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Comment by 52-6F-62 | Hacker News Reader

"Why should I pay into social welfare programs when I've worked so hard to get where I am?"

Implies people who have to take on welfare as sustenance haven't worked hard enough, and so are undeserving of any help, are therefore inferior and an unjust drain on resources ... and you can take that down the road a little while depending on context ...

edit: Tucker Carlson on Fox News does this very often.

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Does "bigoted" really apply to a disdain for perceived laziness?

When that perceived laziness is universally applied to the entire class of poor people? Yes.

This is your default assumption in response to hearing that statement? Every time? That the person who spoke it is speaking down on poor people?

Every time?

The bigotry is not the disdain for laziness, which is just plain nastiness and a fundamental lack of empathy and human understanding. The bigotry comes first, in the perception of laziness itself. Who is perceived to be lazy? Hard working working-class whites, or lazy working-class blacks living on the dole?

Why do you assume that comment is about African Americans?

Because it is, always, every time it's brought up, every time it's stated. Sometimes people are clever and hide their racism in a few layers of "look at this lazy white person! I don't like him either!" but dig for a minute or so and you'll always find the truth. Occasionally it can be about other minorities, which you are correct to point out -- Hispanic Americans, etc.

But my two hypothetical quotes were simply examples of the attitude that is so common, not explicitly trying to accurately characterize the parent or GP.

I think that is a characterization that you have likely often heard repeated in the media and thus I can't fault you for but statistically speaking white native born Americans make up the majority of food stamp (and most other similar programs are the same) recipients. I take issue with these programs personally because I believe they do more to suppress wages then they do to increase quality of life for people. Perhaps some misguided racists would make claims like you have asserted but frankly those claims don't even make any sense and thus in my opinion can be dismissed.

The prevailing thought and media narrative can never be dismissed, no matter its factual basis or lack thereof. If it is not identified explicitly and challenged, it anchors the starting point of all discussion and thereby sets the bounds for it.

See: Lee Atwater - https://www.thenation.com/article/exclusive-lee-atwaters-inf...

In particular, paragraph 2

Lenin believed “The goal of Socialism is Communism.”, thus all socialists are really communists in disguise is some equally flawed logic from the other side of the aisle. Just because one person on a side of a political spectrum was horrible doesn't mean you get to throw all of those ideas out with the bathwater.

I think you missed my point. You asked why he would assume it was African-Americans as the subject of the proposed example of a bigoted question. That link is to a direct example of why, and emblematic of a larger pattern.

"What about this guy" doesn't really help here.

Are you arguing that it's a bad example, or asking in good faith why it is a good example?

In this very thread I was accused of asking one of these "bigoted questions". I hold no hatred towards any race of people nor am I a big fan of the GOP. I am certainly not a operative of the GOP attempting to swing votes for them. So I just don't understand how this is remotely related to be honest. Quite frankly this all seems like an attempt to limit speech by a political ideology that seems to crumble when debated.

I'm really confused. I was providing an example of why he might be using African-Americans as the subject of bigotry for such a question. Atwater happened to be a prominently involved in politics with a great deal of influence over generations of ideologues, but this [particular thread starting with my example question] has nothing to do with politics directly. I never accused you of anything, so I'm again lost.

Also, that was an either-or question...

That’s not bigotry, that’s a disdain for human rights. The point of welfare is to ensure people have access to basic human rights like housing, food, health care, education. The whole thing about human rights is that you don’t have to do anything to deserve them and can do nothing to lose them. They are rights, not privileges.

I’m pretty sure there is not nearly enough consensus on this to just casually assert it.

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