The neoliberal left

[Katie88]

Do you disagree that the existence of a noble class requires the existence of an oppressed class of commoners? Do you disagree that the existence of a capitalist class requires the existence of a class of oppressed workers?

I disagree with this:

Whiteness, like nobility, is a social construct that functions by defining and dispossessing an underclass

I'm starting to get the idea that it's just unexamined racist assumptions all the way down.

I'm starting to get the idea that you haven't any arguments beyond screaming 'racist!' at anyone who doesn't view things through the same prism as you.

Remind me where I said that you said that?

You and I both know very well what you're doing. Cut out the intellectually dishonesty, please.

 

[Lexicus]

I disagree with this:

Yes, I already know you disagree with that, but that's not what I asked. Can you answer the questions I actually asked? Here they are again:

Do you disagree that the existence of a noble class requires the existence of an oppressed class of commoners? Do you disagree that the existence of a capitalist class requires the existence of a class of oppressed workers?

You and I both know very well what you're doing. Cut out the intellectually dishonesty, please.

All I was doing in that post was explaining to Berzerker what scientific racism is. I actually was not casting any aspersions on you at all.

 

[Tahuti]

I'm starting to get the idea that you haven't any arguments beyond screaming 'racist!' at anyone who doesn't view things through the same prism as you.

Well, you could ask the question where 'whiteness' actually begins. Like, 1930s U.S. census includes Arabs and South Americans as 'White'. The term 'Hispanic' came like decades later. And that whole 'Anti-Islam' (which is actually more of a codeword to smear against ethnic groups among whom Islam is well represented) thing we have nowadays was pretty much non-existent.

'White race' and 'Black race' are social constructs. There is also that debate about whether Ancient Egyptians are 'Black' or 'White', or perhaps fill some kind a void. It is never finished.

 

[Broken_Erika]

The Purple race IS superior to all others!

 

[Tahuti]

The Purple race IS superior to all others!

Of course it is, because everyone can join the purple master race! It's inclusive, and there 100% chance of success to assimilate.

 

[Lexicus]

But more to the point, why are you trying to dredge up looming fascists black-bagging? Why this year? Rates of deportations have been falling. They're lower this year than they were in 2016(different source, if you want). Seems like the Republicans have been soft-shoeing deportations for the last decade, relatively. So who are you talking about in preponderance, supporters of Democratic governance? I wasn't really expecting that tack, truth be told.

I'm not "trying to dredge them up", they elected a President last year and they control the entire federal government.

The increase in arrests means that the decrease in deportation is actually more concerning, not less. Those people are in detention centers where the guards are largely free to behave like Sheriff Joe, and indeed have been signaled by no less an authority than the President that if they behave like Sheriff Joe, they will face no consequences. Then of course there's this:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/stron...rations-forces-massacred-civilians-in-somalia

God only knows how much else has happened without being reported on. Every signal from this administration, every policy change that relates to the question, seems to favor more unaccountable application of state violence. A campaign is underway to de-legitimize the electoral process by conjuring up base lies about "illegal voting".

 

[Katie88]

Yes, I already know you disagree with that, but that's not what I asked. Can you answer the questions I actually asked? Here they are again:

Do you disagree that the existence of a noble class requires the existence of an oppressed class of commoners? Do you disagree that the existence of a capitalist class requires the existence of a class of oppressed workers?

I asked you to back up you claim and you replied with questions for me! A poor show.

All I was doing in that post was explaining to Berzerker what scientific racism is. I actually was not casting any aspersions on you at all.

I'll believe you; thousands wouldn't. I think I'll leave it there for now.

 

[Lexicus]

I asked you to back up you claim and you replied with questions for me! A poor show.

I'm asking these questions because your answers would be helpful to me in establishing some kind of common understanding which would then allow me to actually start "backing up" my claim. I generally don't like to get into detailed historical discussions without hammering out some common premises first, because if you try to debate people with different premises you just end up talking past each other.

Again, I would really appreciate it if you would answer. If you are acting in good faith here, you will answer. If not, you will keep beating around the bush.

