Something white folks like me from "middle class" backgrounds really need to fucking deal with is that privilege isn't just the advantages that put us a little ahead or give us a little more comfort or space or whatever.
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This is HARD for those of us who have lived decades, perhaps our whole lives, under the illusion of our good, decent, wholesome, middle class way of life.
Like I said, I know the truth of these things & yet I STILL try to censor myself sometimes. I still worry I exaggerate or overstate.
Why? Because the fiction is so comforting & convincing. Because it feels like the truth couldn't possibly be so horrible. I live here, don't I?
The United States is a monstrous State with a monstrous past.
@artemis I have been lower class, and I have been upper class...and I have been middle class. And I have never in my fucking life been more miserable in the middle class. Because if you're lower and upper, you have a "fuck it! I'll do what I want. It doesn't make a fucking difference" attitude. The middle class is slavery. Have kids, buy a house, get a big truck. Live the American Dream (tm). I'm a single, childless, grumpy gay man. I don't want that shit.
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Whenever we talk about "incremental change" we are calculating how many of which people's lives are an acceptable sacrifice to avoid the risk of society-wide upheaval.
The strange thing is, no matter how many years we continue down that path, we never seem to get any closer to "too many". The count always goes up, but so too does the threshold.
@artemis The costs keep getting more sunk and the baselines keep shifting to meet them!
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How many indigenous communities torn apart, harassed, abused, starved, & stolen from?
How many Black men (& Black folks of all genders & children) shot by cops?
How much is too much? What does it take to count as an oppressive police state? How many lives?
Does it matter the color of their skin or the background of their families? Does it matter how educated they are? Does it matter whether or not they are houseless?
No justice. No peace.
@artemis the purpose of "incremental change" is to keep oppressed people waiting. "we can't do it now", the state and its supporters will say, "we have to fund the military and police first", while vastly increasing the police state and increasing nothing for those waiting for their due resources. this has been part of colonial manipulation from day one. "sure, we'll sign on to your treaties", the colonisers say, but then they immediately dishonour the treaties and establish a pattern of always doing that.
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I'm going pretty hard today, but the reason I am is that this is one of those instances where *I* am definitely one of the people I am speaking to.
I feel like *I* keep getting mixed up & confused on this particular point. I feel like I keep going back to the same ways of looking that erase certain people's lives & suffering so that others will escape. I feel like there is a fantasy about "the way things are" that keeps manifesting in my mind, no matter how many times I try to dispel it.
@artemis for us it's forgetting how many people mentally are just what's presented to them and thus do not fight because that would be making a Choice, we're almost 6 years into what we thought would be the US civil war the first time and about a year and a half into what we thought it would be the second time
- Erin
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We must do our best to create real systems of care. Survival is resistance.
My advice is not to stop caring whether some people have access to healthcare simply because others don't, but my belief is that it is urgent that WE learn how to address the needs of our communities. They will always go unaddressed by those with systemic power.
What access we are granted to the things we need is limited & gated. It is for some & not for others. It keeps us dependent on preserving existing inequality because any attempt at change will be costly.
They build this cost in on purpose. Disruption costs lives because we are not allowed our own alternatives. We are not allowed to take actions to care for each other if they violate private property laws, for instance. We are held down & kept sick & impoverished & not allowed to seek remedy.
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If you are white & "middle-class-ish" as I am, you are in terrible danger of mischaracterizing the entire situation & weighting some people's lives & comfort more heavily than others.
People die in prison without medical care all the time. Pregnant people give birth while in handcuffs. They don't have access to their medications. They receive injuries that go untreated.
Is that an acceptable cost for not disrupting the access the rest of us have to such things? Is there an acceptable cost?
We must do our best to create real systems of care. Survival is resistance.
My advice is not to stop caring whether some people have access to healthcare simply because others don't, but my belief is that it is urgent that WE learn how to address the needs of our communities. They will always go unaddressed by those with systemic power.
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I'm going pretty hard today, but the reason I am is that this is one of those instances where *I* am definitely one of the people I am speaking to.
I feel like *I* keep getting mixed up & confused on this particular point. I feel like I keep going back to the same ways of looking that erase certain people's lives & suffering so that others will escape. I feel like there is a fantasy about "the way things are" that keeps manifesting in my mind, no matter how many times I try to dispel it.
