I thought I already did. If white supremacists are so anti-government then it doesn't make sense to pretend the government is run by white supremacists.
It turns out that the people who make those sorts of claims are really just anti-white.
Who is pretending that "the government is run by white supremacists"?
If you're referring to my statement, I only said that many law enforcement agencies contain white supremacists, which includes anyone with a white supremacist viewpoint. They don't even need to identify as one openly or even in action. How many white supremacists are and are not anti-government is immaterial to the point.
The way you're using the definition "white supremacist" implicitly assumes that "white supremacy" as an ideology is inherently anti-government. We know that's never been the case, because all white supremacist states around the world have had strictly authoritarian governments. There's no way to enforce the supremacy of one group of people over another without coercive force.
Either violence or authoritarian government are required for a white supremacist state.
As for whether US itself is a white supremacist state, on one hand you could say that it has allocated a massive amount of resources in systematically rounding up black men (1 in 3 will be arrested in their lifetimes) without addressing the factors used to justify that, and many states systematically disenfranchise their vote. And historically it was economically reliant on chattel slavery. Many southern states are effectively authoritarian governments at the state level due to district gerrymandering and black disenfranchisement, now no longer stoppable by the Voting Rights Act after a conservative supreme court decision a few years ago.
OTOH, federally, is democratically accountable to the people, making it a coalition of whites and non-whites. So you could still see white supremacist reactionaries taking anti-government standpoints for as long as this governing coalition includes non-white people.
>It turns out that the people who make those sorts of claims are really just anti-white.
Do you think it is somehow "anti-white" to point out ways in which white supremacy harms and oppresses non-white people when it is used at the level of state and federal governments?
> Do you think it is somehow "anti-white" to point out ways in which white supremacy harms and oppresses non-white people when it is used at the level of state and federal governments?
It can be. Take your example for instance, where you said:
> "As for whether US itself is a white supremacist state, on one hand you could say that it has allocated a massive amount of resources in systematically rounding up black men (1 in 3 will be arrested in their lifetimes) without addressing the factors used to justify that, and many states systematically disenfranchise their vote."
You may not realize it, but this statement immediately dismisses the millions of non-black victims of the same thing. By making it all about one race, you have essentially set up a white (bad) vs black (good) dynamic where it doesn't actually exist. Instead of looking at fundamental issues affecting people regardless of race - namely, an authoritarian government that is primarily used by the privileged class against the unprivileged. For example: whereas Sasha & Malia Obama will never face the brunt of an authoritarian government, white Appalachian families know it all too well.
You saw the same thing with groups like BLM. If you never looked at the data you would assume this is an issue that only or primarily affects black people. And yet, the majority of people killed by cops are white males. And although per capita black males are more likely to suffer that fate, white males are also over-represented as victims of police violence based on their demographic cohort. (black, Hispanic and white males are over-represented; Asian males and females of all races including black, are under-represented.
Using the police violence issue, the largest over-represented demographic cohort is actually males which make up 95% of the victims. And yet it's not presented as a male problem. It's presented as a black problem despite the data that shows black females are far less likely to be hurt or killed in police interactions than white males are.
This happens a lot when trying to take a complex issue and assume it's based on race.
At the state level, the rate of incarceration for black americans is about 5 times higher than for white americans. This report fully breaks it down by state and by ethnicity, and offers policy solutions:
Given that black people are not a large percentage of the population, this disparity is shocking and significant. If we deliberately choose not to point out these problems then it won't be possible to correct them at a social policy level. If we chose to focus only on "males" as the targeted demographic then we would overlook a lot of the systemic injustices and socio-economic circumstances that black males face exclusively, and which would require disproportionate attention to solve. It is neither right nor just that black men should bear such an unequal burden.
Moreover, pointing out injustice done to black americans does not "dismiss the millions of non-black victims". I don't see how you can come to that conclusion. There is more than enough room in the sphere of public debate to discuss all aspects of mass incarceration.
The argument you're making sounds almost exactly like "all houses matter".
And whites are locked up at a shockingly higher rate than asians are. Men are locked up at shockingly higher rates than women are. So do we blame Asian supremacy or female supremacy for that? Or is it possible not all demographic groups commit crimes at the same rate?
What do you think is the reason that races commit crimes at different rates? Do you think that black people are inherently more criminal?
You can read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander if you truly have a good faith desire to understand the racist legacy behind mass incarceration in the US.
Ultimately you need to recognize that race is a social construct, and white supremacy is a phenomenon of in-group vs out-group power dynamics. Right now the group that holds political and economic power in the US is called “white”, which is otherwise a biologically meaningless designation and more of a cultural and class based category that was invented about 100 years ago. The more similar a particular demographic group appears along the axes of skin color, class, and culture, the less racially stigmatized they’ll be, the more economic opportunities they’ll have, and the less they’ll need to resort to grey or black market activity in order to survive. There is also the long legacy of slavery, indentured servitude, and jim crow era oppression that has selectively deprived black people in the US of economic opportunities for generations.
