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"Painting the Deep South as an embarrassing cultural backwater is one of the last socially acceptable forms of prejudice among elites. It’s not just tolerated -

• throwanem 1y ago
  > Why can't they extend this to their own country? Because they aren't a cohesive movement and, without someone to hate, could not manage even the rather poor pretense of unity with which they occasionally pretend to care to bother. If they were capable of taking your advice, they wouldn't need it.
  • api 1y ago
    You have a good point here, and I'm afraid it's a human universal: humans are tribal and have a hard time forming coalitions and movements without someone to hate. Being "universally woke" would mean not hating anyone, and that makes it hard to unite. We really need an alien invasion. Any Trisolarans listening?
    • throwanem 1y ago
      And people say I'm a misanthrope. We'll grow out of this Lord of the Flies nonsense eventually. Just another five, maybe ten thousand years, that's all.
    • mwcampbell 1y ago
      > We really need an alien invasion. Any Trisolarans listening? Except we shouldn't even hate _them_, because they're sentient beings too. I guess we should only hate the worst aspects of our own nature.
  • const_cast 1y ago
    I mean, this is a classic paradox of tolerance problem. If you extend diversity to include people who ideologically oppose diversity, then you're going to end up with more resistance and therefore less diversity. Yes, it would be cool if we could just include populist nationalists in our policy but the problem is that those ideologies are inherently zero-compromise and reactionary. So, what now?
    • api 1y ago
      It’s telling to me that like 2/3 of the replies to my comment think I’m arguing for extending inclusiveness to Nazis and KKK and such. That’s not what I said. I said rural Southern and Midwestern white working class culture. Many tend toward conservatism but the majority of them are not raging frothing at the mouth bigots. I was not talking about committed ideological hate mongers. I was talking about regular people and the way they feel ignored and mocked for where they come from or their cultural trappings. Their conservative views are the views that were instilled in them by family and literally their whole culture. It’s absurd to expect large numbers of people to deviate far from such things, especially when the other side gives off condescending vibes toward them. That only pushes them to double down. It’s not how you change anyone’s mind. When I think about ideologically committed bigots I honestly think more about Silicon Valley adjacent circles these days. Turn on “show dead” on HN to see dead comments and you’ll see a parade of race science defenders and stuff like that”low IQ people are not human.” (One I saw a week or so ago.) I’ve seen comments around here from time to time that are more chilling than anything I’ve ever heard from Midwestern rural types. My all time favorite was to the effect that “the idea that all human life is valuable is a recent one, and maybe not one that is working out.” (Paraphrasing.) It about literally made me shudder. I’ve heard the N word in rural Ohio, but I’ve never heard anyone attempt an intellectual deconstruction of the value of human life. Visit forums that are friendlier to the tech right like anything crypto adjacent and you’ll encounter much worse things. Human life is only valuable insofar as it scores high on an IQ test or makes money. But coastal tech people don’t get mocked ruthlessly as inbred hicks in spite of the fact that coastal tech people fund the new right and are its intellectual backbone. Classism in the biggest “ism” in this country, and it’s the one that carries the least stigma.
• ascondabout 1y ago
  I’ll explain it clearly: it is impossible to accommodate someone who wants you dead.
  • api 1y ago
    It doesn't seem to stop people from having sympathy for the victims of collective punishment, like Palestinian Muslims whose social views tend toward the extreme right, in other countries. It's hard, I agree. When someone hates you it's by far the easiest path to hate them back. But that's not going to change anyone's mind. It will make them double down. Edit: I'm not bashing Queers for Palestine. It's brilliant. It's probably changed some peoples' minds in that region of the world. You don't hear about it, of course, because when people reconsider long-held and culturally dominant beliefs they often don't say anything about it for a long time. They reconsider quietly. Bigots and hate-mongers and war-mongers are loud. One big rule for interpreting culture is: the craziest, meanest, most bigoted people are almost always the loudest. The wise whisper and the idiot yells.
    • AlotOfReading 1y ago
      I'm trying and failing to square the idea that liberals just need to "appeal to the rural lower class" with the idea that failing to do so is why Clinton lost. The Clintons come from Arkansas. Advocating for the rural/conservative lower class has been their M.O. since the 70s. It was a cornerstone of Hillary's campaigns, and a major focus of where she spent time campaigning. If you don't know that about Clinton's strategy, are you really the right person to be commentating on how she should have built her campaign instead?
  • voxic11 1y ago
    Yet they are able to support Hamas and other similar groups so I don't think this really explains it fully.
    • jasonlotito 1y ago
      I do not know of any leader on the left that supports Hamas. Please share. Note, Palestinian people are not Hamas.
