Are whites blind to their suffering?

Following the thread about great Americans i posted this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2953673&mesg_id=2954685 .
Now the thinking behind the tittle flows from my post. Whilst whites are the majority in the US, only a minute percentage own and control the money, the others work hard, often with no job security and no health benefits.
Before the civil war movement blacks knew and felt their inequality. They had to fight to stop being second-class citizens in the country they helped to build.
Now it is whites who work hard to earn a living and keep America standard of living high. Sadly their hard work is wasted by a government intent on helping their friends to make even more money.
They are kept in constant fear of an enemy that is surely complicit with the govt, they are deluded into thinking that they can change things by voting, they are taken to war for petrol at a huge cost which generations of Americans will have to pay for and they are kept uniformed by a partisan and propagandist media.
Now if this was any other country people would react in shock, but because nothing bad ever happens in the land of the free it's ignored.
Ignorance is strength as Orwell said, keeping the people ignorant is a very easy way to keep them compliant. It's not only ignorance but rather reality bending, the government is creating it's own reality, whatever they say is the truth as long as it's repeated on TV and in the papers.
Americans whites are being abused by a government intent on exploiting them like they exploited their black brother before the civil war and the civil rights movement.
When will they wake up, when will they realize what they have to fight for and against whom. They are the majority, the government and big money interests are in a minority, it is up to whites to save America for all its people whatever their race is.

I think it was Roosevelt that called the Polynesians our "little brown brothers." It is a disgusting idea, and it is used to put others below your level.

not to take anything away from the very real discrimination that goes on (white/black, male/female, etc.), in many ways these are just noise when compared to the vast gap between the privileged class and the rest of us.

whites might get better jobs or houses than blacks for no reason other than race, but at the end of the day, both face similar struggles to find and maintain employment for food and shelter, e.g.

but comparing the privileged class to the rest of us, they play by an entirely different set of rules. these people can break laws with impunity because their lawyers and connections can get them out of just about anything. these people can run businesses into the ground and still get another gig as ceo again and again. these people never worry about food or shelter. they can get into top-notch colleges based on nothing beyond membership in the privileged class. and they can get hired for huge salaries based on nothing but the hope that they might produce introductions to other members of the privileged class.

i'd have to agree that all of us, (non-privileged) white males included, are discriminated against compared to the privileged class. and, in some ways, you could see the "standard" discriminations as mere distraction to keep our attention diverted from the privileged/non-privileged discrimination.

if we did wake up to this distinction, we might see that ALL of us non-privileged people are all on the same side after all.

We have the conservatives hating the liberals, heteros hating gays, so-called "Christians" pontificating on who is good and who is bad.
This is all by design to keep the masses at each other's throats rather than uniting against the government.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

we are all enslaved to the corporate greed masters,
it's just that very few of us have awakened to that reality.

It may take a rather nasty economic collapse to awaken the rest unfortunatly.

between the rights of the "capitalists" and the rights of the rest of us; including the rights of the environment and all living creatures.

The bushtapo has incorrectly placed an equal sign between "capitalism" and "democracy", between the "stock market" and the "economy", and between "freedom" and "corporations free of social liability".

Republicans wish to legislate the morality of the populace, and democrats wish to legislate the morality of the capitalists.

I think it best to leave race or ethnicity out of the equation. It should be framed Human Rights vs the rights of capitalists. All humans of all races.

To frame the issue as it was originally stated reminds me of the "white mans burden" argument. That it is up to whites to dominate the races and to drag them kicking and screaming into the Christianized civilization. It is a racist argument that the bushtapo is using in Iraq today.

With cannons ablaze <and gawd bless america playing softly in the background> christian capitalists free the Iraqi's from the burden of all that oil. Knowing that they do not know how to properly handle such wealth, it is up to the christian white knights to act as the custodians of their national inheritance, and to bring the heathen into civilized compliance to the republic as it has been ordained by gawd. Amen.