If you want to draw conclusions on aggregate statistics of the actions of human beings, then you need to be willing to educate yourself as to the social, economic, and historical factors which influence their actions.
There is an easy way to test this. Considering all of the systemic racial preferences in place, would you rather be white or black (same skills & qualifications) if you're interviewing for a job at a Fortune 500 employer? Applying to Harvard Law school? Seeking a government contract?
Racial differences in performance in something is not proof of discrimination. Unless you're ready to show me how the NBA systemically excludes non-black players.
It's also interesting that in this so-called system of white supremacy, that asians somehow lead in almost every metric related to income, education, crime etc.
Fascinating that despite the fact that DEI initiatives would give you a huge advantage you still wouldn't want to be black. I guess that says something.
And FYI that names study has been debunked a number of times. They didn't test stereotypically low class white names like Wilbur, Billy Bob, Roscoe, Harlan etc. for males or Crystal, Daisy, etc. for females.
I’ve literally had someone whose job it was to read resumes for their company straight up admit to me that they throw resumes with black-sounding names straight into the trash.
You still didn’t respond to my comment, which spelled out very clearly the role of racial discrimination in society that you seem to interested in denying. Instead, you change the topic from criminalization to college admissions. I wonder why.
Do you not know what DEI initiatives at large companies are and what they do? And did you know that there is a case in front of the Supreme Court where it was proven that Asians were disadvantaged in admissions due to their race because Harvard wanted to increase their percentage of black and Hispanic students?
So yes, there is an advantage when a company or a school specifically sets out to bring you in because you have the right skin color.
As far as racial discrimination in society (institutional racial preferences), my take on it is that race should never be used as a factor in hiring, sentencing, admissions etc. Individual racism is what it is. If I walk down the street and someone calls me a cracker or says they hate white people or whatever, that sucks and is unfortunate but ultimately you can't do anything about it because people will think how they think. It's the institutionalized racial preferences that do the most harm, and those need to change.
> I’ve literally had someone whose job it was to read resumes for their company straight up admit to me that they throw resumes with black-sounding names straight into the trash.
Oh yeah? Which company? That's highly illegal so I'm assuming you informed the boss and filed a complaint with the EEOC right?
Guess what millions of individual instances of racism amount to, when those instances involve people with power using it against those who lack it? It becomes systemic, institutionalized. American society has held this bias against blacks for literally hundreds of years. Deliberate institutional preference in the other direction is the very least we can try to do to make up for that historical legacy, and even those efforts amount to a vanishingly small difference.
Which company? They’re in central Indiana. Not telling an unknown internet stranger who apparently argues in bad faith.
> Guess what millions of individual instances of racism amount to, when those instances involve people with power using it against those who lack it? It becomes systemic, institutionalized.
And yet all of the actual institutionalized policies that consider race, favor non-whites or non-Asians.
> Which company? They’re in central Indiana.
Uh-huh. And what did the EEOC do when you gave them that information? What did the company leadership do when you informed them that one of their employees was violating multiple federal laws?
> And yet all of the actual institutionalized policies that consider race, favor non-whites or non-Asians.
In case you couldn't guess, the point is to support systemically marginalized groups. white and asian people have not been subject to slavery, jim crow laws, sundown laws, redlining, voter disenfranchisement, targeted mass incarceration, etc.
I'll answer your question after you respond to literally any of the things I've said so far in my comments. And I've got some questions for you: Why should I believe that someone who claims that white supremacy doesn't even exist cares about EEOC complaints? Do you think that such disingenuous questions convey your points more effectively, or less? Is there a reason that each new reply shifts the rhetorical goalposts?
> In case you couldn't guess, the point is to support systemically marginalized groups. white and asian people have not been subject to slavery, jim crow laws, sundown laws, redlining, voter disenfranchisement, targeted mass incarceration, etc.
Why are you pretending FDR and the Democrats didn't round up Asian Americans, strip them of their possessions and throw them into internment camps during World War II, simply because of their race? And what about all of the discrimination faced by Jews (who are white)?
See this is the problem with supporting policies that favor people based on their race. It always ends badly and causes racial animosity.
The real problem is that you’re implicitly taking the position that aiding specific groups of people is a zero-sum game. Should the US government give reparations for what they did to Japanese americans during WWII? Absolutely. Should germany and other european countries give reparations for Jewish families as a result of the holocaust? Absolutely.
Do poor white americans from appalachia deserve economic aid from the government after such prolonged disinvestment? Of course.
And while it makes sense to offer these
groups economic-based college admissions support, it doesn't make sense to do so purely on the basis of ethnicity/race, as those groups demonstrably don't face the same level of institutionalized discrimination as blacks. Though such measures would have been warranted for Jews and Asians for a good part of the 20th century.
But guess what—none of these remedies are in conflict with each other. At no point does actively correcting the massive generational wealth and education imbalance that black americans face, take away from correcting what any other group of minoritized people is owed.
