So, the Republicans are saying that Sarah McBride should use the men’s room, and are trying to pass legislation that would mandate that. She’s a trans-woman who is the first out transgender person in Congress.
Should Democrats push back on that, or would that be too “woke”?
Presumably, if the boy on the right in the first cartoon’s “Equality” panel were too short to grasp the edge of the fence, he’d be dismissed as a moocher for requesting a taller box.
Unsurprisingly, that does very little to negate the sentiment behind the saying.
In the US (at least), straight, white, Christian men, historically, had every single advantage that this country could offer. They were the default pick for nearly anything that anybody actually wanted to do.
They were gifted with the presumption of competence, where all other groups were presumed incompetent until and unless proven otherwise, and … even then …
Many of those barriers have begun to come down over time (“the arc of the moral universe”), leaving more of an actual meritocracy in which – wait for it – the non-college white man lost his unearned position of power and dominance.
Now read that quote again. Nobody’s dragging the majority cohort down. It’s simply that, as more and more structural barriers are removed, other groups are thriving.
I have a cousin that – when he was about 16 – mentioned the existence of an “African-American studies” class in his school. He asked me “where the White studies classes are.”
“That’s all the other classes,” I told him.
That would be “actual unequal treatment” doncha know.
Up next: What’s up with these wheelchair ramps? Can’t those cripples use the stairs like the rest of us?
One might ask why these ‘’‘oppressed’‘’ straight, white, Christian men continue to elect straight, white, Christian men who, apparently, are doing absolutely nothing for them . . . of course that way lies madness and more tax cuts.
I’ve only witnessed it against the people who are opposed to equality and equity. You know, the privileged who are whining that they are losing that status. It’s a succinct statement of a common observation.
That’s what happens when you leave out the part where I point out it’s wrong. The ‘woke’ left embraces equity, which is not equality. Defend it if you want, but don’t tell the guy who’s now being discriminated against in the name of diversity that he’s getting equal treatment, because it’s not true.
I partially disagree. The “majority cohort” is being dragged down - along with most everyone else but the very richest. It’s just that they are conditioned to blame everyone but the actually guilty parties; a standard right wing tactic dating back to at least the pre-Civil War slave era, where it was poor whites being set against enslaved blacks so they wouldn’t blame the wealthy slavers for their troubles. The details change but the pattern remains the same.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
― Lyndon B. Johnson
It’s the same today. Convince that “white working class” that their problems are due to women, blacks, “illegals”, gays and so on then they not only won’t blame Trump and his fellow plutocrats, but outright cheer them on.
Occasionally you see it when someone complains about experiencing prejudice. The implication is that what the complaining person really wants is only to remove the prejudice they experience, and not prejudice directed at everyone.
No. Cruelty is the intentional infliction of suffering. The fact you think it justified does not make it better. The Inquisition thought the suffering they inflicted was justified. Religions that shun members who stop believing think it justified. More prosaically, the kids who bullied me at school thought it was justified too - I was weird and awkward and couldn’t ‘read the room’ (still can’t). They weren’t monsters - they are ordinary people with jobs and families now - but I’m never going to be friends with them and I’ll be damned if I join in with anything similar.
Maybe that is the reason I felt adding them was more dubious, though there surely are issues that statistically affect that group more. Still, I think you underestimate the importance of making voters feel included. They could instead have the first section be ‘All Americans’, since the Dems presumably have policies they think would benefit everyone.
Were the kids who bullied you at school bullying you because you were calmly espousing policies that denied them their rights? If not, it ain’t anything similar. I’m genuinely sorry folks bullied you, but a key component of bullying is that the bullies are in a position of power that makes it impossible for the victim to respond meaningfully, and that’s just not the dynamic we’re talking about here.
If anything, it’s the reverse: the bullies’ victims are punching back, and the bullies are crying about how mean their victims are.
To be clear, liberals do NOT want equality of outcome. They want actual equality of opportunity.
