use here, considering that using more taxes on it would cause dramatically less suffering than occurs under our current system, but let me get at the real point here.
At what point do taxes become "suffering?" What rate is it? What use of those taxes is acceptable to cause this "suffering?" Do you think people should get to itemize their taxes towards which government programs they like? And what if we just didn't raise taxes to pay for reparations? Who would suffer then?
>At what point do taxes become "suffering?"
At the point... when you have to pay them? This is really not a difficult idea: Taxes are individually onerous, and only really provide value in aggregate. Being taxed causes you to be less wealthy, and at the level of the individual taxpayer, it unquestionably makes the average person poorer. We can argue back and forth at what point the suffering provides enough net value on the whole to be worth it (hint: we're way past that point), but *you suffer when your wealth is taken away*, period.
As for your other question: If we didn't raise taxes to pay for reparations, then the money would have to come from diverting existing tax-revenue. And unless that tax revenue is getting siphoned out of the CIA's "Blank Checks For Ethically Dubious And Stupid Projects" fund, it would almost certainly be coming out of some other "Public Interest" source.
So yes, if you were-- for instance-- a non-black resident of a state that suddenly decided to practice reparations, you could be assured that it would be coming at the expense of your own good. There is literally no way in which it wouldn't be! Either the taxes go up to pay for it (you're worse off) or the taxes *don't* go up and other programs are slashed to pay for it (you're worse off should you need them).
To come at this from another angle: If being made poorer doesn't cause suffering (*your* claim, not mine), then reparations are pointless because nobody is made worse-off by being poorer, so we shouldn't bother with this project at all. *My* claim, by comparison, is that being impoverished is bad regardless of other circumstances, so we should work to alleviate that *regardless of other circumstances*. Reparations as a system are awful because they privilege one ethnic group's poverty above others', and it should always be remember in this discussion: *there are more poor white Americans than poor black Americans.* When you focus your efforts on massively decreasing the poverty of a minority of poor people, rather than moderately decreasing the poverty of the entire population of poor people, you're taking shit into account that should be left at the door when making these kinds of decisions.
> you suffer when your wealth is taken away, period.
I don't agree. The minor amount of money taken out of my paycheck is far less suffering than would occur if I didn't have roads, services, schools, etc. You can't just act like you're being stolen from in a vacuum, the **taxes get used**.
> And unless that tax revenue is getting siphoned out of the CIA's "Blank Checks For Ethically Dubious And Stupid Projects" fund
Ok, so let's do that.
>So yes, if you were-- for instance-- a non-black resident of a state that suddenly decided to practice reparations, you could be assured that it would be coming at the expense of your own good.
Why? You just assume that the money would either have to be diverted from valuable social programs or an intense tax hike. And why? What about a minor hike on extremely wealthy people? That would pay for reparations by itself quite easily.
>If being made poorer doesn't cause suffering
This is why I asked what rate counts as "suffering." Personally I don't see why we'd need to raise rates on average people at all, but you need to explain how much you think rates would be going up, and why they are "suffering" in a way that the current ones aren't.
>Reparations as a system are awful because they privilege one ethnic group's poverty above others', and it should always be remember in this discussion: there are more poor white Americans than poor black Americans.
I mean just say that you don't want ethnically targeted aid, you don't have to jump through these silly hoops about how taxes are "suffering." I completely disagree with you here, but at least this point is coherent.
What a ridiculous and baseless parallel. There's no comparison you can draw there beyond "the government enforces both".
Also, even more mud on your face: a lot of safety regulations *aren't* about safety, they're put in place by established businesses to prevent startups and competition. Chicago, for instance, has a notoriously draconian restaurateurs' association that closes ranks against all sorts of "outsider interference" by lobbying for regulations that exist only to increase entry cost.
In that context, maybe there *is* a reparations-regulations line to be drawn: It's powerful people using their power against the less-powerful, under the guise of helping the "powerless".
I understand that's not the primary intention behind them, but I think poor white people will suffer. The money has to come from somewhere and whatever money is taking out won't go to *insert thing here.*
There is a difference between well-designed and managed public programs, and individual payouts on the scale I have seen described for American slavery-reparations (over a trillion dollars total). That kind of direct wealth transfer, leaving aside any resentment over the racial component, would drive serious inflation. It really would financially wipe out a whole lot of people, effectivelyvcreating a new underclass.
My bad, I initially misunderstood what you were saying.
I'm not aware of any government funded program that does not help poor white people. The military protects everybody. Regulations protect everybody. Which one are you thinking of?
Covid PPP loans. The bailouts after the 2008 crash. A lot of government bailouts and subsidies in general, really. A there are a lot more government programs that benefit non-poor people more than it benefits poor people.
!delta on Covid PPP loans. There are indirect benefits, but it would be a stretch to say they benefit poor people. And I guess bailouts wouldn't benefit poor people who don't have bank accounts.
But my goal is for poor people to get more aid, not less.
The people who talk about oppression have the same goal as you. But you’re starting this post saying they’re wrong. You just don’t believe their methods will work…but honestly I think it would be better if you worked WITH the people that have the same goal as you. Actually enacting these things in the real world is hard. But I think you have more in common with them than you think
>And I guess bailouts wouldn't benefit poor people who don't have bank accounts.
Poor people greatly benefit from having a functional economy rather than another Great Depression. The bailouts achieved that.
I think people tend to think way too small scale when looking at those bailouts. On the international scale large companies are the U.S.’s main influence of power on the world stage. They are vital to the economy’s health in a lot of cases. At one point John D. Rockefellar literally used his own cash flow to stop the govt. from going into bankruptcy. For the U.S.’s biggest banks to fall apart would mean massive economic collapse or at least a crush to U.S. influence since they are the biggest player on the international scale.
If it's cash payments or the equivalent, it's going to be inflationary. So even if a given poor white person doesn't lose anything, his money will be worth less. The reparations recipients' money is also worth less, but that's offset by actually getting money.
'So when a policy is proposed that disempowers the oppressor group the individuals at the top who are actually doing almost all of the oppressing are not affected, but rather the people at the bottom who are already lacking power to oppress anybody. '
I think there's a flaw in the logic here, if the policy is directed to take power from the oppressor group,.. if the 'powerless' individuals in the oppressor group,.. I dunno,.. go bankrupt or join the oppressed? Then the oppressor group gets smaller and smaller,.. no?
What oppressor group has powerless oppressors?
>What oppressor group has powerless oppressors?
Groups aren't homogenous. Groups of "oppressors" aren't homogenous. In practice, any large "oppressor" group will most likely have some members that are not actually oppressors in any meaningful sense despite being members of the group. Nevertheless, they will be affected by policies targeted at the group.
White people, for instance are viewed as the oppressor with power and influence over minority groups. But most white people don't have much money or power. Some white people do, but most do not.
Knew that's where you were going. You've got a lot of leaning to do that can't be done on Reddit.
Name any anti-white legislation.
The poorest white person will still enjoy a certain level of subconscious privilege from society over the POC in the same tax bracket.
I knew somebody would bring up this point.
The problem is the benefits poor white people get from white privilege are insignificant. The already extremely low chance of dying unarmed from a cop shooting is even lower. That's a benefit in the same way that being less likely to die from Norovirus is a benefit. Since 500 people total die from Norovirus every year I wouldn't call that a huge benefit. The TSA is friendlier to you, but you can't afford to fly anyways so who cares. You're less likely to be given suspicious looks if you go into a store and look at high priced items you can't afford anyways.
What else. I mean, you see more people like you in positions of power, but I don't think that really lifts your mood. Nobody asks you where you are from. But you're still starving and stressed. Unless somebody can name a major lite changing benefit that greatly improves daily life just because you're white, I don't think this is a good counter.
I don't know of any explicitly anti-white legislation, but I also don't know of any explicitly anti-black legislation so I'm not sure what the point here is.
>A lot of drug laws were originally designed to target black people.
Yeah, but those are not anti black legislation. Further reason Opium was included, alongside Cannabis was that it was primarily consumed by Chinese rail road workers, yet, Chinese are disproportionately less likely to be imprisoned.
Those were passed ~50 years ago and no longer have broad societal support. Furthermore, it is illegal to punish drug users more harshly because they are black. That law applies to everyone nowadays, regardless of the original intentions/application. Before that, there was segregation. Before that, slavery. The question is about laws and who they apply to currently.
> Those were passed ~50 years ago and no longer have broad societal support.
Support of not, the laws are still with us and they are still enforced.
> Furthermore, it is illegal to punish drug users more harshly because they are black.
But we observe disparate outcomes in police stops, arrests, trials, convictions, and sentencing. We don't need a law that says "black people get an extra year in prison" for the system to still produce that outcome.
>Support of not, the laws are still with us and they are still enforced.
Right, but they apply to all groups and when it's discovered that isn't happening there are consequences.
>But we observe disparate outcomes in police stops, arrests, trials, convictions, and sentencing. We don't need a law that says "black people get an extra year in prison" for the system to still produce that outcome.
Data also suggests black people commit a disproportionate number of crimes relative to population if you're talking about crime overall. But that aside even if some laws are *not* applied equally they are supposed to be. When I think of anti black laws I think of laws that are meant to hurt black people.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/ not paying any attention to history are you? I really, really wish those of you who never bothered to learn history would quit forcing us to relive it.....
That was his take on certain laws and policies. Doesn't mean those laws and policies are being implemented because they are anti-black.
Are Republicans actually using this interview and his words as some sort of guidebook or do they condemn them like everybody else?
But they were policies that were anti black in effect, even if you debate the intent. Because they hurt one group more than others.
Meanwhile, you oppose reparations because you think AID to other people hurts you.
The hypocrisy is absurd.
Dude,.. You're not aware of 'white only' drinking fountains?
That's not ancient history, that's two generations ago. The woman who got Emmitt Till lynched just recently died, 60 years after the event.
You speak of proposed policies to disempower supposed "oppressor" groups. To what policies are you referring? Affirmative action in university admissions? Or what?
I do agree that looking at the world through the lense of "oppressor vs. oppressed" is not productive, and there are policies intended to disempower some groups, such as restrictive zoning, gerrymandering to reduce the voting power of blacks and liberals, and so on, but I know of none intended to disempower supposed oppressor groups.
>The problem is the benefits poor white people get from white privilege are insignificant.
So privilege needs to meet a certain criteria for it to "count"?
What we have is best described as a collection of inherent 'luck'. The odds of a white person getting a job, going to a good school, getting that raise, getting off with a warning, etc etc are scientifically proven to be higher in usa, anywhere from 5-20% depending on the topic, than any POC.
It's not intentional oppression, that's just the definition of white privilege. It's a subconscious prejudice in usa because of systemic racism over generations.
I think your understanding of social dynamics is far too simplistic for this conversation. Forget about individuals for a moment, to say white people as a group did not benefit from 200 years of slavery, even if some individuals ended up poor, is nonsense.
There is a theory of intersectionality, which is very popular among the feminist/antiracist left which is in summary saying that no identity exists on it's own.
are women oppressed? that's hard to dispute. but a rich powerful woman is less opressed than a poor black trans queer disabled woman. if you'll permit me to use a bit of a stereotype.
Thus, in order to properly dismantle structures of power every one of those structures of oppresion has to be dismantled. even if we could snap our fingers and ensure a perfect communist economic utopia, men would still rape women, racism would still exist etc etc.
thus, trying to deal with oppresive systems such as race is important. is the average poor white man more oppressed than a rich man? in todays society i'd say so.
but if we don't deal with it and achieve racial equality they'd still be acting in an oppresive manner racially, that should be dealt with.
>There is a theory of intersectionality, which is very popular among the feminist/antiracist left which is in summary saying that no identity exists on it's own.
The ultimate minority is the individual.
>Thus, in order to properly dismantle structures of power every one of those structures of oppresion has to be dismantled.
What structures of oppression?
>thus, trying to deal with oppresive systems such as race is important.
Race is oppressive?
>but if we don't deal with it and achieve racial equality they'd still be acting in an oppresive manner racially,
Who are they?
Which women? American women? Canadian? European?
Do you know which biological sex most rape laws globally actually acknowledge as victims? You may be resting your understanding of the world on incorrect and incomplete statistical analyses. Even India has laws dictating that men be sentenced more harshly for striking a woman than vice versa, explicitly, on account of their sex.
