And the whole “equality of outcomes vs equality of opportunity” thing has nothing to do with PC, it’s simply a right-wing canard: Nobody has ever actually called for an absolute guarantee of “equality of outcome” in this country-I don’t think anybody ever actually called for that even in the USSR under Stalin, the nightmare example you guys on the right like to throw in the face of the left of today even though none of us support anything that could possibly recreate Stalinism or Maoism-but it goes without saying that we are far from “equality of opportunity” and that every conservative president we’ve had since 1980 has sharply reduced equality of opportunity. None of these things have had a repressive effect on the ability of anyone to express non-white supremacist viewpoints.
Nobody needs to be able to equate blackness with crime and poverty-most black people are neither criminals nor poor; most poor people and criminals are not black-to articulate an argument not grounded in racism and classism-and the “it’s YOUR fault-you people just aren’t TRYING hard enough and you could all get jobs and not be hassled by the cops if you just put in a bit more effort” argument is grounded in racism and classism.
It’s racism and classism to assume, as you do, that those of us who are white are entitled to sit in lofty judgment of black and brown people. White people have no claim to inherent superiority over anybody else and we never have had. It’s just that, through the luck of the draw and the force of arms, we’ve tended to have power over the rest of the human flash. News flash: that day is ending and it’s no tragedy that it is; when this country eventually becomes a white minority nation, nothing will be worse and probably a lot of things will be better, because people who are not white aren’t going to treat those of us who are anywhere nearly as badly as white people like you insist on treating them.
The only people who have been mildly affected by what you have called “PC”-none of which is “PC”, as I’ve demonstrated-are the ones who still won’t let go of the “culture of poverty/bad choices/it’s all the fault of single black mothers” myths, all of which have been discredited. Most single mothers are white and that has always been the case. Black mothers, single or married, are just as committed to raising their kids right and being good examples to their kids as white mothers are-and as to the “making virtue into vice” thing-what the hell are you talking about?
BTW, if you have an issue with poor kids being raised by single mothers, you should always have opposed the regulations that limited social assistance to single-parent families. If we, as a society, are going to place the kind of importance you place on two-parent families, we should have accepted that sometimes, it simply isn’t possible for either parent in the relationship to find work where they are or get to where work might be, and we should have been willing-as we should be now-to structure social assistance in order to keep two-parent families together. Poor families don’t break up because poor people don’t give a damn about their kids-it’s because sometimes, thanks to those boneheaded, classist federal rules, it’s the only way to FEED your kids.
We need to either change those rules, or do federal/state/local jobs programs in the areas where “the market” has randomly decided there simply aren’t going to be private sector jobs.
The only reason those changes haven’t been made is that some people and especially some politicians would rather see people go hungry and families be destroyed than do something that goes against free-market ideology.
There’s a word for people who make others suffer rather than to admit that their belief system is harming the innocent-and that word is “zealot”.
I wouldn’t have asked you to explain what you were talking about in earlier posts if you’d expressed any of it in your first. Instead, you started by taking this “you know damn well what I’m talking about-and YOU’RE PART OF IT!” tone towards the author and towards anyone who might reject your viewpoint on life.
