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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Most white Americans today did not “benefit from discrimination” against black Americans. Most white Americans come from families who weren’t even here during the time of slavery. And slavery hurt the vast majority of white Americans who were not slave owners, by driving down the market value of free farm labor. Slavery made a handful of landowners rich, but impoverished the south as a whole. At the turn of the 20th century, the median income in the south was half of what it was in the Midwest.

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It's sadly ironic and self defeating that they claim they don't benefit from discrimination (even though they do but delusionally refuse to acknowledge it), yet they keep on systematically and purposefully discriminating, and idiotically voting against their own best interests, like single payer health care, forgiving student loans, funding education, raising taxes on the wealthy, and ending corporate welfare.

And for all their shrill protests about reverse discrimination and communist Democrats handing out welfare to black people for votes to keep them "on the plantation", the red states are MUCH more reliant on federal government handouts that the blue states have to pay for, BECAUSE of their "conservative" policy choices.

https://apnews.com/article/north-america-business-local-taxe...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders have spent months promoting the myth that red low-tax states are subsidizing blue high-tax states because of the deduction for state and local taxes.

An Associated Press Fact Check finds it’s actually the other way around. High-tax, traditionally Democratic states (blue), subsidize low-tax, traditionally Republican states (red) — in a big way.

How does any of that show that the average white American benefited from discrimination against black people?

It doesn’t. And they think putting something in parentheses makes it true. This is not lisp god damn it!

> the red states are MUCH more reliant on federal government handouts that the blue states have to pay for, BECAUSE of their "conservative" policy choices.

Do you have any economics paper indicating that? The much more likely explanation is that red states are more rural and blue states are more urban (so have higher income). Florida and Texas' economies are doing great. Notice even California had a Republican governor until 2011.

Not only you are wrong, you are wrong and arrogant.

California was deep red when Silicon Valley was being built. And most “red states” voted Democrat until the 1990s (with the exception of Reagan). The richest ones, like Virginia, started voted Republican before the others. And richer areas, like the Atlanta suburbs in Georgia, started voting republican before the rest of the state.

> California was deep red when Silicon Valley was being built

The GOP was much, much different when Silicon Valley was being built.

Not with respect to “single payer health care, forgiving student loans, funding education, raising taxes on the wealthy, and ending corporate welfare.” Or taxes or regulation. The GOP has gotten more liberal with respect to the “policy choices” that OP claims causes red states to be “more reliant on federal government.”

I'm old enough to remember how, back in the day, the GOP had a decidedly-liberal wing; no longer.

> Not only you are wrong, you are wrong and arrogant.

Facing facts ≠ arrogance.

> Notice even California had a Republican governor until 2011.

And? California has long been a leading indicator of societal trends. (And 2011 was a dozen years ago.)

"Biden’s winning base in 509 counties encompasses fully 71% of America’s economic activity, while Trump’s losing base of 2,547 counties represents just 29% of the economy." [0]

[0] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/biden-voting-counties-equ...

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