I don't think MissleDog, Fly, or any of us, actually, really give two ****s about "inner-change." It seems clear to me that they are against racist rhetoric and policies that perpetuate institutional racial oppression.

This.

And this.

I would have started this thread in SMP if I was smart enough to come up with a variation of the trolley problem to illustrate the question.

There is a big gap between assisting him in the fight and him being on his own. i'd make clear he is on his own if it comes to a fight (assuming that's true) but then i'd try to stop the fight happening.

Then if its a long fight with structure I might well seek opportunities to end it. Actually if it was a stupid fight I wouldn't congratulate him much for winning either

Just for the record I wrote multiple times that I don't like how Fly uses mental illness slurs - nor do I think every 'racist' 'attack' he makes is justified.

But honestly, I don't think you understand that. You have very set views on people and can't seem to let anything change those views.

but its a big mistake because its part of how you achieve what you do care about and we can make a difference to peoples inner states.

I'll speak for myself - I don't care about "inner-change" in the sense that I can't see what someone truly believes. All I can do is see someone's outer actions and make conclusions based on those outer actions.

Furthermore, in an environment like 2+2, I'm not sure what it matters. If two people write the exact same thing but one means it and the other is secretly playing devil's advocate, it ends up being the exact same thing.

looks like you're just nicer than me. i have no problem discarding people who fail to live up to my expectations. i won't do it quickly or easily. But eventually i will always make the decision to "live and let die".

ultimately every single one of us is alone and must be accountable for our own individuality and actions.

i think they are saying that the effects of racism and the racist machinery that has been put in place won't be much affected by changing the hearts of the average joe racists walking along the street.

that people (most of who don't feel racist) capable of changing the machine need to take action.


Do i have that somewhat right?

I don't know about nicer (its not commonly said about me) maybe we just have different expectations of people. Good to know btw.

Yes.

Sounds right about what their saying but I'm fairly sure they are wrong.

Apart from anything else its much easier to change the machine if the average Joe is less opposed to the changes.

The other point I fear people forget is that it can change in the wrong direction. Its not all progress and ignoring the heart of the average Joe is a bad mistake

You are to a certain extend seeing this as an either/or situation. To belabor the disease analogy, treating this symptom (racial animus) will surely be part of the cure. Nobody is saying this symptom should be ignored. But just treating this symptom and ignoring the disease (systemic institutionalized racism) won't cure it, and in fact exacerbates the disease.

And in the end... we need to change the actions of this average racist Joe (resisting systemic change, perpetuating racial animus by throwing around n-bombs, etc). If he wants to keep his racial animus inside his head, that's not really my concern.

I'm not. I'm objecting to you saying one part can be ignored. The inner thoughts matter as well as the actions and its meaningful and useful to distinguish between them.

I don't think we disagree about institutions at all but individuals matter to changing institutions even if the individuals weren't the cause of the institutional problems.


That's where we fundamentally disagree particularly when something causes a change for the worse. A lot of people not acting on their thoughts because its not accepted will start to do so very quickly as it becomes more accepted.

Why would richer people, who prey on poorer people (classism), care what race other rich people are? They're all rich.

In other words, how does institutional racism follow from classism? (I don't think it does)

As a general rule they don't.

Rich people are a tiny minority class. They need to divide the rest of humanity into different groups as a means to control us. Divide and conquer. Woman vs men, whites vs people of color, immigrants vs natives, region vs region, middle class vs poors, religion vs religion, job vs job, etc, etc.

From the guy who defends the forum racist bully and holocaust deniers.

Not logically but historically, lower class is associated with minorities. WASP signifies upper class for a reason

I think it's more about disliking people who don't see the world the same way than about disliking all people of certain races. Most racist people seem to like guys like Allen West, Ben Carson and Thomas Sowell.

You should study the origins and history of the kkk then

But there have been a few times in US history (see Populist movement at the end of the 19th century and MLK's efforts toward the end of his life), at least, when lower class whites and minorities have joined together to fight for a common cause because they realized that they were more or less in the same boat when it came to their economic welfare and then white supremacy and racial animus were used as a wedge to stop the movement. This is because the types of policies that they wanted to fight for hurt business interests of the upper class.

The New Jim Crow does a great job, imo, of addressing rich people's motivations behind this.

FTR, not that it's relevant any more than your disclaimer, I was arguing against Bruce in the discussion leading up to the falling out.

I'll add, and this goes straight to Trolly's posts, that people can strongly disagree on what policies contribute to institutional racism. Since most dictionary definitions of the term racist require racial animus, it becomes very much a cop out and obvious political ploy to fling the R-bomb at those who disagree with you. You're using a loaded term to "win" an argument, and often merely begging the question.

People at the bottom were/are exploited by many wealthy business interests either directly through harsh working conditions and poor wages, or indirectly through pollution and non-sustainable plunder of natural resources. When people at the bottom put aside their racial differences they have typically turned to the injustice of those harms and pushed for major reforms that would be/ are very costly to wealthy business owners. So the wealthy have historically tried to foment racial animus against minorities to shift discourse and blame off the rightful targets.

I realize I may be coming across as more authoritative than I actually am on these issues. I'm kind of late to the game, so to speak, on learning about this stuff and I'm currently in the process of reading about it all, but this type of interaction helps me learn. I may have bits of this wrong, and there are people on here who are definitely qualified to correct me where I'm wrong.

It should never be forgotten the M.L.King Jr was in Memphis doing strike support.

Anti-racism == anti-patriarchy == worker rights == environmental justice == anti-war == etc, etc. They are all tied directly together. Without being class reductive it must be remembered that there's always an underlying class dynamic that needs confronting.