• yogurt-male 1y ago
  I think the reason the left trashes this segment of the country is for two reasons. First, I don't think they're fully aware of how different the circumstances are for a middle-class (sub)urban person and a poor rural one. I doubt many "coastal elites" have spent much time in rural Alabama, for example. Second, they're able to extend empathy to the ignorant poor in other countries because they don't have to suffer the consequences of their ignorance and cultural backwardness. They absolutely do in this country, though. Just look what's going on. In a very real sense I think the "left" (that is, Democrats) in the US see conservative, rural ignorance and prejudice as inexcusable. I don't think that view is fully unjustified either. Having spent time in Mississippi growing up, I will never forget how blatantly racist and hateful those people were. Even (especially?) the wealthy, educated "elites" there. And even with a poor school system, we have libraries, the internet, etc. Ignorance in the 21st century is absolutely a choice, excepting maybe people in the most brutal of circumstances.
  • throwanem 1y ago
    Spoken like a rich white liberal. I grew up in Mississippi white and poor, and I had friends (when we could get away with that) who were black and poor. If you haven't noticed the way those latter are kept apart - quite literally the oldest play in America - then you haven't been nearly as attentive as you imagine yourself to be. The ignorant contempt you display here confirms it. Well, as you correctly note, ignorance in some cases is a choice. Choose better.
    • yogurt-male 1y ago
      Sure, there are good people there. But the people at the highest rungs of society there (doctors, lawyers, etc.) did perpetuate 1950s-level racism. Our family was told in no uncertain terms that they would not stand for us selling our house to a black family for example. I heard white kids saying slurs constantly, and not in a "rapping along to a song" kind of way. Denying my personal experience and calling it ignorance is pretty fucking arrogant of you.
      • throwanem 1y ago
• germinalphrase 1y ago
  If the social policy of the progressive left were capable of wrapping itself in the messaging of Family, Community, and Freedom for rural America - there would be an appetite. Remember that for a large swath of Trump voters, Bernie Sanders was their second choice candidate.
• hooverd 1y ago
  As someone who grew up in "rural American white culture, Christian conservative culture", you can't get away with saying half the shit they say about cities and urban areas about them. We propose solutions but those solutions are economic, not a return to default status for them. I've seen the vile, disgusting things rural people say about minorities and LGBT because outwardly I'm just another white dude. I've had grandmas scream at me about Obama being the devil (because I thought canvassing in '08 was a good idea).
  • redczar 1y ago
    I’m white and not from the south. But I went to FSU as an undergrad. White people assumed I was just like them in attitude and beliefs. One friend tried to get me into Christianity. He casually mentioned that black dominated churches weren’t real Christians. For “them” it was cultural and not a real belief. The biggest snowflakes in the country are white southern Christians in my experience. Anything that challenges their privilege is an attack to them.
• seabird 1y ago
  They absolutely should be doing this but they're never going to. For a huge number of people, this is Team Blue vs Team Red. Those born-drunk fuckup hick racists are Team Red so their role in the game is to be a verbal punching bag. There's a very real chance that the Democrat demographic coalition collapses in our lifetime. The contempt so many commentators held for groups that "surprisingly" swung for Trump is pretty telling of how this is probably going to keep going.
  • hooverd 1y ago
    It's a category error to think racists are ignorant people who don't know better and not people who actively enjoy their place in a racial hierarchy.
• scarmig 1y ago
  Identity politics of all sorts get their salience by having enemies to coalesce around. Who would be the enemy of your broadened woke coalition? White coastal elites?
  • hooverd 1y ago
    cosmopolitans of the rootless variety
• klabb3 1y ago
  It’s not that much flamebait imo. It’s not exactly a secret that the mainstream global left have been losing large amounts of voters to populist right. It’s driven by fear of scaring away voters with socialism (both Europe and US) and in the US in particular the Dems are a corporate center party which actively resists progressive policies and rhetoric that acknowledges the struggles of average people. See exhibit A: sidelining Bernie. I think the left has been making these judgments in error: the risk of being labeled socialists didn’t stop Bernie from getting grass roots rural support, just as the risk of being called a totalitarian fascist didn’t stop Trump one bit. Now, the issue is even if the dems wake up, how are they gonna consolidate the direct conflict of interests with their corporate support? You can’t win a game of money in politics if you upset the money that fund both the entrenched political class and the campaigns. Right wing populism is easier that way. All they want from the corporations is cultural obedience like removing DEI, it doesn’t hurt their business one bit. Look at how quickly Meta etc turned coats.
• redczar 1y ago
  I think you don’t understand what DEI really is. In America the groups you talk about are not at a disadvantage when it comes to recruitment in the respective areas of the country. As such they aren’t part of DEI in corporate recruiting. In education how would you make white Christians a greater part of the curriculum? Their history and contributions to society already dominate the curriculum. I’m a woke liberal. You are right regarding your comments on Saudi and conservative Hindu culture. I do condemn idiotic beliefs no matter who has them. This includes condemning idiotic beliefs of white Southern culture. One such idiotic belief is the idea that including marginalized groups is an attack on white people.