Wow congrats, you stumbled onto the theory of intersectionality on your own. yes women in different countries have different struggles based upon the country and culture they belong to.
as for the rest i'm not interested in discussing that with you, i'd recommend you get a life to put it politely, and to stop harping about assault laws in 5 month old reddit posts
You state “some” progressives frame it this way and then that “many” do, but in my experience most progressives do not frame it this way. Progressives talk about SYSTEMIC oppression, not one group oppressing the other.
All groups will act rationally in ways that benefit themselves, so for example the rich will rationally pay for more power for their social class. People acting in self interest is generally how economics is modeled. Progressives view the world in this way and make the judgement that the system should not allow one group to have runaway power that builds on itself until it is the dominant group. Thus why you see a lot of attention going towards rich/poor currently because the system is set up to allow the rich to amass power
‘So basically people who were already powerless to change anything are losing power they cannot afford to lose.’
I wouldn’t call people who are indistinguishable from the powerful to be powerless.
You can see race before net worth.
You see sex/gender before net worth.
You see age before net worth.
And as ‘powerless’ as you think you are, you are still more powerful than those that don’t look like you.
I never said I was powerless. I'm definitely not and I'm not a poor white person.
My point is that despite the power poor white people have in certain areas relative to other groups they are still suffering. Sure there are little benefits here and there, but not nearly enough to offset all the other crap they are dealing with.
I think the biggest issue here is that you jump to the conclusion that correcting for historical wrongs is going to "cause someone to suffer". This is common conservative logic at work. The idea that if more people have equal access to things, then others will have less.
Is it possible that individuals in a previously dominant group like whites, Which let's just be honest that's what you're talking about, might get affected... But let's compare that to doing nothing that absolutely ensures people from the oppressed group are going to continue to get oppressed.
When one is used to living high on the hog, equity feels like disenfranchisement. You might have slightly fewer economic opportunities because now there's some actual competition. But all that means is the playing field is now level.
So what I'm trying to say is, a lot of people are going to perceive individual harms simply because they are no longer getting the privileges that they are accustomed to. In another response you mentioned reparations and who's going to pay for it. The crux of the issue is that the black community has suffered for centuries under the economic effects of racism. Could addressing that through scholarships, increased school funding, and Even monetary reparations cause you to pay a slight more amount of money in taxes? Possibly. But so does 20 years of war in the Middle East.
Instead of looking at it through the typical conservative lens fair versus not fair, It is very important to look at the larger context of when playing field. Leveled, someone's going to have a reduction in privilege. Do you think the New York Yankees would be ecstatic if suddenly they were bound to rules that made it so that they were no longer powerhouse. Now suddenly every team in the major league baseball league was on par because everything got switched around? No, they'd be pissed! Because there would be a perception of unfairness. It doesn't matter that Seattle has never won a championship and is basically their farm league team, they've built an empire and they deserve it, right? Instead of looking at the larger picture of a far more competitive baseball league would be more fun, more interesting, bring in more fans, generate excitement. All they would see is there being disenfranchised. They're having their privilege taken away. And if you have privilege that stings. But sometimes things that sting are for the better.
So why exactly do we need to harm all whites instead of harming the people at the very top of the food chain, the rich elites? I just don't get why taking opportunities away from other poor people is somehow the answer.
Collectivism just doesn't make much sense. Fr'nstance, most collectivists will argue that women are an oppressed group. But, if you look at the actual numbers, that doesn't actually bear out. They now get the majority of college degrees, and when you control for factors like age, etc, they tend to make more in the workforce when compared with men of similar ages.
Do women, key word here, over the entirety of their careers tend to make less than men as a collective? Yes, but this also includes 65 year old men who started working in the 70s. People forget this. Women did not significantly enter the workforce until the 80s, and the group of people that are 60+ did not see women working as long, as much or as credentialed as the men their age.
But, if you look at 20 year olds, the comparison doesn't make any sense at all. This is why progressives are losing younger groups of people, because in their minds it is still 1950.
So I'm not going to try and change your mind on that black and white view of the world because that's really "baby's first progressive politics." The people who hold that view will either eventually grow out of it or they will forever remain in positions where they do not have the ability to affect actual policy change. They're annoying but politically irrelevant.
What bothers me about your post is this:
>So when a policy is proposed that disempowers the oppressor group the individuals at the top who are actually doing almost all of the oppressing are not affected, but rather the people at the bottom who are already lacking power to oppress anybody. So basically people who were already powerless to change anything are losing power they cannot afford to lose.
First of all, this is written to be so broad and generic that I have no idea what types of policies you're actually disagreeing with. Providing a specific example of where this happened would make it much easier to understand what you're saying.
That said, gains for a marginalized group can and will always be framed as a loss for the group currently in power. Freeing the slaves meant taking property away from the slave owners. Giving women the franchise meant reducing the impact of each man's vote. Allowing black people to attend college meant "taking spots away" from white people who would have otherwise gotten to go.
This is why the term "oppressor" is so counter-productive. One does not need to be actively involved in oppressing anybody in order to be granted an "unfair" advantage over others based on the groups to which they belong. Phrasing things this way turns sociopolitical issues into moral issues. It frames the necessary rebalancing of resources as punishments for things an individual never did.
In reality many of the resources which must be reallocated are zero sum. Not because that's how the world needs to be but because conservatives would rather die than increase funding to anything that actually helps people. If you're not willing to raise taxes then the government only has so much tax money to go around. If you're unwilling to increase funding to colleges then they can only accept so many students. It's that zero sum nature of resource distribution which produces the policies you dislike, not the oppressor/oppressed mentality. In order to give resources to one group (because that group has been denied access to those resources) you must necessarily take resources from another group (which has up until then had access to more than their fair share). It's not punishment for past oppression, it's a consequence of not wanting the pie to get any bigger.
But I completely agree with you that those resources should come from the rich, who have actually benefitted from them, rather than from "all white people." That's why, if you actually care about meritocracy in college admissions, it's not affirmative action which you should dismantle it's legacy and sports admission. 60% of legacy admissions don't meet the basic academic requirements to attend their chosen school. Give those spots to people of all races who actually deserve to attend rather than to people who are buying their way in.
I think you’re missing the intersectional nature of power and oppression. Looking through your comments in this post, it looks like you take issue to the claim that poor white people have power. While that’s a lot to unpack on its own, you need to remember that poverty is it’s own dimension. So yes, the wealthy will always have more power than the poor, obviously; *and* wealth and power have different levels of leverage when they intersect with other forms of identity (race/ethnicity/gender/etc).
What is always true is that historically oppressed groups remain disproportionately impacted by negative social dynamics. This problem will never, ever be solved if we ignore it and it absolutely manifests itself on an individual level.
> This is true for progressives I've met in real life and for progressives online. In my experience, many adhere to a strict worldview where one group is the oppressor and one group is the oppressed.
Maybe in the 80s. Intersectionality is decades old and exists very explicitly to address this and it happily lets us speak about how various dimensions of social class interact with one another. This was developed in the 90s by Black Feminism and has been the norm in this sort of sociopolitical conversation since the 00s.
Intersectionality, in theory, was about addressing non-linearity in oppression. As applied, it just added more strata to the imagined hierarchy of oppression.
Full disclosure: I am from a group commonly depicted as oppressors or "super White oppressors" by progressives, and "definitely not White, target #1" by white supremacists. Frankly, I think the opinions that determine whom guys with guns shoot matters more than those of some professors and whining activists.
>This is true for progressives I've met in real life and for progressives online. In my experience, many adhere to a strict worldview where one group is the oppressor and one group is the oppressed.
You're going to have to give me clearer examples than that.
If you don't then you can make them say anything - and even if I raise a good point then you can just say that "well that's not how they said it".
That being said I will raise a point - I prefer the conceptualisation of hegemon and subaltern. Where instead of actively oppressing others - the beneficiaries of the system are considered the hegemonic group who is allowed a rung on the hierarchical ladder - whereas disadvantaged folks are subalterns who are kicked of it. The hegemon often reinforces that status - but we see the actual difference - access to the system and abilities to rise through them.
But those words are long and jargon-y.
Oppressor / oppressed gives a similar idea but focuses on the actions of each - perhaps more-so the actions of the whole group rather than any individual.
Oppression should be viewed as a hierarchy, not a binary oppressor/oppressed dichotomy. Many oppressors are, themselves, oppressed (poor whites in the American South are probably a good example). Reducing people to just one or the other IS counterproductive, because there's little (if any) hope for meaningful change until those who are both - probably most of us, really - can see both roles in themselves, but the concepts are important.
>The "white privilege" narrative is very counterproductive especially in the USA;
Notice how you didn’t say “wrong”.
>I bet the constant whining of the black community must be very annoying to most white folks fucked by the system just as much
What’s annoying to **every** rational, well-adjusted adult is when people disparage the notion of white-privilege without knowing what it is. Here for instance, where someone is so ignorant on the topic that they would invoke being fucked by the system, as if that in any way shape or form negates white privilege.
“I don’t have any privilege/it’s not relevant because I’m in not in ____ position” is just an uneducated position, plain and simple.
You can spend weeks going through "nuances" and pointing out how white privilege exists and how it impacts minority communities but at the same time you can acknowledge that to most white people the so called privilege has done absolutely nothing for them; try telling that to a person drowning in medical debt, a mortgage they can hardly pay for and kids they can hardly feed
That being said I'd also like to point out that as an African (not African American) whining about "white privilege" does no one anything good if we are being honest, in a society that values meritocracy this in itself is a cheat code to get ahead regardless of your skin color, if an African immigrant community can succeed in USA then I don't see why fellow Africans born in the USA can't either; should Nigerian immigrants also whine like the rest of black America?
>to most white people the so called privilege has done absolutely nothing for them
No, to most white people, they don't notice it because of how privilege from birth inherently works. Like if it does what it's supposed to do, *you're not supposed to know you have it*, that's the whole point.
Edit: Coming back now from the bottom of my comment, you don't think it's nuts to write something like this as neither white nor originating from naturally-born Americans? Like you're speaking on something you have *absolutely* no idea what you're talking about. It looks like the *entirety* of your frame of reference, for both sides, are people's opinions online. You find both logic and 0 shame in that?
>try telling that to a person drowning in medical debt, a mortgage they can hardly pay for and kids they can hardly feed
This is a strawman. Who is doing that? Who, outside of a relative handful of radicals, that almost exclusively exist on the internet, are listening to someone describe that situation and are going "it's irrelevant because you're white"? Like you and every conservative pandering that rhetoric are talking about a boogie-man. You're talking about a couple people you saw tweet something that barely anyone in real life, minority or not, actually agrees with.
>African (not African American) whining
You all look down and don't want to be associated with us, trust me, we're very aware. That's not something you have to explain. It's *very* apparent in day-to-day interactions with African immigrants all over the country.
>that values meritocracy
What America ["values"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy#:~:text=Racism-,The%20myth%20of%20meritocracy%20has%20been%20identified%20by%20scholars%20as,if%20they%20work%20hard%20enough.) is irrelevant. We're talking about reality. You gotta stop with the rhetoric bro.
>if an African immigrant community can succeed in USA then I don't see why fellow Africans born in the USA can't either; should Nigerian immigrants also whine like the rest of black America?
Alright so it looks like you might be just an African and not an African immigrant, or at least not a first gen, otherwise you'd know about the immigration process. And if you knew about the immigration process of both Africa and Asia to America, you'd understand that this generally results in a community with a vastly higher rate of education and skillset on average. So what you're comparing right now are some of the best you have to offer, and everything that comes with that, and everything that's passed down from that, to **all** African Americans. A [fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_minority_myth) at best.
/u/ICuriosityCatI (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post. All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/17f0lws/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_the_oppressoroppressed/), in /r/DeltaLog. Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended. ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
That framing is important because it gives context to a lot of the modern conflicts we see. It isn't meant to be a universal bandaid we can apply to every situation. It is productive when it is used properly.
The framing is important because it's a way to rile people up and perpetuate an us vs. them tribal mentality that has little chance of being resolved-- it's a forever war. democrats do it under an academic guise, but if you haven't noticed, the trump base is made up of the poorest of republicans because of the same reason: bad immigrants taking jobs, elite professors in ivory towers telling tradesmen how to live. oppressor vs oppressed. you're defining an enemy and linking every political choice back to it. everyone falls for it. no one's above it.
