United States Politics Thread 46

[Linguoboy]

Does anyone else dislike the term "people of color"? I feel like it glosses over vast differences between different populations and attempts to treat them as the same based solely on the color of their skin.

As a white person, I don't see how my opinion really matters. As long as a substantial number of my non-White activist friends and mentors find it a useful term, I will continue to follow their lead and use it. If, at some point, they decide that it's past its sell-by date and there's another umbrella term which works better that they'd prefer to see folks use, I'll start using it. I've already done this several times in my life and it doesn't seem an unreasonable thing to do.

Take for instance Indian-American versus African-American people - they are lumped together by "people of color", even though the former is overall quite privileged (e.g. the highest-earning ethnic group in the US) in reality while the latter is anything but. As a software engineer this has been very much my own experience - I have worked with very many Indian-Americans in both software engineer and management roles, while I have worked with very few Black people in such roles.

There are a lot more axes of privilege than just economic though. Take my friend BB, who's of South Asian origin. Economically, he's roughly as privileged as I am. But when he's in queer spaces (including online spaces), he has to deal with the same level of racism as my Black friends. (He's basically left social media due to the harassment and doxing he faced some years ago. This isn't an unusual problem for my activist friends who are POC; very few of my white cis male activist friends have had to deal with it, however.) I was legitimately worried for his safety during his recent trip to Europe, which came only a week after an attack on a gay bar in Oslo perpetrated by a Norwegian citizen of Iranian descent. I wouldn't've had the same worries about a white or white-passing friend,

imagine if people said "People of Color's Lives Matter" rather than "Black Lives Matter" - it would dilute the fact that "Black Lives Matter" is in particular about the treatment of Black people and not, say, Chinese-American people, who have not had the same experiences in America.

That must be why people don't say it.

IME, folks use the term "people of color" when it's appropriate (e.g. when talking about forms of discrimination faced by most if not all non-white folks) and more specific terms when those are needed. Maybe you find folks using it to be weasly, but that's a problem with those folks' behaviour, not with the term as such.

[Moose-tache]

I'm reminded of the story of the Caribbean dictator who could have people killed, but couldn't get into the whites-only yacht club. I can't remember who it was. But yeah, there are obviously things like police brutality where no amount of wealth will protect you. Plus, it's especially difficult to accumulate money when you're not white (this was very deliberate in the days when it was common to torch middle class black neighborhoods), so almost all rich people of color, save a few families, are new money. Kanye was rich when he tried to break into the Paris fashion world, but for a long time they said no, because who is this parvenu with no connections?

As linguoboy pointed out, it's a common but falacious idea in America that income or assets alone determine your status in society. As the saying goes "In America, it doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, as long as you've got money." Being able to buy things is incredibly important, but it doesn't necessarily determine who you are in society's eyes.

[Travis B.]

I would not deny that non-White people in general face racism in America, but what I would say is the racism that groups face differs from group to group, and should not be lumped together. For instance, in the case of Indian-Americans, they have been targeted due to anti-Arab racism combined with being mistaken for Arabs, and I still remember the attack on Sikhs at a gurdwara right here in southeastern Wisconsin, and of course they have the eternal-foreigner issue which also faces groups such as East Asians. Conversely, for all the racism targeted at Black people in America, even hardcore racists do not tell Black people to "go back to their own country", even though they will say that to Latine people in the southwest US who are descended from people who lived there since before the US even existed.

[Ares Land]

Conversely, for all the racism targeted at Black people in America, even hardcore racists do not tell Black people to "go back to their own country",(...)

Even for white supremacists that would be incredibly stupid!

[Linguoboy]

Conversely, for all the racism targeted at Black people in America, even hardcore racists do not tell Black people to "go back to their own country", even though they will say that to Latine people in the southwest US who are descended from people who lived there since before the US even existed.

Sometimes you're just wrong, Travis, and sometimes you're dead wrong with whipped cream and a cherry on top.

Cowboys for Trump defends ‘go back to Africa’ comments

[bradrn]

Conversely, for all the racism targeted at Black people in America, even hardcore racists do not tell Black people to "go back to their own country", even though they will say that to Latine people in the southwest US who are descended from people who lived there since before the US even existed.

Sometimes you're just wrong, Travis, and sometimes you're dead wrong with whipped cream and a cherry on top.

Cowboys for Trump defends ‘go back to Africa’ comments

Amazing. Every time you think you’ve seen a new low…

[Ares Land]

Conversely, for all the racism targeted at Black people in America, even hardcore racists do not tell Black people to "go back to their own country", even though they will say that to Latine people in the southwest US who are descended from people who lived there since before the US even existed.

Sometimes you're just wrong, Travis, and sometimes you're dead wrong with whipped cream and a cherry on top.

Cowboys for Trump defends ‘go back to Africa’ comments

Even for 'cowboys from Trump', whatever that is, that's realllllyyy low.

[Travis B.]

Conversely, for all the racism targeted at Black people in America, even hardcore racists do not tell Black people to "go back to their own country", even though they will say that to Latine people in the southwest US who are descended from people who lived there since before the US even existed.

Sometimes you're just wrong, Travis, and sometimes you're dead wrong with whipped cream and a cherry on top.