I wonder if a lot of governmental/societal actions aren't meant to divide us and keep us fighting each other instead of the oligarchy?

After all, a working class White, Black, and Hispanic have a great deal in common. And yet, a variety of policies (not all governmental) tend to keep them at each others' throats. I would note that this tendency hurts us in elections.

So, how do we get this message out?

... to stop thinking that the rich deserve their money. I would say that most of them made their money exploiting people, using ruthless and unethical if not illegal business practices. (Grandpa Bush for example)
The other myth is that they are smarter and work harder than others. That maybe true for a few, but the others have inherited their wealth or used some of the methods listed above to get ahead. If one looks at the president, he is one of the privileged few, but we can hardly say that he is smart or works hard and yet he possesses incredible power.
For the majority of Americans, the chance to get rich is a lottery ticket away.
Capitalism does not breed social equality, it breeds greed and hate, and the ruthless pursuit of wealth and power. Maybe it's not what the founding fathers had in mind.

The values of the Bible apply to countries as well as individuals. "The love of money is the root of all evil" applies to countries as well as individuals.

We can quote scripture to support progressive values.

By today's standards, he would probably be considered a communist. He certainly would not be considered a "Conservative Republican" as the "moral elite" would claim.

I am uncertain on how he would feel about a Theocracy. When he said "render to Cesare what is Cesare's, and render to God what is Gods" I think he might support a distinction. I am no scholar, and I am not sure. But it is an interesting question.

...what gets rewarded with wealth.

I don't have a problem with people getting rich. I have a problem with people getting rich from something other than work (like, financial tricks, pumping and dumping stocks, low tax burdens on unproductive activities, etc) or getting rich because somebody else's labor is getting rewarded fairly.

I have no problem with a society that rewards hard work with wealth, or innovation with wealth, or rewards captilastis who create products society wants and well paying job.

I have no problem if the owners of American Apparel get rich along with their employees. Know what I mean?

I think that a big problem for the left is that they lose sight of this basic truth.

Shameless kick for more attention.

complex, so I'd say they are very adept at creating images of pain and suffering and capitalizing on it.

Anytime someone calls them on their bullshit, then we are attacking "all christians".

No, I would politely respond, I am attacking you. And, there is a difference between you and "all christians", and between "your will" and "gawd's will".

As predators, they are certainly adept at claiming the pity, which should be reserved for their victims, as their own.

... that criticism of Israel is tantamount to antisemitism.

This group is more pertinent to our sufferings.

And just about every other minority. Your post makes it seem like minorities are living the high life now, and it's not true. No matter how bad poor whites have it, try being a minority in America.

... I'm sure they don't have it that bad.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I have read "Black Like me". I have seen the movie "Soul Man".
I really dispute the idea that low-income white people are somehow exploiting minorities. Maybe random stops for DWP (driving while poor) are not as common as those for DWB (driving while black) but there is a huge difference between benefitting from a system and exploitation. They do not create or maintain the system, all they do is their own struggling in it. You make it sound like all white people are exploiting all minorities. Maybe I should send an apology to Armstrong Williams, Michael Jordan, Colin Powell, Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, and Condaleeza Rice, etc. Not to mention my last three supervisors.
I think the point of the OP is that whereas black people voted for Kerry 90-10, too many white people below the median income either identify with "the man", sympathize with "the man", or do not bother to vote because "the man" will win anyway. Therefore, it is up to working class whites to wake the hell up.

But that doesn't make you an expert on being a minority in America. I didn't say that poor whites are exploiting minorities. I said that minorities still have it worse than whites. Whatever station a minority has, their life would be easier had they been white.
There have been studies on this. Even highly educated black men and women earn less than their white counterparts.

ALL people are being held under by the elite, so why focus on just whites? I do agree with your summation though.

....that a different ordering of priorities than the ones you'd expect are important.