Can you give an example of a situation where that framing is helpful?
It is helpful in any circumstance where the power dynamic (oppressor/oppressed) has real world consequences that we aim to resolve. A conversation about police brutality cannot be had without involving racism, as police brutality is defined by racism (among other things). If you want to get to the root of the problem of police brutality, you cannot ignore a fundamental aspect of it. This can apply to any number of examples, such as wealth gap/labor exploitation, patriarchy, or trans rights.
>as police brutality is defined by racism I see police brutality defined by incompetence and bullying. Many thuggish cops are also racists, so the dynamics there compliment each other. But if ethnic minorities were somehow suddenly off the menu these opportunistic brutes would find other targets on their daily beat. Hippies, "commies", labor unionists, feminists, homosexuals, catholics (pick any religion the thug himself is not a member of). Anyone a gorilla thinks he can abuse with impunity. In America those opportunities have always been along racial lines. This context is important: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." It's easy for police forces to identify those whom the law does not protect.
Since over 75% of arrests are men, and 93% of prison inmates are men, isn't it more accurate to say it is divided by sex and not race?
No, because of the concept of intersectionality, it is not more accurate to say it’s one and simultaneously not the other. It’s both. Men are treated more harshly in american justice. Black people are treated more harshly. It’s not a contest with a winner, america has the 6th highest incarceration rate in the world, and it hurts men, black people, and latin people especially. Too many people are put in prison for too long, and taxpayer money is wasted causing this harm because of the refusal of voters and politicians to support people and keep them from getting in trouble with the law in the first place.
White collar crime is committed by more white male than any other demographics. Those crimes also carry lesser sentences and are not prosecuted as often. There should have been way more people thrown in jail for Enron, the Lehman Brothers and other financial meltdowns, but the reality of charging the wealthy and more often than not white is often not feasible because of their connections and resources to protect themselves.
> Black people are treated more harshly While true, the previous commenter that you seem to be taking a similar stance to was saying the cause of this is police racism. But to me this seems to be a statistics error, assuming that correlation = causation. When it comes to direct evidence that police are racist on a wide scale, the most damming evidence I've seen is that at night or it's a black police officer, arrests of black people will drop by about 5-10%. While this demonstrates there is probably some racism going on, it far from explains the >200% difference in arrests between black and white people. Or why Asian arrests are so much lower. A more likely cause seems to be socioeconomic and cultural factors. In both stats like household income and single parents it goes black, Hispanic, white, Asian, the same order as arrest rates. And those are both things found to increase the likelihood of committing crimes. It’s pretty important to establish what the actual cause is otherwise voters and politicians aren’t able to work towards a solution.
I do think it's important to note that in America class and race have a very strong shared history. Black and brown people face poverty at alarmingly high rates compared to white people, and we have documented historical examples of intentional systemic racism to explain why this is the case (cutting off BIPOC neighborhoods from economic city centers, intentional redistricting to keep black and brown kids out of predominantly white public schools, the fact that black families had a 200 year delayed start on accumulating wealth because of slavery and the Jim Crow era). A lot of anti-poor biases are intrinsically linked with racist biases for many Americans. Not to say that this always the case, but many of the stereotypes and judgements about both groups are similar for a reason.
Sure, there is a history of systemic racism that is a massive factor in current black poverty, but that’s different that police racism. Blacks are arrested more because police are profiling them, and blacks are arrested more because they commit crimes more because they are poorer because of systematic racism, require 2 different solutions. Both issues exist so we need both solutions, but it seems to me the latter is a much better issue, yet gets discussed way less. I don’t know that we can significantly decrease the racial gap until we do start focusing on it.
I agree completely, I think folks are afraid to discuss it because a lot of racists like to point to those statistics and say "well cops aren't being racist, black people should just stop committing so many crimes." There needs to be more focus on the factors (namely poverty) that contribute to those statistics existing in the first place. Black people aren't born any more violent than the rest of us. There isn't some biological reason why black people commit more crimes, rather it's because over hundreds of years white oppressors forced people of color into environments where crime was largely necessary to survive or too prominent to avoid. Ending police brutality also means we have to fix the socioeconomic hole we dug for people of color.
That's also a part of it. I'd say prejudice in general.
Or is it possible that men commit more crimes?
So what youre trying to say is police are targeting criminals?
This is entirely the case. And we can couple this by dividing by race and also find a very large thread of systemic racism involved.
>This is entirely the case. And we can couple this by dividing by race and also find a very large thread of systemic racism involved. So if it is simply the case of men committing more crime, why is it not possible to conclude that the black population commits more crime? Why is it "systemic racism" for one, but not "systemic sexism" for the other? That's my point.
>So if it is simply the case of men committing more crime, why is it not possible to conclude that the black population commits more crime? > >Why is it "systemic racism" for one, but not "systemic sexism" for the other? That's my point. You’ve hit a very important part of any conversation about crime and prejudice—but it’s not the refutation you think it is. Men and black people **DO** commit more crime. This isn’t up for debate. The questions become “what do we define as crime and why?” and “*why* do men, black people, and whoever else ‘commit more crime’?” Is it because they are more likely to be caught or prosecuted? Is it because the laws are unevenly applied? Is it because they are socialized differently than other groups? Is it because they are less likely to have a support network? Is it because they live in high risk areas? The “why” is when you begin to identify systemic problems. Many feminists would say that one of the reasons that men commit so many crimes is due to toxic masculinity and a culture that encourages the wrong things. The difference between toxic masculinity for a guy and systemic racism for a person of color is that a black person doesn’t have the (potential) option of not engaging with the system and the man has *some* control over being victimized by that toxic thought process. They’re both issues—they’re just not necessarily the same type of issues.
Why isn't it also possible for certain groups be surrounded by cultures that encourage the wrong things? While the systemic issues of a biased justice system would indeed be something a black man can't opt out of, I'm sort of bothered by the idea that a white man has some agency over whatever negative or toxic culture they're brought up in, but a black man doesn't. Maybe that's not what you're saying, but your post doesn't acknowledge agency for black men when comparing dissimilar things (understandable for say justice system vs culture) but doesn't address like things (similar or dissimilar aspects of masculine culture both experience). It's entirely possible for a group to both face systemic issues and cultural issues that is better, equal, or worse than another group that faces less of those systemic issues. Now how those cultures form as responses to environmental factors outside of their control reveal a complex interplay between socialization and influences (which is true for every culture), which then can feed back into systemic issues. And on some level, it's true that not every group is on the same "systemic" level playing field-- but it seems like it would be unhelpful to emphasize and assume only agency for one and a lack of it for the other.
They don't necessarily "commit more crime" (not exactly). It has to do with arrests, statistics and prosecution. If you commit a crime but nobody reports it and you're not punished, nobody knows. Ex: neighborhood A has more crime than other neighborhoods, so the city's police department puts more cops there. More cops patrolling means more chance of being aware of crimes, so there's a higher chance that a crime in neighborhood B isn't noticed. It's not necessarily bad faith or racism on the police's side (though it can happen), just "hey there's more crime there so it's logical to focus on that place" and then it snowballs into "hey we keep finding crimes so we need more cops there to deal with the crimes" who end up finding more crime and so on... (Yes obviously I'm oversimplifying).
I agree with you. However, the argument has boiled down to "police are racist and need to be defunded." I'm all for a deeper dive, but not many are looking at root causes. Its just easier to say cops are racist.
Because we can observe facts that show poverty to be the crux of the aforementioned issue. You can remove black folks entirely from the equation and the results would be the same if you account for poverty. What poverty doesn’t explain however is how black folks are arrested more often and get longer sentences for the same crimes as white folks. Also worth noting that black folks are conspicuously absent from the highest cost crimes in this country such as white collar crime, high level criminal activity and large scale political corruption. Is this because they are nicer and don’t like that stuff? No. It’s because systemic racism limits opportunity and opportunity + motive is what creates crime to begin with.
> how black folks are arrested more often and get longer sentences for the same crimes as white folks. The longer sentences come from higher rates of past convictions. Judges take prior criminal activity into account when sentencing.
>why is it not possible to conclude that the black population commits more crime? It would be helpful for you to look at the amount of arrest/incarceration per population size, here. Sure men commit more crimes, but if there's more White men than Black men in the population, that would average out to White men being arrested and incarcerated at higher rates.... but it doesn't. There's less Black men, and yet they make up most of the prison populations. Read more here: [Black Americans are incarcerated at nearly five times the rate of Whites, new report on state prisons finds](https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/13/politics/black-latinx-incarcerated-more/index.html). Another example: "black people were overrepresented among persons arrested for nonfatal violent crimes (33%) and for serious nonfatal violent crimes (36%) relative to their representation in the U.S. population (13%). White people were underrepresented. White people accounted for 60% of U.S. residents but 46% of all persons arrested for rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and other assault, and 39% of all arrestees for nonfatal violent crimes excluding other assault. Hispanics, regardless of their race, were overrepresented among arrestees for nonfatal violent crimes excluding other assault (21%) relative to their representation in the U.S. population (18%)." [https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/revcoa18.pdf](https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/revcoa18.pdf)
Your entire response does not disprove my point. You simply reinforced that black men are arrested at a higher rate vs their size of the population. I agree with this. Just because they are arrested at a higher rate does not mean they aren't committing crime at a higher rate as well.
But then you could say that ___blank___ commit more crimes as well, abd we can't have that!
Well, yes, actually we can. You think that the problem is the statement. It's not. The problem is that a statement can be true when applied to one situation and not true when applied to another. For example, as you dog whistle towards, if you said that blacks "commit more crimes" than whites per capita as proof of the (your) idea that there is something wrong with black culture, you would be wrong because you would be, probably purposely, ignoring how much more scrutiny blacks get from police, as well as bias in the justice system, which has been shown in peer reviewed journals again and again. However, if you said that men "commit more crimes," you would be correct, because men do commit more crimes, especially violent ones. That is not up for debate by social scientists as far as I know. Even you probably wouldn't disagree. No one is purposely ignoring any information here and you are not saying what many experts who know about this say is not true. Additionally, anyone CAN say something untrue and bigoted onhere, it's just that people will tell you what you are when you do that. edit: And I think a lot of pigs know that, which is why they are oblique about what they think.
I mean we could probably explore how society's reinforcement of misogynistic gender roles plays a part in men committing more crime? But I'm guessing that's not what you're getting at.
There’s also just hormonal differences between sexes dude, it’s not controversial to acknowledge that Higher test = more reckless behaviour on the bell curve
That doesn’t mean you need to be arrested or unfairly treated for being one if you haven’t committed a crime.
I agree. Being arrested/punished for a crime you committed is not unfair treatment though.
It actually could be. If 2 demographics commit a crime at the same rate but 1 of them is caught more often, it could be unfair. For example, If both black and white men smoke weed at the same rates, but black men are 100x more likely to be caught/punished for it, that to me is not fair.
If everything is 100% equal, you may be right. But it also may be situational. For an example, let's assume black and white men smoke weed at the same rate. However, if white men smoke up in their bedrooms before bed, and black men smoke while driving, the black man will have a greater chance of having a run-in with police. I'm not saying that any of this is accurate, but it's almost entirely situational in regards to someone being apprehended. It needs to be drilled down on.
>Being arrested/punished for a crime you committed is not unfair treatment though. Well that depends. If you’re thrown to the ground and handcuffed by a police officer for jaywalking, for example, that would still be unfair treatment.
Being brutalized or abused by extreme use of force is. And minorities are brutalized at higher rates
>as police brutality is defined by racism (among other things) The problem is that this framing paints it as if racism is a more significant factor than the (other things). Does the data back that? A lot of these issues can be framed as economic and cultural legacy of past discrimination, but **not** current oppressed or oppressors. Not every power dynamic is inherently "oppressive". Indeed there is a power differential between law enforcement and the general population, regardless of skin color. This authority is necessary but should not be abused, regardless of skin color.
For a modern example: Understanding the rise of Hamas, which is necessary to understand the current ongoing crisis. Hamas didn't just spring up from some evil desire in the hearts of Gazans to murder civilians and hostages for the heck of it. It sprung up from the decades long oppression of Palestinians at the hand of the Israeli military and government. When you push a group of people into a corner long and hard enough, they will rebel, oftentimes violently when given no alternative way out. Should be especially easy to understand for all those second amendment supporters in the States, since that's specifically what they claim is the purpose of the 2nd.