To be poor in the US is to start with an endless series of profound deficits, most of which cannot be overcome. Among these are nutrition, housing, employment, education, health care, addiction, safety and security, laws and enforcement, crime and punishment. For those of color, add systemic and institutionalized discrimination to that list.
Whose responsibility is it to lift people out of misery? All I can tell you is that, collectively, we pay the price for NOT lifting them out of misery. Prevention is cheaper and infinitely more merciful and just.
Look at the attached article. It’s a pretty clean study. The results speak for themselves. It’s a bit dated, but would you bet that things have changed substantially in the US?
Employers’ Replies to Racial Names
“When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
I also quoted your visceral, reflexive, and emotional argument:
in order to demonstrate how commonly that is the first reaction people have. It’s why demagogues … demagogue.
They’re not stupid, they’re willfully ignorant. Unfortunately, it’s tough to fix that as well.
There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
–Will Rogers
It’s unfortunate the rest of us have to get spattered by electrified piss.
Are you seriously trying to frame “voting for the lesser homophobe” as some sort of thought experiment? Lady, that was real life up until 2012. Hillary Clinton was the first person I ever voted for who never campaigned on the idea that I’m less than straight people.
So I’m supposed to what, volunteer to give up my civil rights for the Glory of the Party? Just be chill that I get less rights now, because queer people lost the “who do we throw under the bus” lottery again?
Republicans: We’re going to strip queer people of their rights!
Me: What a bunch of bigots.
And it’s me that’s being cruel?
Not merely cruel: by angrily defending yourself, you’re a bully.
For far too many, “compromise” means “What are you willing to give up?”.
Because @crowmanyclouds was replying to my point about how the right twisted what black people were saying when they told us about “Black lives matter”, your reply here really is what one should barf at.
Equity is about something else, and @DavidNRockies already explained how you barfed thanks to an ongoing misconception about what equity is.
This is getting kind of off topic, but what I actually see happening is that companies, but even more so academia and non-profits want to diversify their workforce. This was already the case to some extent pre-George Floyd protests, but because much more of an imperative after that. They accomplish this in various ways, but they all come down to discriminating against white male applicants. Because employers can’t just fire the older straight white men with 30 years of experience (in academia they have tenure); they are stuck with that lack of diversity, so they try to make up for it by making new hires extra diverse, ie discriminating extra hard against straight white male applicants.
And when those young men complain about this discrimination, older white liberal men, the ones who actually benefited from those historical advantages and still do, tell them that they are imagining it, or that they need to pay for their father’s sins. And the young men decide to support the right instead, since it promises to make things better for them.
I have actually seen several people make that observation. 
There is often a dynamic in bullying where one or two bullies are the instigators and others follow their lead for fear of being targeted themselves. That’s the dynamic I see. Most people are not woke (as seen at the ballot box, where they vote in private). They don’t agree with what the woke say or do, but they are afraid to speak out because of what happens to those who do. They even join in with ostracizing those people for fear of becoming targets.
Since you agree with the values being enforced, maybe you think this is a good thing. I don’t, and I think it’s bad in itself to treat people this way in service of enforcing a narrow moral code.
That’s the talking point version of DEI. How it’s supposed to work is all else being equal. If a white man is significantly the better candidate in ways that are applicable to the job, he should get it.
If there’s not much to choose between candidates, and the workforce right now is not very diverse, then maybe that’s an additional factor to consider.
Yes it means a qualified white guy didn’t get the job, but someone qualified was going to be disappointed no matter what.
An issue of course with this is what we’ve seen in the US, where every minority has their position questioned, even those who smashed the glass ceiling as top of their class.
Are these companies and institutions actually trying to make their workforce “extra diverse,” or are they trying to have a workforce that’s more reflective of the demographics of the population, thus seeking to do away with the historic presupposition that “straight, white, Christian man = competent; minority = incompetent?”
It isn’t “woke” to hold that age-old presumption up to extremely close scrutiny. And the proof is in the pudding. Arguing that “Didn’t Earn It” (the snarl phrase for DEI) explains the relative success of most other cohorts … relative to the majority cohort … is the epitome of self-serving sophistry.