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This has bothered me for a long time and the fact it still drags on blows my mind. Predominantly white protesters in Portland misappropriated protests over raci

This has bothered me for a long time and the fact it still drags on blows my mind. Predominantly white protesters in Portland misappropriated protests over racial inequality for their own disphoric amalgamation of social issues. There's little agreement among them about the goal of the protests or even why they're protesting. I know many of those people. Many have no idea why they're there, it's just drama to them, something they can do in the face of the most socially regressive times of our generation. On the other side people see this, point and say, "See? Told you I was right about those people." Nobody seems to give a shit about issues racial minorities and poor face, in the same breath ravenously supporting covid policies and their unprecedented impacts on income and social inequality along mostly racial lines. I'm surprised they aren't chanting, "black lives are essential." This is not helpful for racial equality. It's not helpful for anybody except the psychopathic industry of military oppression of civilian populations. Of course they're walking all over our social contracts, the continued protests have opened the door for them. Disruption of systematic inequality is needed, but this ain't the way it's going to happen. As a privileged work-from-homer, white person, whatever, our first obligation is to listen to what racial minorities are saying to understand the nature their struggles. Otherwise you can tell yourself you're a virtuous champion of wokeness, but you're really just a part of the same problem.

feoren 6y ago
Did you just imply that it's racist to support face mask requirements and mandatory stay-at-home orders? Is it racist to support legislation against drunk driving? Against firing guns into the air? Against throwing objects out of cars and off overpasses?
- ManBlanket 6y ago
  Stay at home orders are selective. Focused primarily on industries and jobs where minorities overwhelmingly find themselves. School closures favor children from households that can afford a computer for each child; requiring a parent to stay home, namely a responsibility falling upon women who are dropping out of the workplace at an unprecedented rate. So what then happens to those households who don't have that privilege? Do you care? The people paying the cost of public health are children, women, poor, and minorities. Meanwhile I haven't given anything up, so it's very easy for people like us to sit here while earning our full income from home and say, "Yes, this makes sense. It is totally worth it." It's worth it to us because we aren't paying the cost. These stay at home orders and quarantines have overwhelmingly and profoundly impacted people who were already struggling without offering them a path forward. Rest assured the economic uncertainty from shut down was a catalyst behind the BLM protests. The people impacted by shut down are predominantly poor and minorities, and the fact we haven't considered how to share that burden before stabbing in the dark is what makes them racist. At the global level, malaria kills almost a million people every single year, mostly children under 4. There's no herd immunity and it has and will continue to happen for decades. The WHO anticipates due to new covid travel restrictions on malaria relief workers an additional 3 to 4 hundred thousand deaths due to malaria will occur in Sub Sahara Africa alone. Surely malaria is a pandemic that shadows covid by any measure, except the measure where it overwhelmingly affects poor black people. Meanwhile the second our society is faced with something which mostly kills old white people, the average age of which exceeds the average human lifespan, we're cancelling school and creating a generation of illiterate 2nd grade children while their parents are left with no way to feed them. So yeah the reaction to covid has been first and foremost selfish, and given the government is a historic institution of race, these orders are themselves the children of our racism.
  - feoren 6y ago
    It's sometimes hard to separate out things that are heartless, in that they primarily affect poor people, from things that are racist, largely because of racial inequalities that do exist and persist because of a history of systemic racism. I agree that poor people are hit the hardest by these measures, but they would also be hit the hardest if the disease were allow to run rampant. I don't like playing the death-counting game, but we've had 1.6 million COVID deaths with countermeasures in place; that might have been 10 times higher with no restrictions at all, as you seem to advocate for. So your 400,000 extra malaria deaths, while absolutely devastating to think about, still pales compared to a potential 10 million lives saved from these measures, plus 100 million more with long-term debilitating effects. I have never cared nor considered what color of skin the dying have and I will never accept being called racist for wanting to save 10 million lives. Every analysis shows that however much restrictions hurt the economy, letting the disease just run rampant and overwhelm the medical system of every country in the world at once would hurt it much more. If every government had taken decisive action and forced (yes, forced) people to self-isolate for three weeks, this would have been over in March and poor people could have gone back to sending their kids to school and health workers could have gone back to helping stop malaria in Africa. But we didn't, because of our all-important freedom to harm others, and because of people like you who dare to call us racist for even trying. You're right that it sucks being poor. It's awful. It's unconscionable how we treat our poor. I hoped that COVID would come with a silver lining where we could start really trying Basic Income on a country scale and seeing how it (almost certainly) works wonders. Maybe it still will help people understand that governments are actually capable of helping people.
grumio 6y ago
You're blaming the protestors for having illegal toxins used against them? I'm confused.