Cowboys for Trump defends ‘go back to Africa’ comments

Wow. That is... some of the most racist shit I've ever seen.

[Linguoboy]

Remember: for "hardcore racists", there is simply no bottom.

[Linguoboy]

[further discussion of the linguistic aspects of the expression "people of colour" moved to the Languages forum]

[MacAnDàil]

I would not deny that non-White people in general face racism in America, but what I would say is the racism that groups face differs from group to group, and should not be lumped together. For instance, in the case of Indian-Americans, they have been targeted due to anti-Arab racism combined with being mistaken for Arabs, and I still remember the attack on Sikhs at a gurdwara right here in southeastern Wisconsin, and of course they have the eternal-foreigner issue which also faces groups such as East Asians. Conversely, for all the racism targeted at Black people in America, even hardcore racists do not tell Black people to "go back to their own country", even though they will say that to Latine people in the southwest US who are descended from people who lived there since before the US even existed.

I think that the mistaking one for another is part of racism. Racism is both a moral and intellectual failing.

[Moose-tache]

ITT: French and Australian users discover America for the first time.

But since we've split off that conversation, I have a new beef!

Honey, come quick, new Madeline opinion just dropped!

My new beef is the glee that people across the internet have, though it seems mostly restricted to Americans, when talking about the imiseration of the Russian people. Empty grocery store shelves? Good, maybe now they'll stop invading Ukraine! Potato shortage and imminant supply chain collapse? Excellent, I'm sure Putin will be the first to feel the pinch! It's really starting to grate. If you even so much as try to mention that these are real people who work at banks and watch Youtube fishing tutorials like anyone else, who have about as much direct control over their government as I have over global CO2 emissions, armchair commentators will call you a Kremlin shill. I'm old enough to remember the controversy over the sanctions in Iraq, and maybe my perception is off, but this latest frothing desire to starve people to death seems at least on par with that, if not worse. I guess "Eventually they will miss bread more than they fear bullets" is just a normal thing to want now. Wonderful civilization, guys, we did it.

[fusijui]

I've noticed and feel the same way, Moose-tache. I'll go a little further and say that the 'the Russian empire must be decisively defeated, and broken up into independent nation-states' theme that I hear a lot from online political wonks, and slowly but steadily in mainstream media, seems to me simultaneously woefully ignorant, hubristically appalling, and also almost perfectly calibrated to turn most Russian citizens (of any ethnicity or nationality) against 'the West'. I don't get it.

[LingEarth]

So, I wonder if the Democrats actually getting something done for once will help their chances of holding on to Congress this November.

[Linguoboy]

So, I wonder if the Democrats actually getting something done for once will help their chances of holding on to Congress this November.

According to FiveThirtyEight (usual caveats apply), it's been inching up lately, but unfortunately that means an 88% chance of a GOP majority has declined to a 79% chance. Overturning Roe v Wade seems to be the bigger driver (it'll be years before the positive effects of the new bill begin to take effect, and I wager by then the Republicans who voted against it will find some way to take the credit), but the real question is whether that will still be on the forefront of voters' minds in November. I'm still bracing for a pasting.

[Moose-tache]

Oh, so the bill has some new taxes. Let's see... corporate tax, well, that just gets passed down the food chain. Stock buyback tax, but levied on the company, so capital gains goes as normal for the rich, but the extra cost gets passed down the food chain.

I know we're all "anti-insurrection" or whatever garbage, but hear me out. We all wear elk pelts on our heads, put a gun to the heads of the owner class, and tell them "don't stop until the bag is full."

[Travis B.]

So, I wonder if the Democrats actually getting something done for once will help their chances of holding on to Congress this November.

According to FiveThirtyEight (usual caveats apply), it's been inching up lately, but unfortunately that means an 88% chance of a GOP majority has declined to a 79% chance. Overturning Roe v Wade seems to be the bigger driver (it'll be years before the positive effects of the new bill begin to take effect, and I wager by then the Republicans who voted against it will find some way to take the credit), but the real question is whether that will still be on the forefront of voters' minds in November. I'm still bracing for a pasting.

Unfortunately voters are stupid, and will vote for the other party whenever they don't like something about things at the moment, even when objectively every single thing the other party stands for is infinitely worse. (Of course, dictatorship is much worse than democracy, so that's not an alternative.)

[MacAnDàil]

Obviously, Putin's invasion isn't the fault of ordinary Russians. While I do support independence for us Scots, the Chechens (and Uighur and Tibetans etc) are needing it more than us.

[Moose-tache]

I know I just complained about this, but damn it's bad out there.

The hot new thing on social is that, since Bad Country took Crimea, it is only just that Good Country take it back, like Crimea is a resource tile in a video game instead of a real place inhabited by real people. I tried to point out once on Reddit that changes to Ukrainian law since 2014 would make it even harder to govern Crimea effectively from Kiev, and that support for Kiev on the peninsula is still extremely low, and that repatriation would not be seen as a liberation or return to normalcy for anyone living there. I was immediately identified as an automated Russian chatbot and banned.

[MacAnDàil]

It doesn't make you a chatbot, but what are your arguments in favour of your position?