I think Black Americans have pretty much figured that their interests lie in an economy which rewards an hour of labour with a fair percentage of the value it creates and that devolution of political, economic and cultural power is the best thing for them.

For some reason, white America -- a segment of Ameirca that enjoys a lot of privileges and has a lot of expectations -- have decided that morals and safety from danger are more important, and it's OK to suffer economically for those higher principles.

Another difference is that Black America sees the social/structural causes for their suffering, while White America has been convinced that if they win, it's because they did it on their own, and if they lost it's because a black person, woman or immigrant was given some hand-out they didn't deserve.

?

When it's so easy for people who are poor to blame it on others, then extremists, racists and theocrats, readily have access to fanatics. That's why it's depressing.

...that I'm describing.

It depends on latent hostility to those groups I noted.

It's also a lie about how society works.

I've noticed that DU discussions on race issues tend to sink out of sight quickly. Too bad.

Here's what white people really need: good imaginations. The ability to try to put themselves in other peoples' shoes.

I can never really understand what's it's like to be a person of color in America. However, I have a good imagination, so I can *try* to understand, and come to completely sympathize with those who have been utterly marginalized. I augment my imagination through reading about issues, viewing and analyzing popular culture artifacts, and just plain observation of real life and how it works. Oh, and logic. Logic helps.

When you start to figure out the way the world works and have compassion, how can you NOT want a revolution? I don't understand it. It is so very clear things are fucked for probably the majority of people, no matter color or country. How is it that humans put up with it all?

And then again, how can you start a revolution when you're concerned about keeping your family fed, housed, and clothed? Or even safe from falling bombs, thugs breaking in shooting first and asking questions later, the crap manufacturers inject into our environment?

I do have a Marxist streak; I tend to believe that wealth and its inequitable distribution causes the majority of the world's ills, that organized religion is the opiate of the masses (as is its modern counterpart, television), that the class struggle is the fundamental struggle, etc.

At the same time, I'm not encouraged by what appears to be human nature, which is so often violent, greedy, and xenophobic.

Boy, I'm depressing even myself, here.

In another thread, someone was asking why we're "here" at DU. I suppose I'm looking for answers, and for a little hope, to boot.

Anybody got any hope to share? (I'm not into that "change the world one person at a time" kind of thing...it's way too slow).

the ability to feel the way someone else feels.
I tend to disagree with your reasoning that "At the same time, I'm not encouraged by what appears to be human nature, which is so often violent, greedy, and xenophobic." I will not deny that they are all human traits but they also are the ones most easily exploited by people who lust for power. In troubled times people look for simple answers and often the ones who provide them see it as an easy way to assert control, shall we say Hitler, Stalin, Mao and well * n'co.

I guess you're saying that if we lived in a society free from want and and corrupt leaders, that the baser human traits would be more subdued because there wouldn't exist the triggers to bring those traits to the fore. Am I reading you correctly?

I look back on the history of "civilizations," and the only society where this seems to work is in some Native American (or Indian...in NM, a lot of the Navajos I knew preferred "Indian") cultures. In fact, I think that model is an ideal in so many ways. Unfortunately, there are simply too many people on the planet for this to work now.

This isn't a rhetorical question: can you or anyone else, of course, name another society, one with higher populations, where people were basically free from want and corrupt leaders? How did that work out for them? I'd guess they'd end up like our own aboriginal population: decimated by another society that had want and corrupt leaders.

I agree completely that " in troubled times people look for simple answers and often the ones who provide them see it as an easy way to assert control." Well said!

So how do we wake up the people and create the hopefully bloodless revolution? How do we get people, en masse, to look for more complex answers? And please provide your answer in 30 words or less (joke at my own expense).

Maybe teach empathy skills to kids, and when they grow up, it'll just happen naturally?

Gah! I'm going crazy today! Can't...stand...injustice!...(gasp, wheeze)... Must...find...solutions!