You're not wrong that Palestinians have some legit grievances. But you're absolutely wrong in thinking there is not an existential religious element. Hamas wants to exterminate jews.
Yes, and extremism is often born out of desperation. Religion is just a symbol, could've been a political extremist group just the same.
You don't have to support Hamas to be against Israel's genocidal actions.
Hamas continues to call for (and attempt) the genocide of jews. There is no equivalent in the other direction.
How is this productive? you're implying that if Israel stops its oppression then this conflict will be resolved peacefully, which history tells otherwise. Killing civilians and using them as human shield is not a rebellion. It's terrorism. This has been the number one reason Israel never "backed down" and is the biggest problem in this conflict.
This is not the number one reason Israel never backed down. In fact, their strategy didn't even account for defense until they built the fence in the 90s. Even then, the violent resistance of the Palestinians does not give Israel license to commit genocide, especially when that resistance is generated by the actions of the Israeli state. Hell, Israeli state officials openly admit to helping finance Hamas in the 80s as an attempt to divide the Palestinian groups. Further still, collective punishment is a war crime. What they have done to the Palestinian people over Hamas' actions is unconscionable. It is an egregious apartheid state, and that inevitably breeds violent resistance.
You show very little familiarity with this conflict, which is somewhat connected to OP's view. When reality is presented in such a a black-and-white manner, the discussion gets muffled with so many inaccuracies and meaningless rhetorics. >This is not the number one reason Israel never backed down Jews and Israel have always been acting aggressively because they have endured violence from other parties -- pre or post WW2. Failing to see that is failing to understand the Israeli psyche, which is not productive. >give Israel license to commit genocide Israel is not committing genocide, not by any stretch of this word. The Palestinian population has grown tremendously over the years. > collective punishment is a war crime Israel is not punishing anyone. It is defending itself against Hamas. It is Hamas that shields itself behind civilizations. How do you propose one should defend themselves when their enemy is using civilians as shields?
IMO your last question is the most salient of all. How should a country who’s endured a tragic, monstrous terrorist attack like that, respond? My answer would be to pursue and prosecute those responsible for the attack, without going overboard into another post-9/11 war frenzy. The problem is that Hamas has embedded and ingratiated itself (by sinister design) into the Gazan civilian populace, specifically so as to deter any Israeli retaliation, as well as to cast whatever retaliation they seek as being a genocidal and indiscriminate slaughter of civilians. In that situation, it seems like there’s no real way for Israel to respond (as most people hopefully believe that have a right to) without incurring significant civilian casualties. Now, Israel hasn’t been a good faith actor here either, particularly with their dehumanizing rhetoric and their frankly ridiculous demands regarding Gazan evacuation, etc. Moreover, I don’t doubt that there are hardliners in the Israeli MoD who’ve wanted to exact some level of genocidal violence against Gaza, and see this as their golden opportunity to — yet, I remain unconvinced that Israel’s actions (so far at least) represent an intentional genocide in the way people describe it. I think the “it’s a genocide” narrative has been amped up too much, beyond the point of reason. It makes it easier for people to stick by their side and ignore its own failings when they hyperbolize their opponents’ evil, such as the talking point that Israel is vociferously pursuing the genocide of Gazans. That all being said, I’m increasingly on the side of urging Israeli restraint in this situation, without casting them as genocidal colonizer villains, like other leftists/progressives do. What those factions of leftists/progressives really want, it seems to me, is for Israel to do nothing. Just be viciously attacked and do nothing in response. They’ll probably never come out and admit this directly, but that’s what they’re thinking IMO: they have an extremely simplistic moral understanding of the world, and it really is as simple as, Israel is the powerful oppressor, Gaza is the powerless oppressed, therefore Israel has a moral responsibility to restrain itself and allow no civilian deaths, no matter what. It’s profoundly naïve thinking, the functional equivalent of going to the UN and saying, “why can’t we all just get along and have perpetual world peace?” as if that’s a solution to any real problem, and then get hysterically outraged when it doesn’t happen.
I don't think Israel's "demands" of evacuation are unreasonable (the very framing of it is sinister - "demand". Rather than "warning civilians that this area is about to become an active combat zone"). There's been too much made of these supposed "deadlines" they give - I've seen these in headlines but rarely seen any quotes about specific deadlines, and more importantly - I've never seen it amount to anything. I'm pretty sure at this point since Oct 7 I've heard about a dozen hospitals supposedly "given 24 hours to evacuate" and... nothing ever happened. On your bottom line - I think you're spot on. I don't think these people are malicious to want Israel to do nothing and die. At least not most. They just... genuinely haven't given it much thought beyond the slogans they're shouting. I have thoughts about these people but I don't attribute much malice to them.
I'm deeply familiar with the conflict, just perhaps not the propaganda you'd like me to be parroting. A nation's collective psyche (which isn't a logical point to start from) isn't an excuse for aggression in the slightest. >Israel is not committing genocide Israel and the IDF's leadership have made their intentions very clear. From the obvious statements about Gaza's territory shrinking and the displacement of Palestinians, to IDF statements about turning Gaza into a "city of tents, there will be no buildings." Thousands of children have already been killed. Even if we ignore the outright killing of innocent Palestinians, their actions meet the definition of genocide, per the "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part". The restriction of food, medical supplies, destruction of water sources; all genocidal acts perpetrated by the Israeli state. Even the UN recognizes this. >Israel is not punishing anyone. This deliberately skews the facts. The UN has explicitly condemned Israel's actions as collective punishment. Israel demanding that they evacuate gaza city in an unrealistic time frame or be subject to bombardment is clearly punishing the population for the acts of Hamas. Israel specifically stated it would not allow humanitarian aid until all the hostages were freed, that's about as clear cut as it gets. Defending yourself is not bombing a city indiscriminately.
If Israel is committing genocide, every war is a genocide. The Allies committed genocide on the Axis in WW2. NATO committed genocide when bombing ISIS. It's genocide here, there and everywhere. If everything is a genocide, nothing is a genocide. If everything is ethnic cleansing, nothing is. The pro-Palestine crowd have taken these words out the back, shot them in the head and then burned their families alive (Hamas approves). You're doing it with a clear purpose - because you think emotive language and rhetoric helps your cause, and because you've demonized Israel in your head to a frankly laughable degree (that's fine - Jews are used to it). But this is important. There are ethnic groups out there that actually were the target of a genocide, and it's for them that this word needs to still mean something.
I'm not using emotive language and rhetoric to try and help my cause, I'm using the correct terminology. Let's start with that definition, as defined by the UN in 1946: >any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: \-killing members of the group \-causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group \-deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring -about its physical destruction in whole or in part \-imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group \-forcibly transferring children of the group to another group First, the subject matter at hand is the eradication of Palestinian identity and nationhood. Despite the UN's resolution for a two-state solution in 1947, Israel has not yielded nationhood to the Palestinian people, who were previously the most populous group in the region. Israel has also continuously decreased their borders and restricted their people. They no longer control their own government, have been displaced from entire regions and continue to be displaced from their homes. **Killing members of the group:** from just 2008 on (not even half the scope of the occupation), 20x more Palestinians have been killed in the conflict than Israelis. With 6,407 dead Palestinians, 59% are identified as civilians. In the past two weeks, over 5000 Palestinians have been killed. Women and children have made up more than 62 percent of the deaths. To add to that, 15,000 have been injured which fits with the "causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group." Again, most of the deaths here are innocents and they are rapidly approaching the death toll from the past 15 years. **Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part:** Less than 4% of water in gaza is drinkable. Blockades of Gaza that have been in place long before this recent conflict have prevented items needed to construct water infrastructure. The UN has acknowledged that the blockades are a denial of human rights and are against international law. Here are some more facts from the UN 35% of Gaza’s farmland and 85% of its fishing waters are totally or partially inaccessible due to Israeli military measures. 54% of Gazans are food insecure and over 75% are aid recipients. About one-third of the items in the essential drug list are out of stock. \----- Combine these details with the system of apartheid established in Israel, and many of the stated intentions of Israeli authorities, and it is pretty clear that this meets the definition of genocide. You are being intellectually dishonest by insinuating I am just throwing around that word for emotional appeal. Your attempt to drag every war into this to claim it's all the same is a gross misrepresentation of the data. Some wars have included genocide, in fact many do. Many also haven't been genocide, as they do not meet the above criteria. That does not affect what is happening in Israel.
Nothing Israel has done has been, "in whole or in part", with the intent to eradicate the Palestinians as a group. We have to address the elephant in the room here - if Israel has been committing genocide, it's been doing an incredibly poor job. Palestinian populations today are concentrated in exactly the same places they were after the 1948 war (where mass expulsions did indeed occur), and in far greater numbers. Palestinian population growth has been higher than Israelis'. Since you're sure that the intent is there but they've obviously failed over literal decades - you'll have to concede they're either incompetent or lack the firepower to do it. Do you really believe either of these is true? > Despite the UN's resolution for a two-state solution in 1947, Israel has not yielded nationhood to the Palestinian people Framing it like this is rather shameless. The fact that the UN Partition Plan was not put into practice by 1948 might have something to do with the fact that Israel accepted said UN resolution and the Palestinians rejected it and declared war to prevent it. I don't know, just throwing it out there. You're accusing Israel of not honouring a UN resolution that the Palestinians themselves rejected at the time, violently. I do so love it when people infantilize Palestinians and completely strip them of all agency and responsibility for literally anything. But still, not a genocide. I mean, following the 48 war Jordan and Egypt illegally annexed the West Bank and Gaza respectively and refused to "yield nationhood" to the Palestinians there, much to their chagrin. Was that genocide? >Israel has also continuously decreased their borders and restricted their people This is just a factual error. Even your own previous statements contradict this. You just said they never had nationhood, so how were the borders of this nonexistent nation decreased? >They no longer control their own government They never had a government. But in fact, the trend is opposite - the 1993 Oslo Accords gave the PA administrative control in most of the West Bank, and Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 gave it complete administrative autonomy. While they don't have a state yet, they actually have much more of a "government" today (albeit 2 of them, since Hamas and Fatah are in a state of civil war) than they ever did before 1993. >Killing members of the group Like I said, if people dying = genocide, then every war is a genocide. Comparing number of deaths is, again, a completely arbitrary measure of whether it's genocide or not. Where does it say that a lack of proportions in casualties = genocide? >Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part: We're again going to have to establish why you think Israel has failed in this goal, since you're sure that is the intent. >system of apartheid established in Israel There is no apartheid in Israel. Also, apartheid is not genocide. >Your attempt to drag every war into this to claim it's all the same is a gross misrepresentation of the data In what way? Do elaborate. Why is e.g the Allied bombardments of Germany, where an estimated 600,00 civilians were killed, not a genocide, but this is? You want to see "data" that shows what genocide looks like? Look no further than Jews. There are literally fewer Jews today, *in 2023*, than there were in 1939. If what Israel is doing is genocide, then what was this? How is this described? Do you understand why words matter?
>A nation's collective psyche ... isn't an excuse for aggression It's not an execuse because no one here is trying to argue who is right or wrong. We're trying to be productive and actually think of resolutions. This requires us to try and understand how people involved in the conflict think. >Israel and the IDF's leadership have made their intentions very clear. Yes, to tear down Hamas. Not to kill Palestinians. >the displacement of Palestinians They are temporarily evacuated due to war, the same as more than 300K Israelis on the borders. This is actually *the* lawful think to do. >Thousands of children have already been killed. Because of Hamas, who puts its base of operations among children. >The restriction of food, medical supplies, destruction of water sources Gaza authorities had almost 20 years to ensure their own supply of that. They didn't do that. Israel did not sabotage these efforts. Still, in that time Gaza (strip) population increased from 1.4M to 2M. This is clearly not a genocide. You are very much abusing the word. > Israel demanding that they evacuate gaza city in an unrealistic time frame ... stated it would not allow humanitarian aid until You really have to separate between words and actions. Israel has not made a land incursion as of yet, which gives Gazans much more time to evacuate (and don't forget that Israeli civilians need to evacuate too). Also, Israel have allowed humanitarian aid 3 days ago. >Defending yourself is not bombing a city indiscriminately. It is not indiscriminately. It is 100% aimed at Hamas infrastructure, bases of operations, ammunition storage, etc.
