Welcome to America’s Cultural Revolution

In what way are 'people of colour' - between quotes because as far as I'm concerned they're just people [1] - oppressed in the US? I don't just blindly swallow the narrative espoused by BLM nor do I just blindly accept the opposite. For more than 2 weeks I've been listening to interviews with people who say that the narrative is in fact incorrect, that they themselves lived in the areas where the oppression should have been rife but - again according to them - did not seem to be. Many of these people put the blame for the disparity in income and outlook on social programs which have led to the dissolution of the family which is supposed to have led to the majority of children growing up in a single-parent household combined with the fact that schools are paid directly using local taxes which leads to poor neighbourhoods having underfunded schools. The lack of fathers, according to them, leads to a lack of male role models which in turn leads to boys finding their role models elsewhere, often on the street where they see gang bangers sporting fancy goods and gaining status. Many of the people I listened to found other role models to follow - one of their grandparents, a retired police officer, their own parents who came to the USA and built and existence for themselves and their children, a teacher in school, etc. Some of them ended up in academia, some of them started a business, some did well in sports in one way or another, some went into politics. Some are religious and pull that factor into the mix, others are secular or atheists. None of them seemed to be dirt-poor, nor did any of them seem to be rich, they all seemed to be part of the middle class.

All of them are, to use the term I dislike, 'people of colour'.

It can not be the case that both sides have it right here - either there is systemic oppression against people based on their skin colour or there is not. They claim this not to be the case and they back up their claims with data. They do not claim that there are no occurrences of discrimination based on skin colour but they do claim that these are just that, individual occurrences. What makes it possible for these people to succeed and thrive where so many others fail to do so? Either the people I mentioned have it right and the cause lies in the negative effects of social programs which keep people tied to the state as the source of handouts, keeping them alive but in poverty, or those who claim that 'people of colour' are oppressed in the USA have it right and the ones I have been listening to for the past week live in a fantasy.

The people I listened - and listen - to do not get heard in the media for some reason, probably because their point of view does not fit the preferred narrative. They get called bad names like 'Coon' and 'Uncle Tom' in the cesspit of social media. When I hear them talk they sound convincing, when I check the statistics they cite they seem to corroborate their position. To me it seems they have a better grasp on the actual situation than those who makes claims about systemic racism but, not being an American, I can not be sure. I can just observe, read, listen, compare to similar situations in my own experience and my own environment and draw my own conclusions. Those conclusions lead me to believe they are closer to the truth than the loud voices heard in the media. They do not claim that there is no discrimination, they claim there is no systemic racism. I know discrimination and racism exist, they even seem to be on the rise - there are not many Jews left in the city of Malmö for this reason - but that is not the same as systemic racism. I tried to table this subject before [2] and got a number of links related to what is claimed to be systemic racism related issues in reply. I followed the links and found that most of the mentioned issues were either not indicative of systemic racism or are mentioned as not being related to such in the interviews I've been listening to. My conclusion still stands, either those folks I've been listening to are deluded or the ones on the front pages of the news magazines are.

[1] Why I dislike that 'people of colour' term: From when I went to primary school it has been drilled into me that skin colour is not important, that it is merely superficial, that we're all people, that you should look beyond such things like you look beyond hair colour. That culture is what binds us no matter what colour we have. This seemed to work, things were getting better in my country (the Netherlands), culture did seem to be the binding factor - and in other cases the dividing one. Culture, not colour. And then... things changed. Where before it was not done to be focusing on that superficial aspect of skin colour suddenly a movement made itself heard which did nothing but focus on skin colour. And, lo and behold, there actually is more discrimination and racism in society now than there was before that movement got started. The cause-and-effect of this is unclear since this event more or less coincided with the arrival of a large number of migrants from the Middle-East and Africa but to me it certainly feels like this renewed focus on skin colour certainly did not make things better, nor does the expletive-laden simplistic rhetoric and labelling espoused by proponents of this movement.

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23421551

Good point. Still, even now in Russia (never mind USSR), political opponents are put into psychiatric hospitals. In USSR there was a total state monopoly on media (propaganda), you could have your life ruined for not toeing the party line or not turning up at Communist fetes.

Things in the US look very ugly to me as an outsider, but still they got nothing on proper totalitarian state. Getting closer though!

Now that you have mention that... Add some unquestionable 3-letter agencies, "national security concerns" and "spies and outside-funded agitators are everywhere", and we are getting quite closely to what I remember from end of 70s/beginning of 80s. sigh

The mainstream media seems shockingly Soviet now, too, perhaps with the difference that more people still believe it. Do you agree? I'd like to hear your comparison.

One difference from the USSR is that there remain plenty of alternative sources on the margins. They're shut out of the mainstream, but they're a lot more accessible than samizdat. It will be interesting to see if they get shut down. I don't think they will. I don't think the future is full-Soviet, but it may be neo-Soviet. We've come further in that direction already than anyone expected.

Another difference from the USSR is that it's a binary system (Dems vs. Repubs, CNN vs. Fox) rather than a monolithic one.

Not even just the submissions, these sort of articles end up in discussions that break majority of thr In Comments guidelines, shattering any illusions that HN is somehow superior to everywhere else on the internet.

IMO, I don't think the articles should neccesarily be flagged, as the rules seem kinda loosely interpreted on this stuff, but more of the comments should probably be flagged than get so.

Much like "radicalizing" the OK hand sign as meaning "WP," and the latest lolcow of making hawaiian shirts a sign of terrorist groups: seems like the right wing meme makers keep coming up with these things to alienate normies from activist types, and the left, who above all else in current year America, seems to enjoy thinking they have special knowledge that requires they lecture others about what is morally acceptable, keeps taking the bait. I don't see this pattern ending well.

Not a reaction to something? Really?

If it was this easy to push you in the opposite direction, all it means is that you never had any core convictions to begin with. I find it easy to sympathize with people frustrated by the modern left, but I fundamentally don't understand the people who look at the horrendous, despotic, corrupt shit that the party in power is doing, and are more than happy to cover their eyes and ears just because they feel slighted by the other side.

I know myself well, and no matter how "bad" the left gets, there is no possible future in which I could vote for a party built around venerating money, imposing control, flaunting their lack of empathy, and — yes — propagating white supremacy. If, at some point in the distant future, the Democratic party becomes "literally Soviet Communism" (in quotes because I find this laughably unlikely, but w/e) then I guess I'll just have to stop voting, or vote for a third party. Frankly, I'm much more concerned about the US turning into a fascist hellhole to worry about that remote possibility right now.

The ground has shifted. Someone who was a moderate in 1995 would be considered "alt-right" today.

I'm with him - the internet somehow works as competition for who is most extreme. Sane, healthy people neither have the need nor the time to engage with this.

I don't have any hard data backing this up, but in my experience most moderates who are exposed to the state of discourse on Twitter agree it's kinda crazy.