Isn't it hard to sleep when the ones around you are awake and making noise. I think the making noise bit starts on the 20th.
By the way I think Michael Moore is very good at making noise that people actually listen to.

Huey is always left off the list of good guys murdered by the nazipoos (JFK, RFK, MLK, MalcomX, Paul Wellstone, Che Guevera etc) and you maybe hit on the reason Huey's been forgotten by US history ...Long became Gov of Louisiana back in Olden Days and confronted the 'interests' esp. the oil glomerates which basically took money out of the state...and Long changed that despite howls of outrage... Somehow, the effort to demonize Huey never got off ground, as even the biz guys liked him. One of Huey's unusual ideas was that in order to lift up the poor whites, the poor blacks needed to be included, so Louisiana became one of first to use colour blind hiring/tendering on state contracts etc....and it was successful, with even oil biz benefitting. But naturally the nazipoos hated Huey (still do) and he was murdered in '36....he was running for president at the time and might well have won, since Huey Long had ideas that would have ended the depression even sooner then FDR...the world would have been different!
all this history tossed into memory hole, by design the US/world is poorer for it :(

The trick is to make poor whites think that they have more in common with the moneyed elites than with the black people who work alongside them at WalMart.

The elites and their mouthpieces encourage ideas such as "Affirmative action means that a white male can't get a job any longer" or "You work hard and pay taxes so that lazy black people can live on welfare."

It doesn't matter that neither of these statements is true. As long as poor whites believe that they have nothing in common with poor blacks, they will feel this way, and nobody in the mass media is doing a good job of enlightening them.

If poor people of all races ever figured out how much they have in common and realized that they outnumber the elites, we could see a labor movement that would dwarf the one that occurred in the 1930s. This is precisely why the propaganda matrix rarely goes beyond feel-good "love your neighbor" discussions of racial issues.

the other side cannot maintain a majority without fostering a divide in this nation. They're now accomplishing this with the complicity of conservative minorities who've 'made it', validating to the poor that they're completely responsible for their lot in life, irregardless of decisions made in Washington.

the believers don't acknowledge hardship as long as their guy is in office. There was no end to the black struggle and there have always been poor white people. The difference now is those poor white people are sedated with better rhetoric.

They think the programs developed to help poor blacks eat up too many taxes while encouraging sloth and dependance when, in fact, they benefit from tax dollars to an even larger degree. Blacks, in their opinion, are not worse off but less worthy.

Its the need to put someone beneath yourself. Its fed by the right wing IMO. Perhaps those people can be awakened...if not maybe we can at least get them to switch their targets to those who deserve such treatment.

the right helps keep the divide wide.

(:hi: Boosterman!)

Yeah the republicans have definitely benefited from and probably actively encouraged racial division. Sometimes I wonder who all would be involved in something like that even if unknowingly. It would almost seem like there would have to be agitators in all camps and that strikes me as tinfoilish. Bah now I am rambling.

The question is how do we communicate our message and what issues do we emphasize. I think the following issues would resonate w/ the majority of the masses.

1. Homeland Defense-I despise the name of HS but I think this is an important topic. Kerry touched on it briefly in one debate w/ port security but otherwise nothing springs to mind. Democrats are perceived as weak on Defense issues. This would help change it and ameliorate our stance on

2. Iraq-There needs to be a lot more focus on this but we need to be subtle about it. Well the politicians anyway. Not sure of the best approach but at the very least we need to be gathering every bit of info we can get.

3. Big business and politics and the corruption and greed that occurs there. Thats a complete pipe dream but hey...

In all likelihood the party will cozy up to munitions manufacturers, tobacco firms, and pharmaceutical companies AND ignore any racial issues.

Is this one of those "present company excepted" racial things?

