White Privilege

[opebo]

Yes, the privileges are enormous, but there are also insurmountable privileges based on class.  So, because nearly all blacks are poors, they have both race and class against them.  In practtice of course, most whites are also poors and are absolutely trapped, but with the slight satisfaction of knowing the blacks are even worse off.

[opebo]

The greatest upward mobility I'v seen are with Asians and not Whites btw.

Nearly all of them are already privilegeds in their homelands.

[opebo]

My ancestors were harassed in the past, maybe I should let that hold me back.

Well, what is holding you back, worker?

If I'm ambitious and studious, I will succeed.

That's a nice way to view the world. It's also not exactly connected with reality.

I'm glad there are people that think this way, it makes it easier for the people who do work hard and smart* to become successful.  They deserve it more.

*I'm in no way saying I'm one of these people, I clearly am not.  I'm also not saying you are not one of those people.  I'm just making a comment on your screwed up view of reality.

deadman, Vepres, your Horatio Alger view of society is pure fantasy.  Xahar is absolutely correct here.  How anyone can persist in thinking that 'hard work' has any connection to financial reward is beyond me.  Don't you fellows realize that all poors work far, far harder than any above them?  The difference is position in the hierarchy.

The more you make, the less you work, the less you make, the more you work.  Its a simple home truth, please don't forget it.

[opebo]

The value of work, opebo, is not necessarily based on how hard you think it is.

Yes, that's what I'm saying - the value of everything is based on power.  Ones position in the hierarchy of power (aka, how much money one has) determines one's 'value'.

[opebo]

Thanks for your fine rant, Snowguy.  I agree that the self-satisfied economic prejudices of the right-wingers are more than just annoying and stupid, they inspire righteous anger when you think about the fact that they kill people.

I try to keep things a bit detached as I'm (mostly) a privileged myself, but it does us all good to hear from the actual victims of our brutal system.

[opebo]

Yes, but remember life isn't fair.

Yes, that's precisely the point of this thread, Derek.  The system you support is racist and classist, and absolutely unfair.  It strictly favors a small elite and oppresses the vast majority with great brutality.

So, why do you support it, if it isn't fair?

[opebo]

Not everybody is capable of rising up, and that is fine. That's how the world works, that is natural. Not all Tigers will get enough food as others. Not all rodents wills survive the winter. Sure there are outside forces, but you act like we're all at the mercy of external forces. Bullsh**t! People always have choices, different ones, but they do. Ones choices shape their destiny, how one reacts to outside forces shapes their destiny, not some chance.

Your wild animal analogy is a bad one.  The point is that we are not 'wild' but wholely domesticated (existing only as a component of society), and our precise critique isn't that it is unfair for you, a Tiger, to eat up the Mouse in human society, but that the society is the functioning entity, and the individual is not important except in terms of his power and position within that society.

To talk of what is done to the poor by the rich as something comparable to wild animals is to misunderstand that what makes the rich able to suck the blood of the poor, is not any intrinsic fangs or claws, but the poor themselves.  Society is a heirarchy in which all participate in their own oppression.  The rich who sits at the top is not smart, or strong, but merely well positioned.

A better creature analogy would be the insect hive, with workers and royalty.

[opebo]

Delusions of superiority based on income are shallow and feeble-minded, the exact opposite of a success.

In point of fact money is the precise representation of one's position in the power hierarchy, fezzy.  There is no such thing as 'success' of course, but there blame well is such a thing as superiority.

[opebo]

It doesn't exist. End of story. Black privilege is rampant though.

That's interesting.  You know in my hometown of St. Louis nearly all the black people live in dire poverty in a ghetto, and there are populations of white people in exclusive neighborhoods who own nearly everything, and live in luxury in huge houses.   Now, true, most of the white people don't live in those neighborhoods and own everything, and quite a lot of the white people in those neighborhoods are, well.. you know.. but still, they d****d sure aren't black.

[opebo]

That's interesting.  You know in my hometown of St. Louis nearly all the black people live in dire poverty in a ghetto, and there are populations of white people in exclusive neighborhoods who own nearly everything, and live in luxury in huge houses.   Now, true, most of the white people don't live in those neighborhoods and own everything, and quite a lot of the white people in those neighborhoods are, well.. you know.. but still, they d****d sure aren't black.

And whose fault is that.

The rich whites, obviously.

opebo reminds me of the old Tolstoy quote...

"I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back."

Haha, precisely!  Guilty as charged.  I'm not only riding on the poor b*****d's back, I'm yelling down at him 'you d**n fool, don't you realize I'm exploiting you?'

[opebo]

And what happens if they do wake up and realize what you're doing and decide to lynch you? Don't you have any concern for the emotional health of BRTD if something were to happen to you?

They won't wake up!  That's the amazing thing about the whole affair.

[opebo]

...Here's a random house for sale in monolithically black neighborhood across town from me:

99% chance the resident of that house is a poor.

[opebo]

Yeah I think of poor in terms of class.  Most people are poors.