 

[Katie88]

I did also lol at little at white countries being ones founded by people of European descent. Its like, what, did the white colonizers lick all the land to make it theirs and everyone else was so grossed out they voluntarily moved away?

That's an odd interpretation. What I mean is that there was no USA, Australia, etc. before Europeans came, conquered and settled them. The native peoples had their own states and societies, which the colonizers destroyed.

Well, you could ask the question where 'whiteness' actually begins. Like, 1930s U.S. census includes Arabs and South Americans as 'White'. The term 'Hispanic' came like decades later. And that whole 'Anti-Islam' (which is actually more of a codeword to smear against ethnic groups among whom Islam is well represented) thing we have nowadays was pretty much non-existent.

'White race' and 'Black race' are social constructs. There is also that debate about whether Ancient Egyptians are 'Black' or 'White', or perhaps fill some kind a void. It is never finished.

Well, in the USA, the Founding Fathers were white nationalists to a man, and the 1790 Naturalization Act limited citizenship to "free white persons of good character". So there was a pretty clear idea about 'whiteness' from the beginning. All the recent 'doubt' about this sort of thing seems to stem from an effort to deconstruct white identity.

 

[Katie88]

I'm asking these questions because your answers would be helpful to me in establishing some kind of common understanding which would then allow me to actually start "backing up" my claim. I generally don't like to get into detailed historical discussions without hammering out some common premises first, because if you try to debate people with different premises you just end up talking past each other.

Again, I would really appreciate it if you would answer. If you are acting in good faith here, you will answer. If not, you will keep beating around the bush.

After calling me a national socialist, ignorant, a racist and dishonest, you've got a nerve to talk about good faith discussion.

Perhaps we'll have another chance to come back to it, but I've had enough for now.

 

[Ironsided]

This thread seen with a birds-eye view is why we will have further increased inequalities for at least another decade. Ordinary chumps of the 99% pointing fingers in all the wrong directions while getting robbed in the process.

 

[Cutlass]

But that sounds rather abstract, though, doesn't it, when compared to tests scores, college admissions, etc.

White students don't do worse because black students are in the schools. If the schools are worse, it is because a deliberate decision was made to make them worse.

 

[Farm Boy]

I'm not "trying to dredge them up", they elected a President last year and they control the entire federal government.

The increase in arrests means that the decrease in deportation is actually more concerning, not less. Those people are in detention centers where the guards are largely free to behave like Sheriff Joe, and indeed have been signaled by no less an authority than the President that if they behave like Sheriff Joe, they will face no consequences. Then of course there's this:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/stron...rations-forces-massacred-civilians-in-somalia

God only knows how much else has happened without being reported on. Every signal from this administration, every policy change that relates to the question, seems to favor more unaccountable application of state violence. A campaign is underway to de-legitimize the electoral process by conjuring up base lies about "illegal voting".

You could have simply said, "Republicans" when I asked.

 

[Lexicus]

You could have simply said, "Republicans" when I asked.

Republicans would be the ones standing and watching, though, not the thugs.

 

[innonimatu]

You said 'I'm anti-white'. It doesn't get any plainer than that.

If someone said, 'I'm anti-black' or I'm anti-Jewish' and then came out with a load of guff about 'social constructs', I should probably be able to hear your shrieks of 'racism!!!!!' from here.

If I went by those "social construct" things, then I'd have say I'm "anti-black", merely because I believe there is no acceptable reason for any "black identity" to emerge in my country. If black skinned people want to come here (as they did) they will be citizens like any other. They should not be allowed* to form their own "ethnic group", which will inevitably be a community in competition with (therefore opposed to) the original national group. I've seen the beginning of that happen, under influence from cultural imports from the USA (music, TV...) shaping the ideas of the children of african immigrants in my own country. Fortunately is has not taken hold and both the racists and the "anti-racists" are by now fringe groups (albeit still with a disproportionate media attention).