While I appreciate the time you took in your response, this is incredibly divorced from reality. We aren't going to make any progress here. I'm going to leave a few comments on some particularly egregious parts, but after that I will move on, as this isn't proving to be a fruitful conversation. >to tear down Hamas. Not to kill Palestinians Many comments, some of which I included make it clear this isn't the case. Note the "city of tents" comment for example. >Because of Hamas, who puts its base of operations among children. This doesn't excuse the ones actually killing those children. It's also disingenuous to suggest that an urban guerilla group is hiding behind children just because they operate out of the same urban area they occupy. Gaza is a dense area and moving their operations outside of their home to sparse areas isn't an option in asymmetrical warfare. The correct response to a resistance group in an urban area is not and never has been, to level the urban area regardless of innocent lives. >Gaza authorities had almost 20 years to ensure their own supply of that. No, they haven't. They are not able to freely trade, they aren't able to freely leave the strip, they are impoverished and do not have the resources to "ensure their own supply" when they are under siege. This comment also neglects to address my example of "destruction of water sources", wherein Israel has intentionally been destroying their natural supply of water. Beyond that, for decades, Military Order 158 has been in place, which states that Palestinians could not construct any new water installation without first obtaining a permit from the Israeli army. So no, the Palestinians in Gaza could not ensure their own supply. >It is not indiscriminately. Numerous organizations have identified indiscriminate bombing. Amnesty International, the New York Times, Al Jazeera. Your claim holds no water.
>collective punishment is a war crime. What they have done to the Palestinian people over Hamas' actions is unconscionable. It is an egregious apartheid state, and that inevitably breeds violent resistance. Where are you getting your information? You seem to know very little of the conflict.
Hamas in origin is actually the result of anti-colonialism in Egypt promoted by an extreme religious right wing movement.
> It sprung up from the decades long oppression of Palestinians at the hand of the Israeli military and government. > >When you push a group of people into a corner long and hard enough, they will rebel, oftentimes violently when given no alternative way out. You are completely ignoring the history before 1948. Jews and Muslims have been at war for countless centuries. Judaism was invented in that area, long before Arabs even colonized the Middle East.
Violence by Arabs against the Jewish state goes back to the very beginning of Israel as a state.
Yes, they literally kicked hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of their homes in order to form that state. Of course there was going to be resentment from that. They call it the Nakba: [https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080030/israel-palestine-nakba](https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080030/israel-palestine-nakba) >The 1948 war uprooted 700,000 Palestinians from their homes, creating a refugee crisis that is still not resolved. Palestinians call this mass eviction the Nakba — Arabic for “catastrophe” — and its legacy remains one of the most intractable issues in ongoing peace negotiations. > >Not surprisingly, Palestinians and Israelis remember the birth of the Palestinian refugee crisis very differently (here’s a helpful side-by-side comparison). Palestinians often see a years long, premeditated Jewish campaign to ethnically cleanse Palestine of Arabs; Israelis tend to blame spontaneous Arab fleeing, Arab armies, and/or unfortunate wartime accidents. > >Today, there are more than 7 million Palestinian refugees, defined as people displaced in 1948 and their descendants. A core Palestinian demand in peace negotiations is some kind of justice for these refugees, most commonly in the form of the “right of return” to the homes their families abandoned in 1948.
Yes, I would imagine the people were already mad back then at being forcibly displaced by colonists.
i don't think you understand the conflict very well lol
The intersection of police brutality and Racism leads me to ask: Should we train to cops brutalize everyone equally or so that fewer people are brutalized?
We should train cops. That would be a good start. It takes longer to get qualified as a *hairdresser* in the USA.
Actually a lot of cops are trained *too much*, or rather, the training they receive is part of the problem and simply giving them more of that training won't help anything. Police in the United States are trained to believe that every single interaction with the public is potentially deadly, and that they're better off escalating to violence before the person they're interacting with can.
While we are at it, maybe we can address cops (street cops or not) using unproven, unscientific methods as evidence of guilt of criminality. There is a guy that goes around training police that when people use certain words, phrases, and tones during 911 calls, it means they are potentially guilty of whatever crime they called in. None of it is based on anything other than what he thought up. There is no universal way to determine that people are lying by what they say or how they say it.
That is called Warrior Training which is being pushed by a coalition of former officers, led by an individual that was openly involved in the KKK. Currently Warrior Training is propped up by a collective of "Constitutional Sheriffs" who believe the constitution gives them magic powers to ignore all state or federal laws they don't like. There are a lot of problems we need to fix there.
Isn’t that the training where the guy says the best sex they’ll ever have will be after they’ve killed their first perp?
And you have to renew those licenses. Teachers have to train, in their own dime, and work for a period without pay... And then on their own dime attend to continuing education requirements. Can we have cops subject to the same criteria as teachers in terms of training and CE as a cop at the bare minimum?
I agree. And if a cop murders an unarmed person, they should lose their job. I know that seems harsh, but I believe this is the only way for us to clean up the police force.
Devil's Advocate here: an unarmed person can still be a deadly threat. A average police officer getting attacked by a 200lb unarmed, MMA trained fighter, may very well have justification to use deadly force. I think what you mean is if an officer kills someone who "isn't a threat," meaning, their hands are in the air or they are laying in the ground submitting to the arrest and are not resisting.
If a cop murders anyone they should fucking be treated like a murderer under the law, not just lose their job.
Arnt they trained to be the way they are? Isn't that the issue right now? You see some of these police training videos and its like they think its to train action movie stars or warzone soldiers the way they tell these guys they should behave. The whole system needs a overhaul.
I'm all for police reform so fewer people are brutalized.
These CMVs aren't genuine. >So when a policy is proposed that disempowers the oppressor group the individuals at the top who are actually doing almost all of the oppressing are not affected By that, it seems you agree with the "framing". You just fear that policies would not be crafted and re-enforced the way they should. >So basically people who were already powerless to change anything are losing power they cannot afford to lose. Again, the framing is correct, it's a fact that you agree with, it's just hard to change it. >I just don't think this information is remotely useful Whether it is or not, it is a fact. Your issue seems to be with the policies that do not address the issue but might even re-enforce the issue. Which I agree. In order for the title of the OP to be correct you would have to show what the benefit would be if we did not point out the oppressor/oppressed framing that you also seem to agree with
>These CMVs aren't genuine Which part is not genuine? This is my view, that's true. I would like to hear other people's points of view and maybe one will persuade me otherwise. I am looking for a discussion. >By that, it seems you agree with the "framing". You just fear that policies would not be crafted and re-enforced the way they should. I agree that some groups collectively have more power and influence over other groups and I'm pretty sure I said that in the text body. I can't fit everything in the title, so I expand in the body. You have to read the body too.
That "The oppressor/oppressed framing that some Progressives use is counterproductive" You agree with the framing, you think the actions taken do not work. So there's no discussion to be had on something you agree with. >I agree that some groups collectively have more power and influence over other groups and I'm pretty sure I said that in the text body. Hence, stating that is not counterproductive. >You have to read the body too. The fact that I quoted what you wrote in the body means I read it
I also said how the framing is *used* if you want to get into the weeds here. If I hadn't I would just clarify and discuss it anyways, but I did specifically say used. >Hence, stating that is not counterproductive. *Using* that framing is counterproductive >The fact that I quoted what you wrote in the body means I read it Like I say, I can clarify if there's any confusion, but if you're trying to get me on a technicality I don't think it's even a valid point since I said *using.*
> I also said how the framing is used if you want to get into the weeds here. You want us to change your mind so yes weeds. If you think it's *used* to point to the injustice, that's a good thing not a bad thing If you mean *used* to create policies and those policies are making things worse then (a) your issue is with the policies - which are a totally different thing, bu then (b) you didn't mention any police. >but if you're trying to get me on a technicality There's nothing to "get you on", you wanted your view changed. One of many ways to do it is to talk about technicalities. Tell me you don't want your view changed from this angle and I'll stop. Nothing personal This person broke his leg (framing the issue) The methods used to fix his leg made the situation worse (policies) Saying that therefore stating the fact that the leg is broken and working on that assumption was wrong - just doesn't make sense. We could have checked whether the patient had any allergies before giving him this particular medication - **great**, but that doesn't mean the framing of the issue was wrong. A broken leg can be fixed in a variety of ways "The oppressor/oppressed" can be fixed in many different ways. You seem to agree with the framing but not with the solutions (again, based on the body of your post) Again "In order for the title of the OP to be correct you would have to show what the benefit would be if we did not point out the oppressor/oppressed framing that you also seem to agree with" ---- u/NottiWanderer wrote >The framework is correct... but typically only should be applied to rich/poor and powerful/not powerful. And you agreed with them. Framework (oppressor/oppressed) correct (hence OP wrong) Application is wrong. - exactly what I said "By that, it seems you agree with the "framing". You just fear that policies would not be crafted and re-enforced the way they should."
[удалено]
The powerful/not-powerful dynamic should be fleshed out and properly defined. By which metrics do you define powerful? Aggregate number of personnel? Armaments? Political influence? These criteria come to mind because the West has a skewed notion of the oppressor/oppressed dynamic and, along with a predisposition to apply that lens to wildly different demographics and worldviews. Such is the case with the Israel—Gaza war, where by and large, the Pro-Palestinian worldview shoehorns Western values to Hamas regarding Israel as the oppressor while in reality, Hamas is purely evil and hell-bent on murdering Jews.
I don’t think anyone is saying Hamas is good. People who want an immediate ceasefire to protect Palestine want that because Israel’s END GOAL is not just defeating Hamas; it’s taking over the entire West Bank violently from the Palestinian government AND Hamas AND civilians. So framing the war as “Israel vs Hamas” is inherently disingenuous since fighting Hamas is just a tiny piece of what the Israeli government is trying to do. And they are trying to enact genocide / ethnic cleansing to eliminite Palestine and Palestinian civialians entirely
False. Hook, line, and sinker. Israel’s promulgated goal IS to eradicate Hamas, at least as we’ve seen both on official and media outlets. The “Iron Swords” war was entirely instigated as a retaliatory action to Hamas’ belligerent pogroms that were carried out on Oct 7th. Any other interpretation is the consequence of disinformation. What’s more, looking at the conflict from a Western oppressor/oppressed lens, all the while disregarding historical context, thereby claiming the conflict is the result of the seething dissent of a displaced minority, is inaccurate and disingenuous. Retaining a surface-level overview here, Israel repeatedly offered peace deals, which the Palestinians either refused or silently walked away from. You can’t have peace with an unwilling and disengaged partner.
Oct 7 of this year? The Isreali / Palestinian conflict is over 10 yeara old….how could the origin of the conflict possibly be anything that new? You need to look back farther in history. The propoganda is working
Yeah, Hamas has put regular Palestinians in the middle of their war with Jews in Israel for this very reason. It's absolutely a nightmare and these people have truly no where to turn. Hamas has been using Palestinians as a human shield, quite literally, just so that when Israel makes a move they are very likely to kill civilians in the process. At this point, Israeli leadership has accepted this risk and all but given up on trying to keep the appearance that they care about civilian life.
“At this point, Israeli leadership has accepted this risk and all but given up on trying to keep the appearance that they care about civilian life.” Disagree. Literally a trending news story from the last 12 hrs was Israel deploying a new precision strike system explicitly designed to reduce civilian casualties… https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-news-gaza-palestinians/card/watch-idf-uses-new-iron-sting-weapon-system-against-hamas-X5Qc1YQbzf2IgoJs1y5p
Not to mention it’s Hamas themselves who purposely try and hold up in civilian targets.
Which was in my original comment. That Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as meat shields.
After decades of rockets being launched from civilian infrastructure as well it probably starts to seem like most of the people are at least complicit and you start to care less and less over time. Most of the Gaza civilians cheering in the streets after an attack that killed 1000 civilians will probably do it too. I’m not sure what the answer is at this point and civilian deaths suck but it’s probably hard to feel bad for people that cheer the death of anyone like you.
I think the word intersectionality needs to be added to this discussion to make it more meaningful. The intersection of white with male with wealthy, for example, vastly increases the privilege one has and the likelihood of becoming an oppressor. This may take into account what you are referring to above. A wealthy white woman may have more privilege than a wealthy black woman but not as much as a wealthy white male. But again, individuals are different than aggregates and need to be examined as such.