If you are white & "middle-class-ish" as I am, you are in terrible danger of mischaracterizing the entire situation & weighting some people's lives & comfort more heavily than others.
People die in prison without medical care all the time. Pregnant people give birth while in handcuffs. They don't have access to their medications. They receive injuries that go untreated.
Is that an acceptable cost for not disrupting the access the rest of us have to such things? Is there an acceptable cost?
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This is HARD for those of us who have lived decades, perhaps our whole lives, under the illusion of our good, decent, wholesome, middle class way of life.
Like I said, I know the truth of these things & yet I STILL try to censor myself sometimes. I still worry I exaggerate or overstate.
Why? Because the fiction is so comforting & convincing. Because it feels like the truth couldn't possibly be so horrible. I live here, don't I?
The United States is a monstrous State with a monstrous past.
i just read yesterday that Canada is "founded on values of diversity, inclusion, etc etc". some politician said that.
in what fucking universe is that true? if that's true, why are they still digging up the bodies of *thousands of murdered Indigenous children*??
incrementalists only care about "rules based order" and "rule of law", whatever the fuck those actually mean, when it means their personal privilege is changed in any way.
evergreen Phil Ochs quote: "there are many shades of opinion in America today. the shadiest of which is the liberals'. ten degrees to the left of centre in the best of times, ten degrees to the right when it affects them personally."
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What access we are granted to the things we need is limited & gated. It is for some & not for others. It keeps us dependent on preserving existing inequality because any attempt at change will be costly.
They build this cost in on purpose. Disruption costs lives because we are not allowed our own alternatives. We are not allowed to take actions to care for each other if they violate private property laws, for instance. We are held down & kept sick & impoverished & not allowed to seek remedy.
The thing that has me fired up today is really my own myopia.
I think most of us who are relatively comfortable simply do not comprehend the scale of oppression we are already dealing with. I do not think we speak realistically about it. Not even me. Certainly not me.
I don't think we are telling ourselves the truth. Even if you can see that everything is on fire, that doesn't mean you're not wearing rose-tinted glasses.
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How many more centuries of the exploitation of the poor are we willing to endure, in the hopes that someday we will perhaps free their great, great grandchildren (should they even survive) by means of "incremental change"?
@artemis the point is always to kick the problems down the road to future generations.
my dad does this regularly, saying stuff like "why should i pay for someone else's kids' education?", while he has grand-children. he compartmentalises this nonsense take by saying "well they live in BC not Ontario".
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The thing that has me fired up today is really my own myopia.
I think most of us who are relatively comfortable simply do not comprehend the scale of oppression we are already dealing with. I do not think we speak realistically about it. Not even me. Certainly not me.
I don't think we are telling ourselves the truth. Even if you can see that everything is on fire, that doesn't mean you're not wearing rose-tinted glasses.
I am still living a lie.
I am still mentally investing in the fiction that things are mostly alright.
I am still counting hypothetical costs over real, current costs.
I am still enjoying the privilege of a "peaceful" life, where I am "graciously" allowed access to the simple necessities of survival that are withheld from others, that are taken from others by force.
Ladies, gentlemen, & other beings: there are people our society deems "non-people" & they are being exterminated.
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I am still living a lie.
I am still mentally investing in the fiction that things are mostly alright.
I am still counting hypothetical costs over real, current costs.
I am still enjoying the privilege of a "peaceful" life, where I am "graciously" allowed access to the simple necessities of survival that are withheld from others, that are taken from others by force.
Ladies, gentlemen, & other beings: there are people our society deems "non-people" & they are being exterminated.
As a queer, disabled woman I am well aware of my own marginalization. I am aware that I am very close to being designated a "non-person" too, but I have NOT experienced the dehumanization I have been speaking of in this thread.
Perhaps someday I will.
But for now...I am coming from a place of comforts I don't even recognize as comforts, because they ought not to be "comforts" at all, but basic rights.
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If we're going to insist on enacting change "incrementally", we should at least reach a fixed number of how many is too many to keep tolerating: "this many imprisoned, this many killed, this many starving, this many frozen to death on the streets, this many raped," after which it is time to demand "justice now!"
That is...unless you actually think there is no limit which could justify certain other people losing their comfort & safety.
