Things that are so obvious and ingrained that no one even thinks about them.
Here’s a few:
All US americans can go to Mexico EASILY. You’re supposed to have a passport but you don’t even need one (for car/foot crossing). Versus, it’s really hard for Mexicans, who aren’t wealthy, to secure a VISA to enter the US. I’m sure there are corollaries in other geo-regions.
Another one is wealthy countries having access to vaccines far ahead of “poor” countries.
In US, we might pay lip service to equal child-hood education but most of the funding pulls from local taxes so some kids might receive ~$10000 in spending while another receives $2000. I’m not looking it up at the moment, but I’m SURE there are strong racial stratas.
Sometimes it’s more about what that person symbolizes. Take George Floyd for instance. By almost any metric he was not a good person, but he didn’t deserve to die, and the way that he died became a symbol, a representation of an entire people who have seen injustice at the hands of the police. George Floyd is practically a saint in the eyes of many, despite all his flaws as a person. So why not the founding fathers?
The founding fathers owned people. Bought and sold them. Denied them basic comforts and dignities. Bred them and then tore apart their families. Raped them and brutalized them.
They engaged in the genocide of native americans. Killing as many as they could and displacing the rest. All so that they could move lines on a map.
To compare these monsters to the progeny of their atrocities is racist. It is unquestionably cruel and unfeeling. Know that I have no respect for you. Know that if I learned we shared any opinion it would cause me to question it.
You want me to ignore all this for America? The country that orchestrated the genocide of native americans? The country that built its bones with the flesh of black people? The primary inspiration for Nazi Germany? The warmongers behind the korean and vietnam war? The country that supported and enabled genocides in bangladesh and indonesia? The country that invaded iraq for oil money? The country that is currently engaged in genocides in both palestine and the congo?
Removed by mod
The only people I dehumanized in that post were slavers. Are you really offended over slavers? Is that worth it to you? George Washington wore dentures made out of the teeth of his slaves, Jefferson was a serial rapist who sold his children into slavery.
You accuse me of tribalism for deriding those who used their race to exploit others. What of their tribalism? Of race and class? Gender? They thought that nobody besides landowning white men should have rights, and you think me hating them for it makes me tribal.
Removed by mod
Yeah, I don’t respect you. You compared a descendant of slaves to a slaver. But I haven’t dehumanized you. I don’t think you understand what dehumanizing is. I don’t have any desire to deny you healthcare, basic needs, safety. I don’t want to hurt you physically. I haven’t compared you to an animal, or objectified you. My disrespect is based entirely your dehumanization of George Floyd. Something you can control. Something entirely based in your consciousness, something human. Opinions can change.
Please justify the things you say. Nothing you say is supported by any logic or reasoning. Telling me I have “blind” hatred for the founding fathers despite listing the reasons why I do, without addressing those points, is just a waste of time.
How are my political beliefs more tribal than that of the racist and sexist founding fathers?
Are you my enemy? All I did was say I disrespect you for dehumanizing george floyd and excusing slavers. We’re just talking. My enemies are defined by material reality, not anger. You could just be another worker. Exploited for the same reasons I am. We could be comrades if you let go of the racism.
Lastly hexbear shows pronouns right next to the username, don’t use “guy” when addressing me.
Yeah sorry about that, can’t keep track of everyone so I went back to assuming everyone on the internet is a guy. Anyway, do you deny that George Floyd has become larger than life, symbolic and important in a way that is bigger and more pure than he ever was in real life, despite his shortcomings as a person?
Are you going to answer any of my questions?
George Floyd’s criminal record is not comparable to owning hundreds of chattel slaves. They are different leagues. The fact that you are trying to force this comparison is deeply racist, just like I said like 5 comments ago.
Even if we entertain your line of thinking I still disagree. George Floyd represents the fight against the white supremacist cruelty of the American police state. The founding fathers represent an America that exists to serve landowning white men. If you want to somehow make that seem like a good thing you have to answer for America’s crimes which I listed like 5 comments ago.
The founding fathers do not represent an America that exists to serve landowning white men, at least not to the majority of the country. To many people, they symbolize something else entirely that is bigger and better than the men that they actually were, something noble, independent, freedom-loving, bold, courageous, and all that. Again, regardless of how true it is, they serve as an idea at this point.
But for you they serve as the opposite sort of symbol, one of oppression, greed, selfishness. The founding fathers were both of these, and what they represent to different people depends on perspective and world view.
their criticism of the US founding fathers isn’t “blind” but is based on the stuff they did, and how it completely contradicted their professed values of freedom and liberty.