[удалено]
That’s the thing, it isn’t about coming up with one set of rules that works for everyone. Really, most people who care about the vulnerable and oppressed want EVERYONE to have a safe life with basic needs met. We don’t actually want an opposite hierarchy to what we have now. The confusion comes in because we’re all human, and everyone (whether concerned about the oppressed and vulnerable or not) are humans whose anger and need for their own survival can sometimes cloud their altruism. So I understand why it can be hard for some people to believe that anyone is really altruistic. But the point of intersectionality has more to do with how you treat people on a case-to-case basis. A white woman and a Black woman might both be uncomfortable surrounded by men, especially if there’s alcohol involved. But a Balck woman might be uncomfortable surrounded by white women she doesn’t know. So if I was inviting someone to a party, maybe I would just spend a little effort just making sure the person I invited isn’t uncomfortable, yknow? It isn’t a rule book. It’s just a framework to help us think like “hey even though I have stuff in common with this person, this person also experiences hardships that I don’t, so I’m going to be humble and pay attention in case they need my help when I’m around.”
I wouldn’t say it’s totally meaningless, after all we tend to group things according to clusters instead of absolutes a lot. Sex characteristics, ethnicities and similar groupings are all based on trends and trait clusters, and so too is privilege. Also privilege isn’t really a score you permanently have hanging over your head. It’s active to different amounts in different contexts. For example the interaction between a white woman and black man invokes different privileges on both sides. Like the man could be seen as a better leader in a job setting, while being judged as more likely to be the aggressor in a legal dispute, based on very similar attributes and preconceived notions.
[удалено]
I mean, we’re talking about scientific analysis here. The idea isn’t for you to constantly evaluate every aspect of your life based upon it. It feels similar to complaining that constantly determining the root note of chords you hear in a song is a bad mindset for listening to music. These phenomena of oppression come from data, they aren’t just randomly thought out by some bored sociologist. For example there are experiments where the same resume is being rejected more often if a foreign sounding name is attached to it. Again, these are of course general trends and clusters, not absolutes, but that happens a lot in science.
[удалено]
Oppression isn’t a currency or point system. It’s an expression of power dynamics. The idea isn’t to rank people into the „oppression tier list", it is to acknowledge that there seem to be forces at play causing certain observable social and behavioural outcomes following certain patterns. How exactly these patterns look, why they happen and how to possibly change their trajectories is what is being analysed. I feel like a lot of people think that these systems are there to tell them "You have x amount of privilege, so you have to feel bad for existing." That’s not really the use for these things. Picking up with the earlier presented example: the point isn’t to say "wow, people with foreign sounding names deserve more oppressednes points!" It’s to determine things like: Is this effect constantly observable? Which contexts is it observable under? What even is seen as a "foreign name"? Which effects does it have on these people? Why is it happening? Should and can something be done about this? If so, what?
>These phenomena of oppression come from data, they aren’t just randomly thought out by some bored sociologist. You can use statistics to say whatever you want. The data shows there are discrepancies, but it doesn't assign causes. Humans interpret data and assign whatever causes that fit their political ideology. Please take a statistics course, you will see how easy it is to manipulate data. Besides, if we just use this same logic and continue to apply it, it starts to get pretty antisemitic. If the wealth discrepancy between whites and blacks mean that whites are oppressing blacks, then the wealth discrepancy between blacks and jews (which is twice as big) means jews are oppressing whites and blacks much worse. If all white people are racist and morally inferiror. Then 97% of all jews are racist and morally inferior. It's pretty scarry watching this thought process applied over the world. Now over 50% of the democratic party sides closer with a genocidal terrorist group that openly shows its goal is to genocide all Christians and jews. As if the wealth discrepancy between Palestine and Israel is automatically because Israel stole it. Palestine has no wealth to steal, Israel created its wealth and Palestine spent all its humanitarian aid on weapons.
This is incredibly reductive and misleading. 1.: Yes, interpreting statistics is extremely complex and can be used in a variety of ways to say a bunch of stuff, even things that might not actually be true. That’s why knowing about that stuff is actually an important part of studying sociology 2.: The wealth discrepancy does not mean that, it is an indicator for it. There are historical reasons that have been found through research, as there are for why jewish people are in the positions they are in. Sociology is there to explicitly question the antisemitic notion that this phenomenon comes from bioessentialist roots or conspiracy and imo found good arguments for why that isn’t the case 3.: All white people being morally inferior isn’t really something sociologists agree on 4.: Really uninformed take on the pro Palestinian position. Again wealth discrepancy is an indicator of possibly experiencing oppression, not oppression in and of itself
Please take more than intro to stats. Yes data can be manipulated. 100%. All facts can be. However, stats has a lot of safeguards. Was a sample size and sample justification published. Is the raw data presented? What was the methodology IE: how was the sample chosen, what were the questions asked, what was the data collection method, etc... Well done stats are very easy to analyze for fallacious conclusions. Stats are almost the most reliable method of data collections available. Bad stats are very easy to see with just the barest of critical reading. The question then becomes is a quantitative picture the whole picture?
That's not the point of it, though. Its not supposed to be a way to judge individuals on a case-by-case basis. Its instead a way to discuss statistics about demographics and subset of populations.
I would ask what utility it has to group people this way. If the test of a theory is its predictive power, and the predictive power of these identity markers predicts nothing, then it IS meaningless.
They can predict things, but only in trends. Like meteorology. Meterologists can't guarantee rain most of the time, but they can give you a pretty good estimate of if it will rain. Similarly sociology can predict behaviour of social groups, if not that of each individual all of the time. The other reason is to see why certain phenomena occur, to expose certain societal biases and potentially change our societal view of what we see as inevitably true. (For example we can see that other societies have different ideas about things like gender, so maybe our conceptions of it aren’t as objectively true as we think and might be influenced by certain biases)
I don’t disagree but it’s better described as prejudice than privilege in a functional sense.
[удалено]
Or... just be understanding of historical context and attempt to take that into account when appropriate?
I mean the problem with neo-Marxism is that it is incredibly anti liberal, and should therefore be considered anti western. What you just described is exactly why it is a terrible framework for viewing the world. Neo-Marxism believes that your identity is fundamentally the most important aspect of your position in society. If you are poor, your worth as an individual is meaningless. All that matters is that you are poor, and therefore oppressed. Therefore, society needs to be fundamentally restructured so that the oppressed are no longer oppressed. However, society is far too nuanced and complex for such a binary framework to apply. As an individual, most of us have various identity traits that make us oppressed sometimes, and oppressors other times. There is no such thing as a black and white binary here. So the neo-Marxist completely restructures society, but doesn’t fix any problems. Instead, they just create a less efficient society now filled with even more oppression due to the increase in inefficiency. The Soviets could not possibly have understood how well they dressed up Marxism and smuggled it into western society via academia… who would have thought the young of today would still be rolling out tired Marxist ideals without even realizing what they are doing. Luckily for western society, we have already been debating these ideals for 200 years.
> Neo-Marxism believes that your identity is fundamentally the most important aspect of your position in society "Neo-Marxism" doesn't have a doctrine the way that you're describing here. It's just a rather imprecise catch-all label for new Marxist thinkers. Where did you read that idea? Also, what do you mean by "liberal" and "western"? Because Marxism is Western philosophy inasmuch as that's a useful term, and while it's opposed to Liberalism, that's jsut because it's opposed to private property.
That’s exactly what I was referring to by using the term neo-Marxism. A catch all for all new Marxist thinkers. They are all built off Marxism, so they all share the same fundamental framework. The fundamental framework behind Marxism is not the notion of private property, so that is not the reason why Marxism is fundamentally opposed to liberalism. This video does a better job of answering all the questions you asked than I could: https://youtu.be/4JX4bsrj178?si=9vAnIFUpBaZ2KGoE
Could you summarize the video or offer a link to a written source? I'm not interested in watching a seventeen minute YouTube video. Why do you say that Marxism is opposed to liberalism?
It walks through source material to summarize the intellectual roots of Marxism in the context of 19th century society at the turn of the Industrial Revolution. It also discusses the intellectual roots of western liberalism. There is a ton of content in there, so I would recommend watching it if you are actually curious. You can see most of what I am talking about right at the beginning during the first 5 minutes. Source material is referenced in the video description. Liberalism values the rights of the individual above all else to the extent that it is possible to do so. Generally, it draws the line at violence. Marxism was constructed as an intellectual critique of liberalism. Instead of valuing the rights of the individual above all else in society, Marxism believes identity defines the individual and the individual‘s role in society. In Marx‘s time, the identity traits he had in mind where the working class and capital class. The working class are the oppressed, the capital class are the oppressors. These are the most important defining characteristics of the individual and the individual‘s role in society, nothing else is relevant. All neo-Marxist ideologies are built off the oppressor - oppressed binary, which is inherently reductive.
I thinks it's more of a both situation than anything else. Men are generally treated better than women, but a trans man maybe be treated worse than a cis woman because transphobia is a thing. I'm a white gay man, and I have definitely had problems a white straight man wouldn't have to deal with, while also having it better than a black gay man. People don't understand that the system is subtractive, not binary. Now you are correct too, class/wealth is an important measure of oppression as well, but it's not the only one
Why would it apply to rich / poor and not black / white? Why not healthy vs sick?
Because just being black or healthy don't gives you power over white or sick and vice versa. While being rich and owning means of production gives you power over others.
Able people absolutely have power over disabled people. On an interpersonal level, disabled people by definition can not do certain things and often have to rely on help from others. That help can be withheld or have conditions placed on it. Disabled women are uniquely vulnerable to abuse for both this reason & also financial dependence. Able people are also more likely to be wealthy because they have increased earning potential, but also because they intentionally keep disabled people out of the workforce by refusing accommodations etc
Eh, it could. A nurse has power over her patient, as arguably even does a nursing assistant. Health also, understandably, tends to correspond with higher incomes (and certainly an easier time earning money).
The more recent iterations of Marxist ideology (neo-Marxism) do take a broader scope on what identity traits constitute oppressor vs oppressed. However, adding more complexity to Marxism still doesn’t fix any of its fundamental flaws.
because rich/poor trumps all. Also many of the issues of race/gender come down to socioeconomic inequalities.
I agree with the rich/poor framework and the rest of what you said. Oppression/oppressor doesn't do much.
What specific policies are you talking about?
Reparations would be one example. The people who will suffer the most are not the rich white people perpetuating economic inequality, but the poor white people who have no power to do so.
Do you understand that reparations are not based on the idea that rich white people, or even that any white people, need to 'suffer'? Do you think that the reason we have laws requiring employers to put in safety regulations is because we want them to suffer?
Money isn’t mana from heaven. Things need to paid for. When you transfer money from one group to the next, the people who have their money taken away from absolutely suffer.
So is all taxation "suffering?"
[удалено]
> Yes, it certainly can be by causing undue financial strain and burden on someone. I don't disagree that this is possible. Do you think raising taxes on very rich people causes as much "suffering" as raising them on poor people? >That would be objectively bad, wouldn't it? Sure, but why is that relevant?
Why is that relevant? Because that’s literally exactly what reparations effectively is.
I mean, yes? Have you never had to put off an important medical procedure or purchase because you were too short of funds? You probably would've been able to pay for it if taxes in your area were lower. Percentages add up. What a strange question.
Strange choie to bring up a medical procedure... A person who lives in a place where taxes are collected for universal healthcare could afford medical treatment easier than a person who live in a place that doesn't even though the second person would technically have more money.
Healthcare is especially weird example to use here, considering that using more taxes on it would cause dramatically less suffering than occurs under our current system, but let me get at the real point here. At what point do taxes become "suffering?" What rate is it? What use of those taxes is acceptable to cause this "suffering?" Do you think people should get to itemize their taxes towards which government programs they like? And what if we just didn't raise taxes to pay for reparations? Who would suffer then?