  • api 1y ago
    > In America the groups you talk about are not at a disadvantage when it comes to recruitment in the respective areas of the country. When I was in college in the late 1990s and early 2000s, people from the rural South were at times told they should lose the Southern accent because it would hurt their ability to get hired in jobs like finance and engineering especially in the Northeast. This was at a college in the Midwest. If you go to New York, Boston, or Silicon Valley and try to break into a top-tier industry with a thick Southern accent and talk about how much you love to go deer hunting, this will absolutely put you at a disadvantage. I lived in Boston for five years and one thing I learned is that even being from a poor or "flyover" area of the country makes you a lower class of person. There's a very strong but quiet classism, especially in the Northeast, and the Northeast is the cultural heartland of American liberals. "Where did you go to school" is the biggest class marker, followed by where you're from. Is it as big of a disadvantage as other things? Probably not, but "the oppression olympics" isn't a good take or a good strategy. BTW -- every human culture has class markers and in-group out-group dynamics. It just seems like the US left is blind to the fact that they have these too, and no it's not all about rejecting Nazis and misogynists. Everyone from the rural South or Midwest is not a Nazi or a misogynist. Most are not.
    • redczar 1y ago
      Hence the “respective areas of the country” part of my comment. DEI started due widespread systemic disadvantages certain groups have historically experienced. White Christians can’t reasonably claim to be part if this in the U.S. The speech part of your comment is quite ironic given the vitriol hurled towards black English speakers by white southerners.
• sbuttgereit 1y ago
  When your chief argument for your attaining political power is that you have been wrongly oppressed, you need need to identify the oppressors as a rallying point for would-be supporters. For Nazis, the Jews could be vilified as the cause of German suffering. For many progressives, that's "the deplorables" just as for conservatives it's the woke. Of course, truth and the complexity of reality dilute and blunt the arguments of oppression which is precisely why you will never see your plan come to fruition. The world would be a nicer place, but those you need to act on your plan are the only ones that would be hurt by it.
• yogurt-male 1y ago
  Also, asking for educated people with a soul for acceptance and understanding of clear idiocy, hate, bad faith in conversation, and just malice generally, is (ironically) asking Christ-like magnanimity of them. Why should we accept people acting like assholes? If someone consistently acts like an asshole in your personal life, you cut them out. Tolerating nonsense just begets more nonsense.
• jl6 1y ago
  That sounds not so much more “woke”, but more like classical left-liberalism, sticking up for the disempowered and disadvantaged, regardless of identity group membership.
• gadders 1y ago
  Coming from a lower-socio economic background - i.e. growing up poor - is very much a proper diversity characteristic (regardless of ethnicity or anything else).
• jasonlotito 1y ago
  Two important caveats. 1) DEI does include rural American white culture, Christian conservative culture, and all the rest... 2) ...except for people who want to eliminate people. Sorry, but you can't make room for someone that wants to end your existence. And there is a non-insignificant number of MAGA that want, support, and promote doing just that. > Why can't they extend this to their own country? We do. We literally do. We literally think our country can be better than it is. If you don't see this, you are blinding yourself. > You don't win friends or change peoples' minds by mocking and bashing people. That just makes them double down out of spite. > They know they are mocked as dumb, in-bred, ignorant, bigoted, small minded, etc. The irony. Edit: I also find it interesting that as much as the is opposed to DEI, they still support it. They just pretend they don't. Heck, even now the government is still supporting DEI initiatives with Trump's approval. It's crazy.
• NegativeK 1y ago
  I'm going to paint with a fairly broad brush here, for which I apologize. But it lines up with the majority of the politically outspoken people I'm referring to. For context, I grew up in the south. I also regularly disagree with my liberal friends when they categorize Southern conservatives as brainwashed idiots. But (here's the but): When I lived in the South, I heard a _lot_ of abject vitriol toward liberal elites, ivory tower academics (Piled Higher and Deeper, ho ho ho), and antisemitism occasionally dog whistled (but often just blunt racism) as anti-banker or anti-world order. You can throw in more things, like Civil War denialism and using racial slurs at the workplace in front of people of the target race with no recourse. I currently live in a metropolitan area of a swing state. When I hang out with a group of friends that's politically outspoken and conservative, I'll hear what I think lines up with liberal shit talking. Comments that would be outright insulting in the presence of the other party, refusal to actually consider the opposition's site, etc. I do think that rhetoric is harmful to democracy, and I am so very tired of liberals I agree with and conservatives I disagree with echoing jabs and talking points. But it doesn't compare with the vitriol I heard when living in the deep south. I refuse to live in a place where it's okay for the stranger cutting your hair to drop a nasty racial slur during inane chit-chat. I don't know how the hell you woke embrace a group that has so much hate toward your party and your politicians.
• ZeroGravitas 1y ago
  The "deplorables" comment you refer to was doing exactly what you are asking for but you claim you heard it and knew she'd lose, so I guess it's a losing strategy you're proposing. Not only did she say it, she said to to a crowd in New York at an LGBTQ fundraiser and still felt that Trump voters should be mentioned as worthy of compassion. > Now, some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America. But the other basket — and I know this because I see friends from all over America here — I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas — as well as, you know, New York and California — but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.