@artemis there is a certain kind of defeatism built into incrementalism.
too much is never enough in capitalism, so there is no upper threshold for how many oppressed is too many.
by the same measure, they will say "not enough people will ever agree to abolish capitalism, and if they did then we'd have [incidental music] evil, terrible *COMMUNISM*. you don't want *that* do you??", as if we all agreed in the first place that capitalism is a good idea.
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As a queer, disabled woman I am well aware of my own marginalization. I am aware that I am very close to being designated a "non-person" too, but I have NOT experienced the dehumanization I have been speaking of in this thread.
Perhaps someday I will.
But for now...I am coming from a place of comforts I don't even recognize as comforts, because they ought not to be "comforts" at all, but basic rights.
This thread is light on "action items", because to be honest, my main "action" here is: keep looking, keep paying attention, don't let noise & distraction make you lose sight of the nightmare of oppression you are living in. That's what I'm trying to do.
Possible solutions & strategies abound. I don't necessarily have any I am focused on right at this moment, because I am looking at myself & the world & asking why I feel about it how I do & why I allow myself to be soothed & comforted.
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This thread is light on "action items", because to be honest, my main "action" here is: keep looking, keep paying attention, don't let noise & distraction make you lose sight of the nightmare of oppression you are living in. That's what I'm trying to do.
Possible solutions & strategies abound. I don't necessarily have any I am focused on right at this moment, because I am looking at myself & the world & asking why I feel about it how I do & why I allow myself to be soothed & comforted.
Even those of us who consider ourselves "awake" & "aware" still believe things that are more comfortable than they are true, sometimes.
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That probably seems really crude, to suggest keeping a body count. Maybe you think "it's not as simple as that."
Ok, then how DO you make this decision? What is your cost-benefit analysis that leads you to say "it would be far worse to stop the oppression-machine from functioning. We must gradually make adjustments"?
What concerns are you weighing there, & most importantly, is there anything at all that would ever change your mind? Or is this one of your first principles?
@artemis i think that is one of the core principles of so-called "centrism". believing that you are smarter than the average bear, and therefor all of your opinions are Correct, no matter how much bullshit they are founded on.
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If there isn't anything that would make you change your belief that incremental change is the only moral choice, how did you arrive at that belief? How do you know it's true? How will you know it is still true in the future?
If there *is* something that would change your mind, then do me a favor: pick that thing & stick to it. If that line is ever crossed, your incrementalism must be at an end, because the cost has now exceeded acceptable limits.
there is a lot of magical, terminated thinking that goes into keeping people thinking this way, and a lot of it comes from The Tragedy Of The Commons, which is a pile of white supremacist bullshit. picking one thing and sticking to it is definitely not on the menu because as soon as you start challenging incrementalists on this bullshit, they'll derail and change the subject to some other bullshit because completing that thought would mean challenging any of their unfounded assumptions.
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Even those of us who consider ourselves "awake" & "aware" still believe things that are more comfortable than they are true, sometimes.
This is my reckoning with the fact that while I choose not to be a "white liberal", that is how I have been situated in life.
I have been given a false view of the situation. I cannot see—without effort—the extent of the suffering already going on.
I am still removed from it. I still have a certain type of comfort & so do most of the people I know.
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This "comfort" is no sin, no moral failing, but it does make us susceptible to the lies of the oppressors as they minimize & disguise the blood & death on which the Empire is built.
We struggle to see with clarity, because we are still tucked away & sheltered from the worst of it.
I'm starting to get the idea that the reason the Jesus character in the Gospels always told rich people to sell everything they have & follow him is that without surrendering the things which shelter you from oppression, you will always be at risk of downplaying it, because you will not experience what others do, not really.
I'm not advocating for vows of poverty, but it sure does make some sense: as long as there is comfort, we can avoid confronting the worst truths.
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This is my reckoning with the fact that while I choose not to be a "white liberal", that is how I have been situated in life.
I have been given a false view of the situation. I cannot see—without effort—the extent of the suffering already going on.
I am still removed from it. I still have a certain type of comfort & so do most of the people I know.
This "comfort" is no sin, no moral failing, but it does make us susceptible to the lies of the oppressors as they minimize & disguise the blood & death on which the Empire is built.
We struggle to see with clarity, because we are still tucked away & sheltered from the worst of it.
