I’ve got politics, and almost only politics, on my mind. This is the last weekend before midterm elections on Tuesday. I am feeling a little freaked out.
I think many people are placing all of their hope on a blue wave. I know I am! But I’m worried we’ve been lulled into this false sense of security about how realistic a blue wave is. When in reality, voter suppression and gerrymandering and general lack of political involvement is going to make it REALLY hard for progressive candidates to actually win.
I think it’s really important to spread the word about voting, but merely telling people to vote can quickly turn into gaslighting for minorities (see: voter suppression, gerrymandering). A lot of people are touting the old sentiment that if you don’t vote you can’t complain, which totally glosses over the fact that for a lot of people, it’s really hard to vote. Progressive candidates are often working for those minority groups that face high levels of voter suppression, so I’m worried... We need the votes of the people that have a difficult time voting.
I really encourage everyone to take some active steps this weekend to engage in the election. I signed up to phonebank. I hate talking on the phone but it’s too important to sit back and let others do the work, so I’m making calls on behalf of Beto all day Saturday. If anyone else wants to take action, I suggest connecting with indivisible. I’m a person who posts political articles and memes on social media but is otherwise kind of quiet about politics... but moving into the last few days of the election, that feels like it is nowhere near enough.
Also I am currently reading this book and omg, I want every white person I know to read it. I am learning so much.
A reply to the down-votes you are getting for stating a fact:
It is distressing in particular that many people refuse to acknowledge that over 50% of murders in the US are committed by the black minority (around 13%), as if it were some kind of embarrassing chronic racial failing instead of a consequence of lack of education and the breakdown of the family dynamic - and other issues. On a related note, how ironic is it that black Americans were growing richer as a group from the 1930's until momentum slowed dramatically in the 1960's - after the civil rights era? (Am reading black scholar Thomas Sowell's book "Black Rednecks and White Liberals")
We cannot fix the problem by pretending that our reality is only racist hate-speak. This willful ignorance I find rather terrifying because it is being manifested with such vehement, unreasoning anger.
I spent this last January in the Dominican Republic which is largely black and mixed race. Was great to be around black people who felt free to just be people and without all the silent undercurrents of fear, resentment and blame that we have in the states. The Dominicans I met live in the now, take you at face value, and were just wonderful people: cheerful, kind, hugely family oriented and as a group, amazingly good looking. But they are incredibly poor. I really don't know how they do it; they were inspiring.
Edit: Excellent series of essays on origins and ramifications of southern and northern, black and white cultures, plus more:Black Rednecks and White Liberals.
> and I always thought "oriental" referred to the Far East, so really not sure what the article was on about.
The article is drawing upon Orientalism by Edward Said, which is a important and popular text among cultural studies types. And is specifically about European attitudes towards the Middle East.
There's actually a decent amount of Academia dedicated to figuring out how the Irish transitioned from identifiable ethnic minority to other white people. The most famous example is about how the Irish came to become oppressors, which is oF cOuRsE synonymous with white.
But the most profound way in which they became what was... they assimilated.
What Taison says here is almost a pretty direct quote from the beginning of the latest book by Ibram Kendi. The book, called How to Be an Antiracist does a pretty nice job of clearly describing some of the issues with structural racism that we see today.
If you think Antiracism is a topic that is really interesting to you, I would recommend that book and also White Fragility by Robin Diangelo.
(Source: I work on a Structural Racism task force in my city in America and have done a lot of work in the field of Antiracism for the last 5 years or so.)
I mean, over 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from that land, with over 500 villages razed to the ground, many of them completely massacred. It's not really a radical thing to want your land back.
Read The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe. Its quite an eye opener. Most Palestinians were actually ethnically cleansed before the war started, so saying its the arab countries fault is completely inaccurate. https://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553
Thomas Sowell and a number of others have argued African American hip hop culture is basically white redneck behavior, Sowell in "Black Rednecks And White Liberals" which I'm about to begin. Colin Woodward's "American Nation's" touches on this as well, as do other authors who've penned books on the topic, although his book is more about all of the regional cultures that make up our country dating back to the groups that founded those regions and how their beliefs are still resoundingly alive and well and how politicians actively exploit these differences we have between one another. There are other academics I've heard doing research like this but I'm having trouble recall their names, I heard about them in some podcasts. But, there's definitely more reading you can do to explore this idea more.
