Quote:
Originally Posted by sworkhard
The argument that because the majority of rich people in America are white, therefore the poor white man in Georgia is somehow has more power and moral responsibility to fix racism is one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard, common though it is. It's self-evidently false, but a perfect example of the problems with identity politics. When identity becomes more important than good policy, no-one wins.
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It comes down to how the mind works. How it categorizes and sorts. Basically, it makes a block called 'men'. And another called 'women.' And others called 'white', 'black', etc. Then, if you're concerning yourself with power, it stacks those blocks. Men higher than women if you're thinking terms of gender. White higher than black or Asian if you're thinking about race. The fact that one of those blocks represents hundreds of millions of people of diverse situations complicates the matter. Most people recoil from complication - especially those who seek the comfort of dogma (the whole point of which is to comfort with simplicity).
If you're concerning yourself with race, gender, and class, a better, more accurate conceptual tool is to imagine society as an enormous jar full of sand. Each grain of sand in that jar has a color to match its identity. So for example, if men are blue grains of sand, and women are red, the very top layer of sand will be almost all blue. The greater part making up the middle will be purple - a mix of blue and red. And the bottom layer will be blue-ish purple, as most of the people at the very bottom of society (the homeless, those in prison, those with no social connections at all) are men.
But again, this introduces a degree of nuance that many people aren't interested in recognizing, especially the highly dogmatic and partisan types who dominate politics at both ends of the spectrum.