Seriously, what "they" did you ask? I am assuming you are black and also assuming that you're assuming what white people think without asking any. I guess me and my white friends, poor ones, rich ones, rural ones, urban ones, liberal, libertarian and conservative ones, I guess we must be "exceptions" for not thinking any of those things. Maybe I'm making a big white ass of myself for assuming so much, but do you think you might want to let white people describe for themselves how they think? Or would you rather dictate to us from an outsider's point of view who we are, what we think, and why?

I was guessing about or that I made up and it was not an all-inclusive statement. The original poster suggested first that whites were now in the position blacks were in previously and then changed it to say whites think blacks are worse off than them. I still disagree with both of those statements.

And, I sure as hell am not dictating anything to anyone, and your saying so indicates more hostility than I've ever had or shown. But, in MY experience, there is a segment of the populace that continues to believe poor blacks rely too heavily on welfare. I spoke about this elsewhere, but do you remember Reagan's welfare queen stories and how the very word welfare was spoken with a sneer? It was as if welfare was a synonym for lazy and only blacks received it. When conservatives worry that their taxes will be wasted by lazy people, they're not thinking about farm subsidies but about welfare and SOME of them equate welfare with lazy black people.

so I don't think anyone is "blind" since they have free will.

I guess Jews in Germany before WW2 had free will too. I wonder why so many of them stayed behind, maybe because they felt that the final solution couldn't happen in their country. Now I'm not saying that the US is gonna send anyone to concentration camps (well Guantanamo is opened for business) but the economic, social and political prison many Americans live in is hard to see and therefore hard to fight against.

It's the same syndrome that caused yeoman farmers of the South to support slavery--this was a system that drastically hurt them while providing no benefit, but there was that small chance that they too could become wealthy using the system. And for some, that's all that is needed.

They really want to keep that door open and think they have a shot at becoming Uber-rich... which is why they are against progressive taxation. They don't want to pay too much when they finally make it big.

:eyes:

-------------------------------------
Would Jesus love a liberal? You bet!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Conservatives have done a better job than liberals have at garnering white support. Maybe that's because we have had mostly negative things to say about white people, painting all whites as privileged creatures. More poor and middle class white people will look at themselves and their situation and understand immediately that they are being lied to and lied about when they are told that they are personally benefiting from and responsible for the exploitation of people of color than will accept the burden of guilt we liberals hand out.

The perception also seems to be that white people can't talk about being white people without being racist unless what they have to say is self-loathing. If whites can't talk about race, how can racism ever be dealt with in the white community? That even sounds funny, doesn't it? White community? Sounds almost dangerous, doesn't it? Boogety boogety, white community! Boo!

Well, there is a white community. There is a vast community of regular white folks just getting by. We don't have horns, we don't bite, we don't all go to prep schools and wear sweaters tied around our necks. We don't get checks in the mail from the white guy fund every month. (Well, maybe there are some who do. Mine keeps getting lost, along with my subscription to the gay agenda.) What's the good of ignoring it? We're white, we're not invisible.

White liberals, and white people in general, lack a healthy and balanced view of their own cultural identity. We are presented with the choice of being either bigoted toward those who are like us, bigoted toward those who are different from us, or willfully ignorant of differences of any kind. In my opinion, recognizing and respecting what makes us distinctive comes first. Once we know who we are as a community and who we are not, we can recognize and respect what makes others distinctive. Then we will all be able to see what makes us alike across cultures and ethnicities.

It's the same with groups as it is with individuals, I think. If an individual has a strong internal sense of his own identity, has an accurate self-assessment free from baseless pridefulness and also free from baseless guilt and insecurity, that individual will be well-equipped to make good choices and solid friendships. Every person deserves that. Every culture, race, ethnicity, draw the circle how you will, deserves that.

Whether for an election or an all-out class struggle, we as liberals aren't going to draw anyone to our side by making them feel bad about themselves. We're not going to guilt Joe White Guy into supporting us, and we're not going to guilt him into standing at the voting booth or the picket line. That's not to say we need to stop talking about race, or racism, or racial inequalities and systematic discrimination. On the contrary - we need to invite Joe White Guy to the table, not just to listen, but to actually talk. I think once we do that, we'll start getting somewhere.