Amazon links to check out both titles I mentioned:
https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029
Not even remotely.
For a better and much more comprehensive view, read American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Collin Woodard.
Recently I got a very interesting book called White Fragility by Robin D'Angelo. Now I do not live in the US, but I was horribly surprised how many points this book raises applied directly to me.
Not a new thing in my reality. I remember reading about the origins of corn in Charles Mann's "1491" book, where it is described to be very colorful
> "nation to nation" relationship
Warning - probably sounds pedantic. sorry.
'Nation' is often confused with 'state' - with states being legal, political entities with borders. 'Nations' being <em>cultural</em>, political entities, but no borders.
Add to that and the our constitution recognizes that bands have legal standing equal to the federal government, and nation to nation makes sense.
(Provinces, unlike bands, have essentially delegated authority. Even though areas of authority - health, education, etc are delegated. Municipalities have an even lower level of authority. Only the Federal government has the 'authority' to negotiate with the bands, regardless of issue.)
Being a completely separate 'nation' within a state is pretty much normal for most of North America.
You should read 1491 and America Before. Also there a numerous journal entries that have been published about the true history of Columbus and westward expansion.
Edit: words and formatting
This image gives sort of the essential idea of what has happened. I'd advise the book "the ethnic cleansing of Palestine" by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe to start understanding the history.
This book caused a lot of stir this year when it was released in June. It explains the culture of the areas like Leah's where the poverty is generational. I grew up in an area in rural PA. It was thriving farming community in the 80's but now is run down and trashy, nothing like when I was a kid. I imagine the kids are a lot like Leah and her cousins.
It stuck a huge chord with many because this is a group of people largely ignored in America. If anyone likes reading this kind of thing, I linked its Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Hillbilly-Elegy-Memoir-Family-Culture/dp/0062300547
The Irish weren't always considered white. I haven't read the whole thing, but this book, How the Irish Became White, is pretty interesting.
These people believe in the myth of "Western Civilization" that is taught in virtually every college and university in the USA. They don't consider Mao, Stalin, and even Lenin, to be a part of "Western Civilization". From there, it isn't much of a step to go fash and say that Marxism is an "Asiatic ideology" that feminizes men and "masculinizes" women. Socialism is Asiatic, other, and feminine. Lenin was depicted as a scheming Jew in fascist propaganda. Stalin was always portrayed as Georgian and Asian.
Orientalism plays a large role in why people over estimate the "death toll of communism". The Holocaust that the Nazis carried out was particularly horrifying to Europeans. European Empires such as the British East India Company had committed mass atrocities and genocides for hundreds of years in places like India, China, Africa, and the Americas. This was the birth of capitalism, in blood. The idea of Europe having this level of genocide horrifies the Reactionary Mind.
Edward Said's book on Orientalism explores the subject further.
I mean this guy wrote an entire book (I haven't read it) explaining these so-called nations. Eastern California and N Dakota are both mostly rural republican places with a libertarian bend. New York City does have a pretty distinct culture with way more immigrants than lots of other areas and just generally feels like it's a world unto itself. New Orleans and Quebec is a little shaky, but LA is different than the rest of the south and I suppose he didn't want to make another category. Maine and Minnesota don't lean either super republican or super democrat. Minnesota is pretty distinct, but it is definitely part of a greater area if not this "nation". Bob Dylan (native Minnesotan) famously said "the nation I come from is called the Midwest".
>Anti-racism is a talking point invented by the right recently
That's not true. Ibram X Kendi released a book on anti racism in 2019, and who knows how long the concept had been making its academic rounds prior to that?
If someone came into your house and told you that their God told them that your house is now theirs, everyone in this sub would take up arms to protect themselves and their property. But since the conflict is targeted towards Muslims, everyone in this sub (and this political party) turns a blind eye.