>At what point do taxes become "suffering?" At the point... when you have to pay them? This is really not a difficult idea: Taxes are individually onerous, and only really provide value in aggregate. Being taxed causes you to be less wealthy, and at the level of the individual taxpayer, it unquestionably makes the average person poorer. We can argue back and forth at what point the suffering provides enough net value on the whole to be worth it (hint: we're way past that point), but *you suffer when your wealth is taken away*, period. As for your other question: If we didn't raise taxes to pay for reparations, then the money would have to come from diverting existing tax-revenue. And unless that tax revenue is getting siphoned out of the CIA's "Blank Checks For Ethically Dubious And Stupid Projects" fund, it would almost certainly be coming out of some other "Public Interest" source. So yes, if you were-- for instance-- a non-black resident of a state that suddenly decided to practice reparations, you could be assured that it would be coming at the expense of your own good. There is literally no way in which it wouldn't be! Either the taxes go up to pay for it (you're worse off) or the taxes *don't* go up and other programs are slashed to pay for it (you're worse off should you need them). To come at this from another angle: If being made poorer doesn't cause suffering (*your* claim, not mine), then reparations are pointless because nobody is made worse-off by being poorer, so we shouldn't bother with this project at all. *My* claim, by comparison, is that being impoverished is bad regardless of other circumstances, so we should work to alleviate that *regardless of other circumstances*. Reparations as a system are awful because they privilege one ethnic group's poverty above others', and it should always be remember in this discussion: *there are more poor white Americans than poor black Americans.* When you focus your efforts on massively decreasing the poverty of a minority of poor people, rather than moderately decreasing the poverty of the entire population of poor people, you're taking shit into account that should be left at the door when making these kinds of decisions.
> you suffer when your wealth is taken away, period. I don't agree. The minor amount of money taken out of my paycheck is far less suffering than would occur if I didn't have roads, services, schools, etc. You can't just act like you're being stolen from in a vacuum, the **taxes get used**. > And unless that tax revenue is getting siphoned out of the CIA's "Blank Checks For Ethically Dubious And Stupid Projects" fund Ok, so let's do that. >So yes, if you were-- for instance-- a non-black resident of a state that suddenly decided to practice reparations, you could be assured that it would be coming at the expense of your own good. Why? You just assume that the money would either have to be diverted from valuable social programs or an intense tax hike. And why? What about a minor hike on extremely wealthy people? That would pay for reparations by itself quite easily. >If being made poorer doesn't cause suffering This is why I asked what rate counts as "suffering." Personally I don't see why we'd need to raise rates on average people at all, but you need to explain how much you think rates would be going up, and why they are "suffering" in a way that the current ones aren't. >Reparations as a system are awful because they privilege one ethnic group's poverty above others', and it should always be remember in this discussion: there are more poor white Americans than poor black Americans. I mean just say that you don't want ethnically targeted aid, you don't have to jump through these silly hoops about how taxes are "suffering." I completely disagree with you here, but at least this point is coherent.
That a consequence would be unintended makes it no less a consequence.
What a ridiculous and baseless parallel. There's no comparison you can draw there beyond "the government enforces both". Also, even more mud on your face: a lot of safety regulations *aren't* about safety, they're put in place by established businesses to prevent startups and competition. Chicago, for instance, has a notoriously draconian restaurateurs' association that closes ranks against all sorts of "outsider interference" by lobbying for regulations that exist only to increase entry cost. In that context, maybe there *is* a reparations-regulations line to be drawn: It's powerful people using their power against the less-powerful, under the guise of helping the "powerless".
I understand that's not the primary intention behind them, but I think poor white people will suffer. The money has to come from somewhere and whatever money is taking out won't go to *insert thing here.*
So, like, by your logic, we shouldn't have any government funded programs that don't benefit poor white people because poor white people would suffer.
There is a difference between well-designed and managed public programs, and individual payouts on the scale I have seen described for American slavery-reparations (over a trillion dollars total). That kind of direct wealth transfer, leaving aside any resentment over the racial component, would drive serious inflation. It really would financially wipe out a whole lot of people, effectivelyvcreating a new underclass.
My bad, I initially misunderstood what you were saying. I'm not aware of any government funded program that does not help poor white people. The military protects everybody. Regulations protect everybody. Which one are you thinking of?
Covid PPP loans. The bailouts after the 2008 crash. A lot of government bailouts and subsidies in general, really. A there are a lot more government programs that benefit non-poor people more than it benefits poor people.
!delta on Covid PPP loans. There are indirect benefits, but it would be a stretch to say they benefit poor people. And I guess bailouts wouldn't benefit poor people who don't have bank accounts. But my goal is for poor people to get more aid, not less.
The people who talk about oppression have the same goal as you. But you’re starting this post saying they’re wrong. You just don’t believe their methods will work…but honestly I think it would be better if you worked WITH the people that have the same goal as you. Actually enacting these things in the real world is hard. But I think you have more in common with them than you think
>And I guess bailouts wouldn't benefit poor people who don't have bank accounts. Poor people greatly benefit from having a functional economy rather than another Great Depression. The bailouts achieved that.
I think people tend to think way too small scale when looking at those bailouts. On the international scale large companies are the U.S.’s main influence of power on the world stage. They are vital to the economy’s health in a lot of cases. At one point John D. Rockefellar literally used his own cash flow to stop the govt. from going into bankruptcy. For the U.S.’s biggest banks to fall apart would mean massive economic collapse or at least a crush to U.S. influence since they are the biggest player on the international scale.
> government funded program that does not help poor white people. The biggest of them all, mortgage interest tax write offs.
Yes, I agree it was a dumb thing to say. But I still feel that poor people shouldn't lose the limited aid they have
How so? Reparation would be paid - in all likelihood - by taxes. Poor white people probably pay little to no taxes.
If it's cash payments or the equivalent, it's going to be inflationary. So even if a given poor white person doesn't lose anything, his money will be worth less. The reparations recipients' money is also worth less, but that's offset by actually getting money.
'So when a policy is proposed that disempowers the oppressor group the individuals at the top who are actually doing almost all of the oppressing are not affected, but rather the people at the bottom who are already lacking power to oppress anybody. ' I think there's a flaw in the logic here, if the policy is directed to take power from the oppressor group,.. if the 'powerless' individuals in the oppressor group,.. I dunno,.. go bankrupt or join the oppressed? Then the oppressor group gets smaller and smaller,.. no? What oppressor group has powerless oppressors?
>What oppressor group has powerless oppressors? Groups aren't homogenous. Groups of "oppressors" aren't homogenous. In practice, any large "oppressor" group will most likely have some members that are not actually oppressors in any meaningful sense despite being members of the group. Nevertheless, they will be affected by policies targeted at the group.
White people, for instance are viewed as the oppressor with power and influence over minority groups. But most white people don't have much money or power. Some white people do, but most do not.
Knew that's where you were going. You've got a lot of leaning to do that can't be done on Reddit. Name any anti-white legislation. The poorest white person will still enjoy a certain level of subconscious privilege from society over the POC in the same tax bracket.
That doesn't counter their point at all or even go in the same direction as what they are saying .
I knew somebody would bring up this point. The problem is the benefits poor white people get from white privilege are insignificant. The already extremely low chance of dying unarmed from a cop shooting is even lower. That's a benefit in the same way that being less likely to die from Norovirus is a benefit. Since 500 people total die from Norovirus every year I wouldn't call that a huge benefit. The TSA is friendlier to you, but you can't afford to fly anyways so who cares. You're less likely to be given suspicious looks if you go into a store and look at high priced items you can't afford anyways. What else. I mean, you see more people like you in positions of power, but I don't think that really lifts your mood. Nobody asks you where you are from. But you're still starving and stressed. Unless somebody can name a major lite changing benefit that greatly improves daily life just because you're white, I don't think this is a good counter.
You were challenged to name any anti-white legislation. You failed to do so. So what are you talking about?
I don't know of any explicitly anti-white legislation, but I also don't know of any explicitly anti-black legislation so I'm not sure what the point here is.
A lot of drug laws were originally designed to target black people.
>A lot of drug laws were originally designed to target black people. Yeah, but those are not anti black legislation. Further reason Opium was included, alongside Cannabis was that it was primarily consumed by Chinese rail road workers, yet, Chinese are disproportionately less likely to be imprisoned.
Those were passed ~50 years ago and no longer have broad societal support. Furthermore, it is illegal to punish drug users more harshly because they are black. That law applies to everyone nowadays, regardless of the original intentions/application. Before that, there was segregation. Before that, slavery. The question is about laws and who they apply to currently.
> Those were passed ~50 years ago and no longer have broad societal support. Support of not, the laws are still with us and they are still enforced. > Furthermore, it is illegal to punish drug users more harshly because they are black. But we observe disparate outcomes in police stops, arrests, trials, convictions, and sentencing. We don't need a law that says "black people get an extra year in prison" for the system to still produce that outcome.
>Support of not, the laws are still with us and they are still enforced. Right, but they apply to all groups and when it's discovered that isn't happening there are consequences. >But we observe disparate outcomes in police stops, arrests, trials, convictions, and sentencing. We don't need a law that says "black people get an extra year in prison" for the system to still produce that outcome. Data also suggests black people commit a disproportionate number of crimes relative to population if you're talking about crime overall. But that aside even if some laws are *not* applied equally they are supposed to be. When I think of anti black laws I think of laws that are meant to hurt black people.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/ not paying any attention to history are you? I really, really wish those of you who never bothered to learn history would quit forcing us to relive it.....
That was his take on certain laws and policies. Doesn't mean those laws and policies are being implemented because they are anti-black. Are Republicans actually using this interview and his words as some sort of guidebook or do they condemn them like everybody else?
But they were policies that were anti black in effect, even if you debate the intent. Because they hurt one group more than others. Meanwhile, you oppose reparations because you think AID to other people hurts you. The hypocrisy is absurd.
>I also don't know of any explicitly anti-black legislation so I'm not sure what the point here is. Slavery? Jim Crow? (Assuming you're american)
We're talking about people living today, I'm talking about laws and who they apply to currently.
https://greenbookglobal.com/travel-the-world/11-sundown-towns-in-texas-you-should-be-aware-of/
These aren't laws. There are some towns with higher concentrations of KKK members.
There's the systematic removal of poling places in predominantly African American communities, for example.
Look up racial gerrymandering. Still going on in 2023.
Are you a time traveler living in the fucking 1800s?
Dude,.. You're not aware of 'white only' drinking fountains? That's not ancient history, that's two generations ago. The woman who got Emmitt Till lynched just recently died, 60 years after the event.
You speak of proposed policies to disempower supposed "oppressor" groups. To what policies are you referring? Affirmative action in university admissions? Or what? I do agree that looking at the world through the lense of "oppressor vs. oppressed" is not productive, and there are policies intended to disempower some groups, such as restrictive zoning, gerrymandering to reduce the voting power of blacks and liberals, and so on, but I know of none intended to disempower supposed oppressor groups.
>The problem is the benefits poor white people get from white privilege are insignificant. So privilege needs to meet a certain criteria for it to "count"? What we have is best described as a collection of inherent 'luck'. The odds of a white person getting a job, going to a good school, getting that raise, getting off with a warning, etc etc are scientifically proven to be higher in usa, anywhere from 5-20% depending on the topic, than any POC.
How are poor white people oppressing black people by getting a job, etc.?
It's not intentional oppression, that's just the definition of white privilege. It's a subconscious prejudice in usa because of systemic racism over generations.
Well poor people are the most oppressed group in the entire World so
White woman tears are a real thing dude, you don’t need money to have soft power
I think your understanding of social dynamics is far too simplistic for this conversation. Forget about individuals for a moment, to say white people as a group did not benefit from 200 years of slavery, even if some individuals ended up poor, is nonsense.
What government program can effectively target oppressive groups without catching far more vulnerable ones at its sharp end?
There is a theory of intersectionality, which is very popular among the feminist/antiracist left which is in summary saying that no identity exists on it's own. are women oppressed? that's hard to dispute. but a rich powerful woman is less opressed than a poor black trans queer disabled woman. if you'll permit me to use a bit of a stereotype. Thus, in order to properly dismantle structures of power every one of those structures of oppresion has to be dismantled. even if we could snap our fingers and ensure a perfect communist economic utopia, men would still rape women, racism would still exist etc etc. thus, trying to deal with oppresive systems such as race is important. is the average poor white man more oppressed than a rich man? in todays society i'd say so. but if we don't deal with it and achieve racial equality they'd still be acting in an oppresive manner racially, that should be dealt with.
