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Who is pretending that "the government is run by white supremacists"? If you're referring to my statement, I only said that many law enforcement agencies conta

Who is pretending that "the government is run by white supremacists"? If you're referring to my statement, I only said that many law enforcement agencies contain white supremacists, which includes anyone with a white supremacist viewpoint. They don't even need to identify as one openly or even in action. How many white supremacists are and are not anti-government is immaterial to the point. The way you're using the definition "white supremacist" implicitly assumes that "white supremacy" as an ideology is inherently anti-government. We know that's never been the case, because all white supremacist states around the world have had strictly authoritarian governments. There's no way to enforce the supremacy of one group of people over another without coercive force. Either violence or authoritarian government are required for a white supremacist state. As for whether US itself is a white supremacist state, on one hand you could say that it has allocated a massive amount of resources in systematically rounding up black men (1 in 3 will be arrested in their lifetimes) without addressing the factors used to justify that, and many states systematically disenfranchise their vote. And historically it was economically reliant on chattel slavery. Many southern states are effectively authoritarian governments at the state level due to district gerrymandering and black disenfranchisement, now no longer stoppable by the Voting Rights Act after a conservative supreme court decision a few years ago. OTOH, federally, is democratically accountable to the people, making it a coalition of whites and non-whites. So you could still see white supremacist reactionaries taking anti-government standpoints for as long as this governing coalition includes non-white people. >It turns out that the people who make those sorts of claims are really just anti-white. Do you think it is somehow "anti-white" to point out ways in which white supremacy harms and oppresses non-white people when it is used at the level of state and federal governments?

yucky 4y ago
> Do you think it is somehow "anti-white" to point out ways in which white supremacy harms and oppresses non-white people when it is used at the level of state and federal governments? It can be. Take your example for instance, where you said: > "As for whether US itself is a white supremacist state, on one hand you could say that it has allocated a massive amount of resources in systematically rounding up black men (1 in 3 will be arrested in their lifetimes) without addressing the factors used to justify that, and many states systematically disenfranchise their vote." You may not realize it, but this statement immediately dismisses the millions of non-black victims of the same thing. By making it all about one race, you have essentially set up a white (bad) vs black (good) dynamic where it doesn't actually exist. Instead of looking at fundamental issues affecting people regardless of race - namely, an authoritarian government that is primarily used by the privileged class against the unprivileged. For example: whereas Sasha & Malia Obama will never face the brunt of an authoritarian government, white Appalachian families know it all too well. You saw the same thing with groups like BLM. If you never looked at the data you would assume this is an issue that only or primarily affects black people. And yet, the majority of people killed by cops are white males. And although per capita black males are more likely to suffer that fate, white males are also over-represented as victims of police violence based on their demographic cohort. (black, Hispanic and white males are over-represented; Asian males and females of all races including black, are under-represented. Using the police violence issue, the largest over-represented demographic cohort is actually males which make up 95% of the victims. And yet it's not presented as a male problem. It's presented as a black problem despite the data that shows black females are far less likely to be hurt or killed in police interactions than white males are. This happens a lot when trying to take a complex issue and assume it's based on race.
- mrtesthah 4y ago
  At the state level, the rate of incarceration for black americans is about 5 times higher than for white americans. This report fully breaks it down by state and by ethnicity, and offers policy solutions: https://www.sentencingproject.org/app/uploads/2022/08/The-Color-of-Justice-Racial-and-Ethnic-Disparity-in-State-Prisons.pdf https://www.sentencingproject.org/app/uploads/2022/08/The-Co... Given that black people are not a large percentage of the population, this disparity is shocking and significant. If we deliberately choose not to point out these problems then it won't be possible to correct them at a social policy level. If we chose to focus only on "males" as the targeted demographic then we would overlook a lot of the systemic injustices and socio-economic circumstances that black males face exclusively, and which would require disproportionate attention to solve. It is neither right nor just that black men should bear such an unequal burden. Moreover, pointing out injustice done to black americans does not "dismiss the millions of non-black victims". I don't see how you can come to that conclusion. There is more than enough room in the sphere of public debate to discuss all aspects of mass incarceration. The argument you're making sounds almost exactly like "all houses matter". https://twitter.com/_dpiddy/status/1266907284178759680/photo/1 https://twitter.com/_dpiddy/status/1266907284178759680/photo...
  - yucky 4y ago
    And whites are locked up at a shockingly higher rate than asians are. Men are locked up at shockingly higher rates than women are. So do we blame Asian supremacy or female supremacy for that? Or is it possible not all demographic groups commit crimes at the same rate?
    - mrtesthah 4y ago
      What do you think is the reason that races commit crimes at different rates? Do you think that black people are inherently more criminal? You can read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander if you truly have a good faith desire to understand the racist legacy behind mass incarceration in the US. https://newjimcrow.com/ https://newjimcrow.com/ Ultimately you need to recognize that race is a social construct, and white supremacy is a phenomenon of in-group vs out-group power dynamics. Right now the group that holds political and economic power in the US is called “white”, which is otherwise a biologically meaningless designation and more of a cultural and class based category that was invented about 100 years ago. The more similar a particular demographic group appears along the axes of skin color, class, and culture, the less racially stigmatized they’ll be, the more economic opportunities they’ll have, and the less they’ll need to resort to grey or black market activity in order to survive. There is also the long legacy of slavery, indentured servitude, and jim crow era oppression that has selectively deprived black people in the US of economic opportunities for generations. If you want to draw conclusions on aggregate statistics of the actions of human beings, then you need to be willing to educate yourself as to the social, economic, and historical factors which influence their actions.

