The Left out-lefting the Left

[Rhiannon]

About the situation Stateside but a lot applies here, especially for the young in the age of Instagram and Twitter.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/01/how-americas-identity-politics-went-from-inclusion-to-division

[Owlswing]

About the situation Stateside but a lot applies here, especially for the young in the age of Instagram and Twitter.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/01/how-americas-identity-politics-went-from-inclusion-to-division

Interesting article -  obviously some of it went way over my head, but the few bits of Trump's Presidential campaign that I saw had echoes of the anti-Jewish diatribes of the Nazis.

Someone once said, I don't remember who or when, that politics is cyclical, if so we might just be back in the 1930's.

Then again just wtf do I know? After all I hate all politicians regardless of far-far-left or far-far-right or anywhere between.

[jeremyp]

Interesting article -  obviously some of it went way over my head, but the few bits of Trump's Presidential campaign that I saw had echoes of the anti-Jewish diatribes of the Nazis.

Someone once said, I don't remember who or when, that politics is cyclical, if so we might just be back in the 1930's.

Then again just wtf do I know? After all I hate all politicians regardless of far-far-left or far-far-right or anywhere between.

That's not what the article is about.

It's about the current obsession on the left (this applies mainly in the USA) with identity politics. Everybody is defined by which oppressed groups they are in and there is a kind of hierarchy of oppression. So if you are black, you are more oppressed than if you are white and if you are a black woman, so much the better. This contrasts with the time of Martin Luther King whose goal was not to define a group e.g. blacks and then fight for their rights but to make such categories irrelevant.

The reason Trump comes up is because he took advantage of it. If you're an unemployed white male miner from the rust belt, your experience is considered not valid by some elements of the left because you're in the lowest group on the hierarchy of oppression namely white men. If you're on the breadline, it's hard to take being told you're privileged all the time, so when somebody comes along who says it's ok to be who you are and he'll help you, you vote for him. And that's how Trump won.

[Walter]

That's not what the article is about.

It's about the current obsession on the left (this applies mainly in the USA) with identity politics. Everybody is defined by which oppressed groups they are in and there is a kind of hierarchy of oppression. So if you are black, you are more oppressed than if you are white and if you are a black woman, so much the better. This contrasts with the time of Martin Luther King whose goal was not to define a group e.g. blacks and then fight for their rights but to make such categories irrelevant.

The reason Trump comes up is because he took advantage of it. If you're an unemployed white male miner from the rust belt, your experience is considered not valid by some elements of the left because you're in the lowest group on the hierarchy of oppression namely white men. If you're on the breadline, it's hard to take being told you're privileged all the time, so when somebody comes along who says it's ok to be who you are and he'll help you, you vote for him. And that's how Trump won.

that's one of the clearest explanations I've seen , thanks jeremyp

[Owlswing]

That's not what the article is about.

It's about the current obsession on the left (this applies mainly in the USA) with identity politics. Everybody is defined by which oppressed groups they are in and there is a kind of hierarchy of oppression. So if you are black, you are more oppressed than if you are white and if you are a black woman, so much the better. This contrasts with the time of Martin Luther King whose goal was not to define a group e.g. blacks and then fight for their rights but to make such categories irrelevant.

The reason Trump comes up is because he took advantage of it. If you're an unemployed white male miner from the rust belt, your experience is considered not valid by some elements of the left because you're in the lowest group on the hierarchy of oppression namely white men. If you're on the breadline, it's hard to take being told you're privileged all the time, so when somebody comes along who says it's ok to be who you are and he'll help you, you vote for him. And that's how Trump won.

Are you saying that this stratification of oppression does not obtain in the UK?

Why is it then that I can be abused by a person of colour for being white because I yelled to him to warn him because he was walking into the road from behind a bus looking the wrong way and so into the path of an approaching car? But any reference to the fact that he is a person of colour would draw instant approbrium upon the speaker!

There is a hierarchy of abuse and the only (apparent) legitimate target is the white population and don't tell me it isn't as I see it virtually every day.

[jeremyp]

Are you saying that this stratification of oppression does not obtain in the UK?

No, I'm saying it is more obvious in the US.

Why is it then that I can be abused by a person of colour for being white because I yelled to him to warn him because he was walking into the road from behind a bus looking the wrong way and so into the path of an approaching car? But any reference to the fact that he is a person of colour would draw instant approbrium upon the speaker!

Because you, as a white man, are at the bottom of the hierarchy of oppression. It's also the mechanism for cultural appropriation. If you blog about Asian food, write a novel with black protagonists or wear your hair in dreadlocks, you are stealing the culture of an oppressed group (no joke, these examples are all real) but a black man can wear European clothes, dye his hair blond or eat a hamburger, no problem.

There is a hierarchy of abuse and the only (apparent) legitimate target is the white population and don't tell me it isn't as I see it virtually every day.

I think you are violently agreeing with what me previous post said.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No, I'm saying it is more obvious in the US.
Because you, as a white man, are at the bottom of the hierarchy of oppression.

I don't believe you've met my wife....

[Robbie]

Are you saying that this stratification of oppression does not obtain in the UK?

Why is it then that I can be abused by a person of colour for being white because I yelled to him to warn him because he was walking into the road from behind a bus looking the wrong way and so into the path of an approaching car? But any reference to the fact that he is a person of colour would draw instant approbrium upon the speaker!

There is a hierarchy of abuse and the only (apparent) legitimate target is the white population and don't tell me it isn't as I see it virtually every day.

Interesting. Not somethng I've experienced.

Surely if you warn someone that he was about to be run over you wouldn't call out, "Oy black man!".  The only time one would be called upon to mention race is if they were asked to describe someone, eg by the police.

I don't doubt there is racism towards all races but the main thrust of this thread is not about 'race', (something no-one cares about in my area, at least not nowadays), but minorities in general, such as LGBTG - I heard recently that someone is objecting to Manhatten being called, "Manhatten' because it has 'man' at the start of it, not gender neutral.

'Manchester'may be next!

(Goodness knows what anyone would do with 'Middlesex', though that is all now Greater London).

[Rhiannon]

Jeremy’s spot on about how it is. Latest was someone from Littke Mix being torn to bit fur braiding her hair, which should only be done by a person of colour, according to Twitter. Presenting Asian food with the wrong kind of chopstick is a ‘microagression’.

We are so very good at hating.