Uh oh, got to go. I am late for going to the yacht club with Biff! ;-)

Some high school youths in Portland had gotten involved in neo-Nazi activities, and when interviewed by the newspaper, they compalined, "We learn about Black culture and Hispanic culture and Vietnamese culture in school. When do we we get to learn about white culture?"

Thanks to a combination of media brainwashing that tells them that real men don't do school and certainly don't do reading or the arts, they had no idea that almost everything in their school curriculum was "white culture."

Middle American whites have undergone a slow-motion cultural dislocation. "Americanization" has robbed them of their European ethnic identity, and the mass media, with their relentless dumbing down, have even robbed them of even their traditional American identity, as in knowing American history and literature and music such as blues, folk, and jazz.

All they have is what the mass media are pushing that week, and what was "hot" last year is now considered hopelessly old-gashioned. A person can never keep up.

Lacking a genuine culture of their own, Middle Americans are susceptible to the ready-made, all-encompassing lifestyle of the fundamentalist churches and the fake cultural identity of the neo-Nazis and the KKK, especially if they are also economically disadvantages.

In riding the buses in Portland, I eavesdropped on a lot of conversations among working class people, especially young men. It's sad to hear late teenagers talking as if $8.00/hr is the highest they can aspire to, and even worse to hear them imagine that African-Americans and Latinos are getting all the good jobs.

The guilt thing is very important, but I also think that the problem is that the white community never had to reinforce its cultural identity, like minorities have had to.
By this I mean that blacks and Hispanics for example created their cultural identity to differentiate themselves from whites, to feel closer to one another as a people to fight together against what was until recently the great white oppressor.
This phenomenon can be seen in Britain too, there the English have very little which they can call specific English culture: one of the reasons is that as an imperial power they decimated their culture throughout the globe and it was adopted by others, the Americans, Australians etc... the other is closer to home, when compared to the Scots and the Welsh who also have different languages, the English never had the feeling of fighting for the survival of their culture, whilst the other people of the British hung on to what made them different. The English are now also struggling to find their own identity.
The distinction in America should really be between the very rich and the rest. They are two very different people, it's not really a question of class anymore. One group plays by the rules, works hard to make a living not necessarily wanting to become rich but rather to live a decent life. The others and I would say the majority of the super rich do not play by the rules, exploitation, corruption, intimidation and repression are all methods used by the rich to amass even more money and gain greater power over the rest of society.
Because with money comes power and politicians love both.
Oh I have enough of ranting, the solution to the ills of society are so obviously simple that it's a crying shame that people are so stupidly self centered and don't realize that we are all being screwed majestically by the Man.
Why don't we just get Bill Gates to spend a bit more of his donations at home to create a media outlet which is non biased and really tell the people the truth about the deep s**t the country is in (Olbermann is on MSNBC, maybe that's a start) I wouldn't mind if he kept his monopoly on OSs if he simply spewed out a few serious truths now and then.
Gosh! That was even more ranting I will now go back into my dark ruminating room until next time

Consumer confidence for pharmaceutical companies had dropped from 79 percent in 1997 to 44 percent in 2004.

My point being if you ask the "average" person if big business is corrupt they will usually say yeah. Politicians too for that matter. Just try it sometime. You get some interesting responses.

Though racism exists, and institutionalized racism still needs to be fought, race always seems to be used to distract and divide the lower classes. It's like the people in power want the rest of us to form color-coded teams and fight over the crumbs that fall from the tables of the wealthy, lest we look up and see what the table is heaped with.

The real interests of working-class white people are the same as the interests of working-class black people, working-class Latino people, and working-class Asian people, and...I could go on, but you get the point.

Tucker

To follow up from yesterday