4 ms·

It's the poison pill that Amazon/Walmart/et cetra have injected into the conversation to make sure they keep on top. Unless you think that all the top 1% have

It's the poison pill that Amazon/Walmart/et cetra have injected into the conversation to make sure they keep on top. Unless you think that all the top 1% have adopted identity politics out of the goodness of their hearts? It's just classic divide and conquer strategy. It's no coincidence that identity politics is so popular with the relatively affluent tech community who dont want to take a good hard look at themselves. I remember seeing a meme the other day about two justice systems in America, one black kid getting held for 3 months in jail, while a white kid with a more serious charge got out on bail immediately. Of course the meme framed it as a racial issue. The actual root cause was ya know, the white kid has a family who could pay or put up the bail while the black kid didn't, which means it was income inequality issue. But it sure seems there's a dedicated group that really really wants you to think its a racial issue. And that you should spend your precious time, political capital, and energy fighting that racial issue over the wealth inequality one. And that you shouldn't ever ever ally with someone who would work with you on the inequality issue but disagrees with you about it being a racial one, because they are an icky nazi. I wonder what exact group of people benefits from this perfectly engineered storm of division? Trump got elected due to ultimately populist anger over wealth inequality. But telling a poor struggling white family that they are privileged is a great recipe for them to ignore actually prescriptive solutions to their problems and turn to people like Trump. Ultimately, it's wearing on you. Because it's supposed to wear on you. It's supposed to remind you what happened to the kulaks last time income inequality was addressed. And not so subtly remind you that white men are the kulaks of the modern age.

edoceo 6y ago
Kulak is on Wikipedia ""During the Russian Revolution, the label of kulak was used to chastise peasants who withheld grain from the Bolsheviks. According to Marxist–Leninist political theories of the early 20th century, the kulaks were class enemies of the poorer peasants"" TIL.
- namelessoracle 6y ago
  I think the oxford definition conveys it better "a peasant in Russia wealthy enough to own a farm and hire labor. Emerging after the emancipation of serfs in the 19th century the kulaks resisted Stalin's forced collectivization, but millions were arrested, exiled, or killed." IOW. The middle class. Small business owners. People who have acquired a tiny amount of capital.
  - fuzzfactor 6y ago
    They were one step above serfdom and that was too close for comfort of the ruling class, even though they were not Tsarist any more. So they were snuffed no differently than a Tsar would have done.
A12-B 6y ago
What's amazing to me about HN is comments like this don't get downvoted, but comments about how maybe we should tax the wealthy a little bit do.
- Jochim 6y ago
  It's a view that I once held and it's easy to agree with reflexively because it appears correct at a surface level. Poor white people hearing about "white privilege" does alienate them, it implies they've failed even with a kind of starting advantage and can be taken as an invalidation of the hardships they face. Rather than inviting them to be empathetic to the additional issues faced by others it instead prompts them to be defensive of their own difficulties. When GP frames the issue as one of income inequality and not racial inequality, he's partially correct. On the surface it is an income inequality problem, but for the black community that income inequality is the result of wealth inequality that is itself a product of historic racism. The same goes for the wage gap which he's dismissive of. The usual argument here is that women simply choose lower paid work. But if we look past that surface level analysis there are still issues with employers not wanting to hire women because they think they might get pregnant, underpaying them because they're less likely to complain, or whether the types of work performed by women should be lower paid in the first place.
- letstaxtherich 6y ago
  It's because HN is a right wing cesspool.
  - fuzzfactor 6y ago
    Whatever, you & me are both helping to make it what it is.
letstaxtherich 6y ago
> I remember seeing a meme the other day about two justice systems in America, one black kid getting held for 3 months in jail, while a white kid with a more serious charge got out on bail immediately. Of course the meme framed it as a racial issue. The actual root cause was ya know, the white kid has a family who could pay or put up the bail while the black kid didn't, which means it was income inequality issue. But it sure seems there's a dedicated group that really really wants you to think its a racial issue. You're an ignorant racist.

edoceo 6y ago

Kulak is on Wikipedia ""During the Russian Revolution, the label of kulak was used to chastise peasants who withheld grain from the Bolsheviks. According to Marxist–Leninist political theories of the early 20th century, the kulaks were class enemies of the poorer peasants"" TIL.

namelessoracle 6y ago
I think the oxford definition conveys it better "a peasant in Russia wealthy enough to own a farm and hire labor. Emerging after the emancipation of serfs in the 19th century the kulaks resisted Stalin's forced collectivization, but millions were arrested, exiled, or killed." IOW. The middle class. Small business owners. People who have acquired a tiny amount of capital.
- fuzzfactor 6y ago
  They were one step above serfdom and that was too close for comfort of the ruling class, even though they were not Tsarist any more. So they were snuffed no differently than a Tsar would have done.

A12-B 6y ago

What's amazing to me about HN is comments like this don't get downvoted, but comments about how maybe we should tax the wealthy a little bit do.

Jochim 6y ago
It's a view that I once held and it's easy to agree with reflexively because it appears correct at a surface level. Poor white people hearing about "white privilege" does alienate them, it implies they've failed even with a kind of starting advantage and can be taken as an invalidation of the hardships they face. Rather than inviting them to be empathetic to the additional issues faced by others it instead prompts them to be defensive of their own difficulties. When GP frames the issue as one of income inequality and not racial inequality, he's partially correct. On the surface it is an income inequality problem, but for the black community that income inequality is the result of wealth inequality that is itself a product of historic racism. The same goes for the wage gap which he's dismissive of. The usual argument here is that women simply choose lower paid work. But if we look past that surface level analysis there are still issues with employers not wanting to hire women because they think they might get pregnant, underpaying them because they're less likely to complain, or whether the types of work performed by women should be lower paid in the first place.
letstaxtherich 6y ago
It's because HN is a right wing cesspool.
- fuzzfactor 6y ago
  Whatever, you & me are both helping to make it what it is.

letstaxtherich 6y ago

> I remember seeing a meme the other day about two justice systems in America, one black kid getting held for 3 months in jail, while a white kid with a more serious charge got out on bail immediately. Of course the meme framed it as a racial issue. The actual root cause was ya know, the white kid has a family who could pay or put up the bail while the black kid didn't, which means it was income inequality issue. But it sure seems there's a dedicated group that really really wants you to think its a racial issue. You're an ignorant racist.