feoren 6y ago

Did you just imply that it's racist to support face mask requirements and mandatory stay-at-home orders? Is it racist to support legislation against drunk driving? Against firing guns into the air? Against throwing objects out of cars and off overpasses?

ManBlanket 6y ago
Stay at home orders are selective. Focused primarily on industries and jobs where minorities overwhelmingly find themselves. School closures favor children from households that can afford a computer for each child; requiring a parent to stay home, namely a responsibility falling upon women who are dropping out of the workplace at an unprecedented rate. So what then happens to those households who don't have that privilege? Do you care? The people paying the cost of public health are children, women, poor, and minorities. Meanwhile I haven't given anything up, so it's very easy for people like us to sit here while earning our full income from home and say, "Yes, this makes sense. It is totally worth it." It's worth it to us because we aren't paying the cost. These stay at home orders and quarantines have overwhelmingly and profoundly impacted people who were already struggling without offering them a path forward. Rest assured the economic uncertainty from shut down was a catalyst behind the BLM protests. The people impacted by shut down are predominantly poor and minorities, and the fact we haven't considered how to share that burden before stabbing in the dark is what makes them racist. At the global level, malaria kills almost a million people every single year, mostly children under 4. There's no herd immunity and it has and will continue to happen for decades. The WHO anticipates due to new covid travel restrictions on malaria relief workers an additional 3 to 4 hundred thousand deaths due to malaria will occur in Sub Sahara Africa alone. Surely malaria is a pandemic that shadows covid by any measure, except the measure where it overwhelmingly affects poor black people. Meanwhile the second our society is faced with something which mostly kills old white people, the average age of which exceeds the average human lifespan, we're cancelling school and creating a generation of illiterate 2nd grade children while their parents are left with no way to feed them. So yeah the reaction to covid has been first and foremost selfish, and given the government is a historic institution of race, these orders are themselves the children of our racism.
- feoren 6y ago
  It's sometimes hard to separate out things that are heartless, in that they primarily affect poor people, from things that are racist, largely because of racial inequalities that do exist and persist because of a history of systemic racism. I agree that poor people are hit the hardest by these measures, but they would also be hit the hardest if the disease were allow to run rampant. I don't like playing the death-counting game, but we've had 1.6 million COVID deaths with countermeasures in place; that might have been 10 times higher with no restrictions at all, as you seem to advocate for. So your 400,000 extra malaria deaths, while absolutely devastating to think about, still pales compared to a potential 10 million lives saved from these measures, plus 100 million more with long-term debilitating effects. I have never cared nor considered what color of skin the dying have and I will never accept being called racist for wanting to save 10 million lives. Every analysis shows that however much restrictions hurt the economy, letting the disease just run rampant and overwhelm the medical system of every country in the world at once would hurt it much more. If every government had taken decisive action and forced (yes, forced) people to self-isolate for three weeks, this would have been over in March and poor people could have gone back to sending their kids to school and health workers could have gone back to helping stop malaria in Africa. But we didn't, because of our all-important freedom to harm others, and because of people like you who dare to call us racist for even trying. You're right that it sucks being poor. It's awful. It's unconscionable how we treat our poor. I hoped that COVID would come with a silver lining where we could start really trying Basic Income on a country scale and seeing how it (almost certainly) works wonders. Maybe it still will help people understand that governments are actually capable of helping people.

grumio 6y ago

You're blaming the protestors for having illegal toxins used against them? I'm confused.