yucky 4y ago

> Do you think it is somehow "anti-white" to point out ways in which white supremacy harms and oppresses non-white people when it is used at the level of state and federal governments? It can be. Take your example for instance, where you said: > "As for whether US itself is a white supremacist state, on one hand you could say that it has allocated a massive amount of resources in systematically rounding up black men (1 in 3 will be arrested in their lifetimes) without addressing the factors used to justify that, and many states systematically disenfranchise their vote." You may not realize it, but this statement immediately dismisses the millions of non-black victims of the same thing. By making it all about one race, you have essentially set up a white (bad) vs black (good) dynamic where it doesn't actually exist. Instead of looking at fundamental issues affecting people regardless of race - namely, an authoritarian government that is primarily used by the privileged class against the unprivileged. For example: whereas Sasha & Malia Obama will never face the brunt of an authoritarian government, white Appalachian families know it all too well. You saw the same thing with groups like BLM. If you never looked at the data you would assume this is an issue that only or primarily affects black people. And yet, the majority of people killed by cops are white males. And although per capita black males are more likely to suffer that fate, white males are also over-represented as victims of police violence based on their demographic cohort. (black, Hispanic and white males are over-represented; Asian males and females of all races including black, are under-represented. Using the police violence issue, the largest over-represented demographic cohort is actually males which make up 95% of the victims. And yet it's not presented as a male problem. It's presented as a black problem despite the data that shows black females are far less likely to be hurt or killed in police interactions than white males are. This happens a lot when trying to take a complex issue and assume it's based on race.

mrtesthah 4y ago
At the state level, the rate of incarceration for black americans is about 5 times higher than for white americans. This report fully breaks it down by state and by ethnicity, and offers policy solutions: https://www.sentencingproject.org/app/uploads/2022/08/The-Color-of-Justice-Racial-and-Ethnic-Disparity-in-State-Prisons.pdf https://www.sentencingproject.org/app/uploads/2022/08/The-Co... Given that black people are not a large percentage of the population, this disparity is shocking and significant. If we deliberately choose not to point out these problems then it won't be possible to correct them at a social policy level. If we chose to focus only on "males" as the targeted demographic then we would overlook a lot of the systemic injustices and socio-economic circumstances that black males face exclusively, and which would require disproportionate attention to solve. It is neither right nor just that black men should bear such an unequal burden. Moreover, pointing out injustice done to black americans does not "dismiss the millions of non-black victims". I don't see how you can come to that conclusion. There is more than enough room in the sphere of public debate to discuss all aspects of mass incarceration. The argument you're making sounds almost exactly like "all houses matter". https://twitter.com/_dpiddy/status/1266907284178759680/photo/1 https://twitter.com/_dpiddy/status/1266907284178759680/photo...
- yucky 4y ago
  And whites are locked up at a shockingly higher rate than asians are. Men are locked up at shockingly higher rates than women are. So do we blame Asian supremacy or female supremacy for that? Or is it possible not all demographic groups commit crimes at the same rate?
  - mrtesthah 4y ago
    What do you think is the reason that races commit crimes at different rates? Do you think that black people are inherently more criminal? You can read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander if you truly have a good faith desire to understand the racist legacy behind mass incarceration in the US. https://newjimcrow.com/ https://newjimcrow.com/ Ultimately you need to recognize that race is a social construct, and white supremacy is a phenomenon of in-group vs out-group power dynamics. Right now the group that holds political and economic power in the US is called “white”, which is otherwise a biologically meaningless designation and more of a cultural and class based category that was invented about 100 years ago. The more similar a particular demographic group appears along the axes of skin color, class, and culture, the less racially stigmatized they’ll be, the more economic opportunities they’ll have, and the less they’ll need to resort to grey or black market activity in order to survive. There is also the long legacy of slavery, indentured servitude, and jim crow era oppression that has selectively deprived black people in the US of economic opportunities for generations. If you want to draw conclusions on aggregate statistics of the actions of human beings, then you need to be willing to educate yourself as to the social, economic, and historical factors which influence their actions.