What if it was Christian Palestinians? Who side would you be on? It’s irrelevant since Israel already killed all the Christians in Palestine in the 1940s......
If you want to educate yourself, here’s a book written by a former Israeli official, former Zionist about what happened in Palestine and Israel during the 1940s https://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553
If you don’t believe that guy, you might believe the survivors of the USS Liberty, which was attacked by unmarked Israeli planes in 1967. They were threatened with death and treason charges to stay quiet on the matter until Lyndon Johnson died. Lyndon Johnson, during the incident, called off the reinforcements while the attack carried on for another 3 hours. But don’t worry, Israel apologized for killing 34 of our soldiers, saying it was an accident. https://www.amazon.com/Remember-Liberty-Almost-Sunk-Treason/dp/1634241088
Or just stay uninformed and blindly support your government, it’s your choice.
Read his fantastic book: Black Rednecks & White Liberals.
How many 500+reviewed books on Amazon do you see which have a full FIVE STAR RATING?!
After those ~250 pages, his world is your oyster.
One of my favorite positions of Dr. Sowell's is his lengthy discussion on how "minimum wage increase" theories predominantly affect minorities (particularly blacks) most. In a bad way.
ref: Dr. Thomas Sowell is black — inb4 "racist"
I know this is a liberal subreddit, but Thomas Sowell has a great book about this exact topic. Black Rednecks and White Liberals It's an easy read and I think he does a great job breaking down how classism has evolved in America over the last 100 years or so.
Exposing the crimes of my own race isn’t racism. It’s a public service I do for free. I get labeled white nationalist, alt white, white supremacist, Ivan, Russian bot, etc by white liberals & we have unfortunately reached a point where we must constantly remind them they are white & racist as you can see on display beating a member of a minority group... something I have never done despite their labels. I once shagged a dominican lady who liked to bite me though. White liberals suffer from white fragility which leads to unconscious racism- they write books about it but have trouble understanding the concepts as they relate to them - this causes them to be aggressive/violent according to this New York Times & Amazon best seller https://www.amazon.com/White-Fragility-People-About-Racism/dp/0807047414
From now until April 2022, you are a black male. Don't even mention being white at all, T10's will be bowing down to you. You think I am joking, but this is truly for your own good.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Antiracist-Ibram-Kendi/dp/0525509283
Still not quite right unfortunately.
J.D. Vance talks about it in Hillbilly Elegy. They are voting for their interests, their interests just aren't economic, its the social issues republicans have spent 50 years indoctrinating their base to believe as the most important.
Great book btw, still relevant today considering 70mil people voted for Trump.
Imma shill this book in a parent comment as well because it deserves it. It questions and addresses a lot of misconceptions about the Americas before European contact - especially in regards to population size and levels of "advancement" of civilizations in the hemisphere. Also because I'm passionate about all things history related and in general, a nerd.
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles Mann.
Probably my favorite book I read in college because it's genuinely interesting and written for a broad audience.
Because the whole country was taken away from them in a series of atrocities and evictions in the past 70 years.
Just imagine a house. If the house is yours and I slaughtered your family and evicted you. You would want the whole house back, not parts of it, right? Same thing with Palestine.
Hope that helps 🙃
If you wish to understand more about atrocities and evictions, then see https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1851685553/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_SEH1J4B822XQH1ZYMCJR
I'm not trying to trash rural culture, I do believe we might have different conceptions of what redneck culture is. In my case I'm going off this book.
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Rednecks-Liberals-Thomas-Sowell/dp/1594031436
I agree, but boy I wish there was an updated version of it. It's data is before H.W. Bush.
I spoke too soon. I was going to leave an amazon link and found this from 2012:
https://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/se/6206/620204.html
I'm just basically spamming this today, aren't I... Sigh
https://www.amazon.com/Irish-Became-White-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415963095
I'm actually just tired of this conversation with people. Every single person has an opinion about race and God damn near no one has ever read about it.
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus is well regarded and very readable.
He also wrote a long-form essay on it for The Atlantic if you want a bit of the flavor before purchasing: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/302445/