Thus "everyone a citizen" view, as opposed to the "multiculturalist" view, seems to be an underlying reason for the rhetorical clashes between europeans and "usaians" - not to call them americans in this case because the Americas are larger than the USA (and Canada) where this idea has taken root. This is one issue where I can understand very well people with whom I disagree often (Akka, even Luiz!).

* And I do mean should not be allowed. If there are laws against racism, they must apply also to attempts to create such racial-based "identities" or groups where they previously did not exist. I don't want the kind of crap I see on the other shore of the Atlantic imported here.

 

[Senethro]

I speak a different language from my ancestors not because the language changed, but because of ethnic and cultural cleansing. It was still going on in the time of my grandparents generation with minor corporal punishment for use of non-English vocabulary.

It is generally viewed as a bad thing.

 

[Cutlass]

If I went by those "social construct" things, then I'd have say I'm "anti-black", merely because I believe there is no acceptable reason for any "black identity" to emerge in my country. If black skinned people want to come here (as they did) they will be citizens like any other. They should not be allowed* to form their own "ethnic group", which will inevitably be a community in competition with (therefore opposed to) the original national group. I've seen the beginning of that happen, under influence from cultural imports from the USA (music, TV...) shaping the ideas of the children of african immigrants in my own country. Fortunately is has not taken hold and both the racists and the "anti-racists" are by now fringe groups (albeit still with a disproportionate media attention).

Thus "everyone a citizen" view, as opposed to the "multiculturalist" view, seems to be an underlying reason for the rhetorical clashes between europeans and "usaians" - not to call them americans in this case because the Americas are larger than the USA (and Canada) where this idea has taken root. This is one issue where I can understand very well people with whom I disagree often (Akka, even Luiz!).

* And I do mean should not be allowed. If there are laws against racism, they must apply also to attempts to create such racial-based "identities" or groups where they previously did not exist. I don't want the kind of crap I see on the other shore of the Atlantic imported here.

You got causation in the wrong direction. People don't form black identities. People are not permitted to form non-black identities. Black American is what is left over after centuries of not being permitted to be simply an American.

 

[innonimatu]

Yes, I do get it now, after having discussed the issue here, that the present day US inherited that trouble form the past. I still suspect that you are going about the wrong way to resolve it, but defer to the knowledge of those who are actually living there and won't argue with it.

Where I do disagree is with trying to apply that same logic to other countries that did not inherit a racial divide. In most of Europe people just don't want new divides to start. If sometimes that comes across as xenophobic, so be it: better slow immigration to manage it well than allowing conflicts and opposite groups to arise. That is not racism, it is the recognition that racism is a potential threat, a problem that may arise if this are not well managed. Calling the opponents of "multiculturalism" racists is irritating, to say the least.

 

[metalhead]

If everyone is treated equally, then there is no threat of opposing ethnic groups forming a competing identity in conflict with existing identities. The whole reason that was and continues to be a thing in the U.S. is the widely disparate treatment people receive, based purely on superficial notions of race. So to argue they need to be kept away seems like an admission that they will be treated poorly and unequally; otherwise, there is no reason for conflict.

 

[Lexicus]

@Farm Boy
http://www.newsweek.com/ice-deports-92-somalians-plane-human-rights-747557

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) kept 92 Somali immigrants chained on an airplane for 46 hours in "slave ship" conditions during a botched attempt to deport them back to Somalia earlier this month, detainees and advocates say.

The plane carrying the Somalis—chartered by the ICE Air Operations division—made a pit stop in Dakar, Senegal, 10 hours after taking off from Louisiana on December 7. But the plane never made it to Mogadishu. Instead, after parking the plane on the tarmac for nearly a day, ICE turned it around and made the 4,600-mile flight back to the United States on December 9.

Interviewed by Newsweek, one of the men on the plane and an attorney for two others said ICE deprived the Somalis of adequate food and water, and access to a working bathroom, during their two-day detention on board, forcing them to urinate in empty water bottles or, when they ran out of the bottles, on themselves.

Is this what you're paying taxes for?