Are you making the case that anyone who doesn’t view the founding fathers in the same way, who doesn’t passionately hate them without consideration of any good they accomplished, is therefore wrong about everything and incapable of having acceptable opinions on other topics? That sounds like tribalism and is what I was responding to. I mean, if you tell me straight up that my every opinion is wrong and advertise that you have no intention and feel no obligation to have a good faith discussion, then that makes you an extremist, a fanatic, and further dialog is pointless. I enjoy the discussion and challenge engaging with different views, but when my comments get deleted after being personally attacked, then the discussion has probably run it’s course.
this is your characterization. I never said “I HATE THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND REFUSE TO CONSIDER ANYTHING ABOUT THEM AAAAAAAAAAAA.”
No. I have carefully considered their entire legacy. Thanks! I am even able to distinguish between those among them who owned slaves, and those among them who were merely friends with slave owners. I am able to distinguish between George Washington, who put down Shay’s rebellion, and Benjamin Franklin, who claimed that making the inhabitants of the Earth whiter was a noble pursuit. I am able to distinguish between John Quincy Adams, who wanted slavery abolished eventually (as long as no slave owners got hurt in the process!) and Thomas Jefferson, who actively sexually assaulted his slaves and sold his own children.
I am able to treat them as individuals, assess their legacies, and come to the conclusion that they were bourgeois nationalists, and to the extent that their cause was “progressive” against the British monarchy, is negated entirely by the genocidal settler-colonial territory they lived on, whose economy was based largely on slavery. I am also able to remember that their primary motivation for independence wasn’t opposition to monarchy or love of bourgeois republicanism, but anger at taxation, the highest crime a bourgeois individual can suffer. Having their profits decreased.
if you’re just going to ask questions about things I never said, it’s not going to be a very productive conversation
No. I’m not saying that. But you seem uninterested in directly quoting what I did say and responding to it.
Define this tribalism which so concerns you. What “tribe” have you determined me to be a member of?
good thing I never said that. If you said 2+2= 4 I would tell you you’re right. Perhaps you’re engaged with multiple people and you’re becoming increasingly confused. I recommend re-reading everything I’ve said to you thus far and thinking a bit harder about it.
lol. you have decided I am a bunch of scary things and not worth talking to or listening to. This makes me the extreme one.
You just jumped into the middle of a conversation between me and someone else, or maybe I responded to the wrong person. Anyway this particular thread was in response to machiabelly or something like that.
That was never the point of the protests surrounding his death. The point was to call out police brutality. This was true of all the other anti-police brutality protests before George Floyd as well, regardless of whether the victim had a perfect past or not in each case. The press, both local and national, humanizes some victims of state or corporate violence, while demonizing others. Seemingly without noticing, people too often create tiered systems of moral worth by trying to find “the perfect victim.”
This ill advised search for the perfect Christlike victim, and its corollary desire to smear those with less than perfect pasts, makes humanity conditional, further entrenching negative stereotypes and destructive narratives about entire communities. The difference between a victim of systemic injustice who made mistakes in their life and a person who gets deified despite their mistakes is incalculable. The demonization of George Floyd in the wake of his death was IMMEDIATE. The media did not even wait for his blood to be cold before they started digging up his arrest record, etc. The lionization of the founding fathers on the other hand was overwhelming and immediate, in spite of their slave ownership, and an entire American civil mythology was constructed around that image that for many is still considered unquestionable. That’s the difference. You’re assuming a total symmetry of context between the contemporary victims of systemic violence and the actual ruling class founders of American society.
I don’t assume total symmetry, it’s just an analogy that mostly fits. They are all imperfect men who are elevated because of what they symbolize to some people.
George Floyd wasn’t “elevated.” He was killed, and then people protested police brutality after his death because it was just one highly publicized example among countless similar deaths. To the extent that people drew murals of him etc in the wake of those protests has less to do with him being seen as the best dude who ever lived and more to do with combating the demonization that immediately happened in the wake of his death. Since this sort demonization frequently happens. When Botham Jean was shot in his own apartment by an off duty cop who wandered into the wrong apartment and assumed it was her own, the first thing the news did was point out that he had marijuana in his apartment. This kind of demonization is used to minimize the death and imply that they deserved it. So any “elevation” you perceive is in response to that kind of shit. A man like george washington who owns slaves but yaps about Freedom dying comfortably in his bed and being used as a nationalist symbol for 2 centuries is not the same as a man being killed by a cop and then people protesting his death for a few months. You don’t “assume” total symmetry? Good. Stop comparing the two things as though they were alike in a way that is relevant to the conversation. And no. It’s not an analogy that fits very well at all. You’re comparing the civil mythology of a settler colonial nation to a protest movement against police brutality because they both supposedly “elevated imperfect people.”