You know what? Fuck it. Let's go. While this might be true (citation needed), white supremacy in American democracy has always enabled the racists to torpedo things by presenting them as providing benefits to the "undeserving" while taking what should be rightfully the property of whiteness. - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

shengokai.bsky.social • 97 days ago

You know what? Fuck it. Let's go.

While this might be true (citation needed), white supremacy in American democracy has always enabled the racists to torpedo things by presenting them as providing benefits to the "undeserving" while taking what should be rightfully the property of whiteness.

Reposted from Starr

Ok, but also more than 50% of US Americans have wanted universal healthcare since 2020.

A majority of us do know what’s best. It’s just that no one with the power to change it listens to us.

Comments

hereforagoodtime.bsky.social•97 days ago

U didn’t know this until today? Maybe shut up

vegetablegremlin.bsky.social•97 days ago

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/09/29/increasing-share-of-americans-favor-a-single-government-program-to-provide-health-care-coverage/

Citation in particular

While the principle is historically true that’s not what’s blocked universal healthcare, which was already blocked by lobbyists ensuring it will be kept out of consideration.

sjoyner1965.bsky.social•96 days ago

You would need at least 65 votes to clear universal healthcare. The single largest factor in public rejection of the welfare state is racism. Democrats got massacred over the ACA in the 2010 midterms, which is nowhere near a public option.

bonstrous.bsky.social•97 days ago

ain't no coincidence that 'undeserved' and 'underserved' are so similar in spelling, imo

shengokai.bsky.social•97 days ago

That is, white supremacy maintains racist distribution (or lack thereof) of public resources by convincing a white base that the source of their problems are Black people and the services that presumably offer Black people a leg up "over" hard working white people.

Still with me? Good.

shengokai.bsky.social•97 days ago

This crass manipulation of a white supremacist base enables the supposed majority that you're talking about to vote against their interests BECAUSE they believe that Black people are going to get some unearned benefit out of the program, and they have done so CONSISTENTLY across American politics.

frambley1.bsky.social•82 days ago

I know I sound like a broken mp3, but the most salient and easy to understand example of this is public pools. The drained pool theory should be known and understood by anyone who deals in public policy of any sort.

shengokai.bsky.social•97 days ago

To this end, it doesn't fucking matter that "50% of Americans have wanted healthcare since 2020," it doesn't fucking matter that economic relief programs overwhelmingly benefit RURAL WHITE PEOPLE, it doesn't matter that white women overwhelmingly benefit from affirmative action in education.

sjoyner1965.bsky.social•96 days ago

Genuinely, all it took for Teagan to cut the 1% tax rate from 73% to 28% was the welfare queen stereotype. Bill Clinton won Southern states by promising to end the welfare state and create work requirements for welfare.

shengokai.bsky.social•97 days ago

All that matters is that white supremacy manages to convince enough of the electorate that voting for candidates that would put in place these programs would mean that they would be enabling Black people to get an advantage that they haven't earned.

sjoyner1965.bsky.social•96 days ago

This!!! Here are some of my sources that discuss how researchers found that the belief that Black folks were lazy was the single largest factor in public opposition to welfare and social programs.

Comment image

rulesdontwork.bsky.social•97 days ago

And let's add that of course given racism these people believe with absolute certainty that black people are worthless and thus could not ever be deserving of whatever they achieved

shengokai.bsky.social•97 days ago

All that matters is that white people are fucking susceptible to white supremacy and that it shapes their voting patterns. And, insofar as our electoral politics determine the possibilities for structuring culture, all that matters is that WHITE SUPREMACY remains the dominant politics in America.

brieharleyoswalt.bsky.social•96 days ago

Let's not let Zionism/Jewish supremacy off the hook here pal. It's also doing a genocide as we speak.

shengokai.bsky.social•97 days ago

To this end, it isn't about the people in power listening to us. It has never fucking been about people in power listening to us.

It's always been about the ways that global white supremacy shapes our electoral politics and our culture in ways that preserve the supremacy of whiteness.

sugarkat.bsky.social•97 days ago

White supremacy is the cancer this nation was born with, was ignored instead of excised and destroyed for centuries, and it’s finally killing this nation.

Anything good we have done was in spite of white supremacy. Anything good we haven’t done we didn’t do because of white supremacy.

sugarkat.bsky.social•97 days ago

No progress could ever be made without killing white supremacy, but Euro-Americans have clung to its deadly lies instead.

The evil this nation has done is rooted in white supremacy.

I’ve known this since the history class I had in middle school, taught by the only Black male teacher I ever had.

sjoyner1965.bsky.social•96 days ago

I think the reason a lot of white people loved Bernie is that he gave them absolution from racism. No need to confront you or your parents’ racism when it’s truly a class war and discussing race and identity politics are distractions from the “true” problem. Even though racism helps enable classism.

sugarkat.bsky.social•96 days ago

If a person does not address white supremacy when discussing class in the USA, anything they do will continue to perpetuate white supremacy and therefore fail, because white supremacy is the foul, rotted heart of the USA class system.

sjoyner1965.bsky.social•96 days ago

Yup. This is why older Black folks don’t fuck with Bernie. He’s a class reductionist, and such a belief flies in the face of their experiences of racial marginalization and oppression, regardless of the financial opportunities of the working class.

sjoyner1965.bsky.social•96 days ago

I think a lot of people try to explain the support of the white working class away as a rational decision of frustration with the system, when, in reality, anyone who has experienced social discrimination could tell you how latently irrational bigotry is.

perfectdrift.bsky.social•97 days ago

📌

harrytuttle76.bsky.social•97 days ago

You are correct, but using the specific example of single-payer healthcare, it’s also just capitalism. The Obama quote about the health insurance industry employing millions of people is near the end:

https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-bullshit-job-boom