5 ms·

The tolerance for abject racism in the media these days is appalling. This article's contents have nothing to do with race, and more to do with economic status.

The tolerance for abject racism in the media these days is appalling. This article's contents have nothing to do with race, and more to do with economic status. This is the flip side of a media that has espoused the ideals of identity politics, they can't even see past someone's racial grouping to identify a problem facing all Americans ( and most likely other nations too in our globalized economy ). Bloomberg should be ashamed of their journalistic quality and integrity

jhpriestley 9y ago
The trend of higher suicide and overdose deaths is specific to white Americans actually.
allemagne 9y ago
They address why they're looking at whites a few paragraphs in, though >While blacks and Hispanics without college degrees are also falling behind economically and socially, middle-age mortality has worsened for whites in particular over the past 20 years—a fact some attribute partly to social context. Do you specifically disagree with this?
- dkhenry 9y ago
  Yes! to say this is a racial social context issue is so far off the mark as to make this blatantly racist. Compare mortality directly with economic markers, obviously a group of people who historically have been less economically disadvantaged are going to regress to the mean faster then a group that has been living with it for generations.
- joatmon-snoo 9y ago
  This comment misses the point - that by focusing specifically on white America, there's the subtle implication that now that white America is facing issues that minorities have faced for generations, this is a problem that we should care about.
AnimalMuppet 9y ago
I think that life has always been like this for many blacks. Whites - even working-class whites - used to be more immune to this kind of despair. What's different is that the lack of economic opportunity is starting to destroy whites as well. (Yes, it always was there to some degree, but the intensity is new.) Now, we as a society should have cared when it was happening to blacks. But it is a significant change that it is increasing dramatically among working-class whites.
- magic_beans 9y ago
  I'm black, and a small part of me is enraged when I read these kinds of articles. This kind of sh*t has been happening in the Black community for GENERATIONS. No one cares until it's white people though. That said, maybe once people see that this sort of despair is beginning to affect white people, they will gain more empathy for all the black people suffering the same way.
  - okreallywtf 9y ago
    I would like to think so but the political direction that a suffering white middle class is taking us I'm afraid will not improve things for everyone equally. Growing up in the rural south I have heard literally my entire life how most of our problems are caused by government greed and immigrant, not massive wealth inequality. At the same time on NPR you might hear about the terrible working conditions immigrants deal with, lack of labor protections, minimum wage abuses but as far as many in the white middle class are concerned the problem is down, not up.
    - dkhenry 9y ago
      And to have the public discourse continue to separate people into groups based on race or gender or nationality is just a continuation of the problem. If you hear outcry against the plight of white americans in rural areas you make policies that effect white americans in rural areas. The race baiting continues and those who want to court the minority population start to show how one side only cares about the majority citizens. This is everyone's problem and the solution needs to be for all Americans not just ones who live in a select region or have higher amounts of melanin
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
magic_beans 9y ago
Do you know what racism is? Because I'm not seeing any in this article. Just because an article makes mention of the hardships of some white people doesn't make the article racism. This article is specifically about how WHITE Americans, who traditionally could become extremely successful in life without college degrees, are now finding that is no longer the case. That's not racism. That's journalism. Racism would be if the article made fun of white people, or derided them.
- joatmon-snoo 9y ago
  The problem that GP is getting at is that while, sure, the article factually doesn't have any problems, it's quite disingenuous to imply that now that white America is faced with these issues, this is a serious problem - even though these are issues which have been historically pervasive in many minority groups. It may not fit the traditional idea of Jim Crow style racism, but the article's implications are certainly there.

jhpriestley 9y ago

The trend of higher suicide and overdose deaths is specific to white Americans actually.

allemagne 9y ago

They address why they're looking at whites a few paragraphs in, though >While blacks and Hispanics without college degrees are also falling behind economically and socially, middle-age mortality has worsened for whites in particular over the past 20 years—a fact some attribute partly to social context. Do you specifically disagree with this?

dkhenry 9y ago
Yes! to say this is a racial social context issue is so far off the mark as to make this blatantly racist. Compare mortality directly with economic markers, obviously a group of people who historically have been less economically disadvantaged are going to regress to the mean faster then a group that has been living with it for generations.
joatmon-snoo 9y ago
This comment misses the point - that by focusing specifically on white America, there's the subtle implication that now that white America is facing issues that minorities have faced for generations, this is a problem that we should care about.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago

I think that life has always been like this for many blacks. Whites - even working-class whites - used to be more immune to this kind of despair. What's different is that the lack of economic opportunity is starting to destroy whites as well. (Yes, it always was there to some degree, but the intensity is new.) Now, we as a society should have cared when it was happening to blacks. But it is a significant change that it is increasing dramatically among working-class whites.

magic_beans 9y ago
I'm black, and a small part of me is enraged when I read these kinds of articles. This kind of sh*t has been happening in the Black community for GENERATIONS. No one cares until it's white people though. That said, maybe once people see that this sort of despair is beginning to affect white people, they will gain more empathy for all the black people suffering the same way.
- okreallywtf 9y ago
  I would like to think so but the political direction that a suffering white middle class is taking us I'm afraid will not improve things for everyone equally. Growing up in the rural south I have heard literally my entire life how most of our problems are caused by government greed and immigrant, not massive wealth inequality. At the same time on NPR you might hear about the terrible working conditions immigrants deal with, lack of labor protections, minimum wage abuses but as far as many in the white middle class are concerned the problem is down, not up.
  - dkhenry 9y ago
    And to have the public discourse continue to separate people into groups based on race or gender or nationality is just a continuation of the problem. If you hear outcry against the plight of white americans in rural areas you make policies that effect white americans in rural areas. The race baiting continues and those who want to court the minority population start to show how one side only cares about the majority citizens. This is everyone's problem and the solution needs to be for all Americans not just ones who live in a select region or have higher amounts of melanin

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

magic_beans 9y ago

Do you know what racism is? Because I'm not seeing any in this article. Just because an article makes mention of the hardships of some white people doesn't make the article racism. This article is specifically about how WHITE Americans, who traditionally could become extremely successful in life without college degrees, are now finding that is no longer the case. That's not racism. That's journalism. Racism would be if the article made fun of white people, or derided them.

joatmon-snoo 9y ago
The problem that GP is getting at is that while, sure, the article factually doesn't have any problems, it's quite disingenuous to imply that now that white America is faced with these issues, this is a serious problem - even though these are issues which have been historically pervasive in many minority groups. It may not fit the traditional idea of Jim Crow style racism, but the article's implications are certainly there.