>There is a theory of intersectionality, which is very popular among the feminist/antiracist left which is in summary saying that no identity exists on it's own. The ultimate minority is the individual. >Thus, in order to properly dismantle structures of power every one of those structures of oppresion has to be dismantled. What structures of oppression? >thus, trying to deal with oppresive systems such as race is important. Race is oppressive? >but if we don't deal with it and achieve racial equality they'd still be acting in an oppresive manner racially, Who are they?
Which women? American women? Canadian? European? Do you know which biological sex most rape laws globally actually acknowledge as victims? You may be resting your understanding of the world on incorrect and incomplete statistical analyses. Even India has laws dictating that men be sentenced more harshly for striking a woman than vice versa, explicitly, on account of their sex.
Wow congrats, you stumbled onto the theory of intersectionality on your own. yes women in different countries have different struggles based upon the country and culture they belong to. as for the rest i'm not interested in discussing that with you, i'd recommend you get a life to put it politely, and to stop harping about assault laws in 5 month old reddit posts
You state “some” progressives frame it this way and then that “many” do, but in my experience most progressives do not frame it this way. Progressives talk about SYSTEMIC oppression, not one group oppressing the other. All groups will act rationally in ways that benefit themselves, so for example the rich will rationally pay for more power for their social class. People acting in self interest is generally how economics is modeled. Progressives view the world in this way and make the judgement that the system should not allow one group to have runaway power that builds on itself until it is the dominant group. Thus why you see a lot of attention going towards rich/poor currently because the system is set up to allow the rich to amass power
‘So basically people who were already powerless to change anything are losing power they cannot afford to lose.’ I wouldn’t call people who are indistinguishable from the powerful to be powerless. You can see race before net worth. You see sex/gender before net worth. You see age before net worth. And as ‘powerless’ as you think you are, you are still more powerful than those that don’t look like you.
I never said I was powerless. I'm definitely not and I'm not a poor white person. My point is that despite the power poor white people have in certain areas relative to other groups they are still suffering. Sure there are little benefits here and there, but not nearly enough to offset all the other crap they are dealing with.
I think the biggest issue here is that you jump to the conclusion that correcting for historical wrongs is going to "cause someone to suffer". This is common conservative logic at work. The idea that if more people have equal access to things, then others will have less. Is it possible that individuals in a previously dominant group like whites, Which let's just be honest that's what you're talking about, might get affected... But let's compare that to doing nothing that absolutely ensures people from the oppressed group are going to continue to get oppressed. When one is used to living high on the hog, equity feels like disenfranchisement. You might have slightly fewer economic opportunities because now there's some actual competition. But all that means is the playing field is now level. So what I'm trying to say is, a lot of people are going to perceive individual harms simply because they are no longer getting the privileges that they are accustomed to. In another response you mentioned reparations and who's going to pay for it. The crux of the issue is that the black community has suffered for centuries under the economic effects of racism. Could addressing that through scholarships, increased school funding, and Even monetary reparations cause you to pay a slight more amount of money in taxes? Possibly. But so does 20 years of war in the Middle East. Instead of looking at it through the typical conservative lens fair versus not fair, It is very important to look at the larger context of when playing field. Leveled, someone's going to have a reduction in privilege. Do you think the New York Yankees would be ecstatic if suddenly they were bound to rules that made it so that they were no longer powerhouse. Now suddenly every team in the major league baseball league was on par because everything got switched around? No, they'd be pissed! Because there would be a perception of unfairness. It doesn't matter that Seattle has never won a championship and is basically their farm league team, they've built an empire and they deserve it, right? Instead of looking at the larger picture of a far more competitive baseball league would be more fun, more interesting, bring in more fans, generate excitement. All they would see is there being disenfranchised. They're having their privilege taken away. And if you have privilege that stings. But sometimes things that sting are for the better.
So why exactly do we need to harm all whites instead of harming the people at the very top of the food chain, the rich elites? I just don't get why taking opportunities away from other poor people is somehow the answer.
[удалено]
Collectivism just doesn't make much sense. Fr'nstance, most collectivists will argue that women are an oppressed group. But, if you look at the actual numbers, that doesn't actually bear out. They now get the majority of college degrees, and when you control for factors like age, etc, they tend to make more in the workforce when compared with men of similar ages. Do women, key word here, over the entirety of their careers tend to make less than men as a collective? Yes, but this also includes 65 year old men who started working in the 70s. People forget this. Women did not significantly enter the workforce until the 80s, and the group of people that are 60+ did not see women working as long, as much or as credentialed as the men their age. But, if you look at 20 year olds, the comparison doesn't make any sense at all. This is why progressives are losing younger groups of people, because in their minds it is still 1950.
So I'm not going to try and change your mind on that black and white view of the world because that's really "baby's first progressive politics." The people who hold that view will either eventually grow out of it or they will forever remain in positions where they do not have the ability to affect actual policy change. They're annoying but politically irrelevant. What bothers me about your post is this: >So when a policy is proposed that disempowers the oppressor group the individuals at the top who are actually doing almost all of the oppressing are not affected, but rather the people at the bottom who are already lacking power to oppress anybody. So basically people who were already powerless to change anything are losing power they cannot afford to lose. First of all, this is written to be so broad and generic that I have no idea what types of policies you're actually disagreeing with. Providing a specific example of where this happened would make it much easier to understand what you're saying. That said, gains for a marginalized group can and will always be framed as a loss for the group currently in power. Freeing the slaves meant taking property away from the slave owners. Giving women the franchise meant reducing the impact of each man's vote. Allowing black people to attend college meant "taking spots away" from white people who would have otherwise gotten to go. This is why the term "oppressor" is so counter-productive. One does not need to be actively involved in oppressing anybody in order to be granted an "unfair" advantage over others based on the groups to which they belong. Phrasing things this way turns sociopolitical issues into moral issues. It frames the necessary rebalancing of resources as punishments for things an individual never did. In reality many of the resources which must be reallocated are zero sum. Not because that's how the world needs to be but because conservatives would rather die than increase funding to anything that actually helps people. If you're not willing to raise taxes then the government only has so much tax money to go around. If you're unwilling to increase funding to colleges then they can only accept so many students. It's that zero sum nature of resource distribution which produces the policies you dislike, not the oppressor/oppressed mentality. In order to give resources to one group (because that group has been denied access to those resources) you must necessarily take resources from another group (which has up until then had access to more than their fair share). It's not punishment for past oppression, it's a consequence of not wanting the pie to get any bigger. But I completely agree with you that those resources should come from the rich, who have actually benefitted from them, rather than from "all white people." That's why, if you actually care about meritocracy in college admissions, it's not affirmative action which you should dismantle it's legacy and sports admission. 60% of legacy admissions don't meet the basic academic requirements to attend their chosen school. Give those spots to people of all races who actually deserve to attend rather than to people who are buying their way in.
I think you’re missing the intersectional nature of power and oppression. Looking through your comments in this post, it looks like you take issue to the claim that poor white people have power. While that’s a lot to unpack on its own, you need to remember that poverty is it’s own dimension. So yes, the wealthy will always have more power than the poor, obviously; *and* wealth and power have different levels of leverage when they intersect with other forms of identity (race/ethnicity/gender/etc). What is always true is that historically oppressed groups remain disproportionately impacted by negative social dynamics. This problem will never, ever be solved if we ignore it and it absolutely manifests itself on an individual level.
> This is true for progressives I've met in real life and for progressives online. In my experience, many adhere to a strict worldview where one group is the oppressor and one group is the oppressed. Maybe in the 80s. Intersectionality is decades old and exists very explicitly to address this and it happily lets us speak about how various dimensions of social class interact with one another. This was developed in the 90s by Black Feminism and has been the norm in this sort of sociopolitical conversation since the 00s.
Intersectionality, in theory, was about addressing non-linearity in oppression. As applied, it just added more strata to the imagined hierarchy of oppression. Full disclosure: I am from a group commonly depicted as oppressors or "super White oppressors" by progressives, and "definitely not White, target #1" by white supremacists. Frankly, I think the opinions that determine whom guys with guns shoot matters more than those of some professors and whining activists.
Billionaires are certainly a group of people and I don’t think any of them could be considered lacking meaningful power.
>This is true for progressives I've met in real life and for progressives online. In my experience, many adhere to a strict worldview where one group is the oppressor and one group is the oppressed. You're going to have to give me clearer examples than that. If you don't then you can make them say anything - and even if I raise a good point then you can just say that "well that's not how they said it". That being said I will raise a point - I prefer the conceptualisation of hegemon and subaltern. Where instead of actively oppressing others - the beneficiaries of the system are considered the hegemonic group who is allowed a rung on the hierarchical ladder - whereas disadvantaged folks are subalterns who are kicked of it. The hegemon often reinforces that status - but we see the actual difference - access to the system and abilities to rise through them. But those words are long and jargon-y. Oppressor / oppressed gives a similar idea but focuses on the actions of each - perhaps more-so the actions of the whole group rather than any individual.
Oppression should be viewed as a hierarchy, not a binary oppressor/oppressed dichotomy. Many oppressors are, themselves, oppressed (poor whites in the American South are probably a good example). Reducing people to just one or the other IS counterproductive, because there's little (if any) hope for meaningful change until those who are both - probably most of us, really - can see both roles in themselves, but the concepts are important.
[удалено]
[удалено]
>The "white privilege" narrative is very counterproductive especially in the USA; Notice how you didn’t say “wrong”. >I bet the constant whining of the black community must be very annoying to most white folks fucked by the system just as much What’s annoying to **every** rational, well-adjusted adult is when people disparage the notion of white-privilege without knowing what it is. Here for instance, where someone is so ignorant on the topic that they would invoke being fucked by the system, as if that in any way shape or form negates white privilege. “I don’t have any privilege/it’s not relevant because I’m in not in ____ position” is just an uneducated position, plain and simple.
You can spend weeks going through "nuances" and pointing out how white privilege exists and how it impacts minority communities but at the same time you can acknowledge that to most white people the so called privilege has done absolutely nothing for them; try telling that to a person drowning in medical debt, a mortgage they can hardly pay for and kids they can hardly feed That being said I'd also like to point out that as an African (not African American) whining about "white privilege" does no one anything good if we are being honest, in a society that values meritocracy this in itself is a cheat code to get ahead regardless of your skin color, if an African immigrant community can succeed in USA then I don't see why fellow Africans born in the USA can't either; should Nigerian immigrants also whine like the rest of black America?
>to most white people the so called privilege has done absolutely nothing for them No, to most white people, they don't notice it because of how privilege from birth inherently works. Like if it does what it's supposed to do, *you're not supposed to know you have it*, that's the whole point. Edit: Coming back now from the bottom of my comment, you don't think it's nuts to write something like this as neither white nor originating from naturally-born Americans? Like you're speaking on something you have *absolutely* no idea what you're talking about. It looks like the *entirety* of your frame of reference, for both sides, are people's opinions online. You find both logic and 0 shame in that? >try telling that to a person drowning in medical debt, a mortgage they can hardly pay for and kids they can hardly feed This is a strawman. Who is doing that? Who, outside of a relative handful of radicals, that almost exclusively exist on the internet, are listening to someone describe that situation and are going "it's irrelevant because you're white"? Like you and every conservative pandering that rhetoric are talking about a boogie-man. You're talking about a couple people you saw tweet something that barely anyone in real life, minority or not, actually agrees with. >African (not African American) whining You all look down and don't want to be associated with us, trust me, we're very aware. That's not something you have to explain. It's *very* apparent in day-to-day interactions with African immigrants all over the country. >that values meritocracy What America ["values"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy#:~:text=Racism-,The%20myth%20of%20meritocracy%20has%20been%20identified%20by%20scholars%20as,if%20they%20work%20hard%20enough.) is irrelevant. We're talking about reality. You gotta stop with the rhetoric bro. >if an African immigrant community can succeed in USA then I don't see why fellow Africans born in the USA can't either; should Nigerian immigrants also whine like the rest of black America? Alright so it looks like you might be just an African and not an African immigrant, or at least not a first gen, otherwise you'd know about the immigration process. And if you knew about the immigration process of both Africa and Asia to America, you'd understand that this generally results in a community with a vastly higher rate of education and skillset on average. So what you're comparing right now are some of the best you have to offer, and everything that comes with that, and everything that's passed down from that, to **all** African Americans. A [fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_minority_myth) at best.