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Comment by luciferin | Hacker News Reader

I vehemently reject the idea that the left believes, or even phrases their policies to imply, that men, young men, or white men are "the problem". There is a portion of society experiencing persecution bias, and I'm not singaling out any group(s) with that statement. We will never again progress as a society as long as we continue to view the success of someone else as our failure. This goes both ways.

The article lists a number of issues, and 90% of them apply to everyone in our society, not just men, not just the young, not just white people. Why do these young white men read "we the people" and not see it literally applying to all humans? Martin Luther King Jr's speech was as much about little black boys and girls holding hands with little white boys and girls. This isn't exclusion.

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You lost me at “the left”.

In which case I think you've misread OP. It's not a well-written opening sentence, but it might not mean what you think it does.

I find that ironic. I was specifically referencing a line in the second paragraph of the article. The author used the same terminology.

>Why do these young white men read "we the people" and not see it literally applying to all humans?

Because we live in a society in which white supremacy still holds real political and cultural power due to the the structures of systemic racism and colonialism on which it was founded, and because we've accepted the asinine "pendulum" premise that implies both sides (in this case, pro and anti racist) of any political axis are equally valid.

No one is claiming that men or white men are the problem per se except maybe some rage baiters online. Patriarchy and white supremacy are problems, however. Rape culture and toxic masculinity are problems. There are many aspects of our modern capitalist society in which the success of someone comes at the cost of another's failure, because it was designed to be so. And often, although not always, the current of oppression to power leads from female to male, and non-white to white. That's just a fact.

Speaking of MLK Jr, read what he had to say about well meaning white liberals. He thought they were worse than the Klan. The last thing he would have advocated was a "color-blind" way of seeing the world.

>Speaking of MLK Jr...The last thing he would have advocated was a "color-blind" way of seeing the world.

Where did you get that idea? Retcon much?

Doctor King said[0]:

   I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation 
   where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content 
   of their character. I have a dream today.

   I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with 
   its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and 
   nullification, one day right down in Alabama little Black boys and Black 
   girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as 
   sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-spee...

Edit: Added the missing link

Reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45850539 as I'm rate limited at the moment:

You said:

   The last thing he would have advocated was a "color-
   blind" way of seeing the world.

Which is ridiculous (your link[1] notwithstanding) on its face. Whether Dr. King meant six days from that speech or six centuries from that speech, he specifically called for a society that didn't care about melanin content.

Claiming that since we weren't there in 1963 and still aren't there -- meaning there's still work to be done -- doesn't invalidate or diminish the aspirational content of that speech, nor does it reduce the power and value of that aspiration.

While the article you linked claims that bigoted assholes have tried to hijack the words I quoted as "arguments" against efforts to bring real equality to all humans in the US, that doesn't make Dr. King's aspirations any less important or valuable.

I am nonplussed by your shallow dismissal of Dr. King -- whatever the reason. For shame!

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/colinseale/2020/01/20/mlks-i-ha...

Further replying to "Uncle Meat's comment" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45850601

>If you only read this one thing then you might come away with this misunderstanding.

>MLK supported reparations and other policies that explicitly provided for black people.

What misunderstanding? Of course MLK supported (and rightly so) a variety of things to make those who'd been oppressed, spit on, beaten, enslaved and murdered for centuries de facto full citizens and members of US society, not just de jure.

Once we've achieved that, then Doctor King's dream will be fulfilled. That I refer to his aspirations (which, sadly, GP blithely dismissed) isn't in conflict with the idea that until such a de facto state is achieved positive steps toward that (including, but not limited to, those advocated by Dr. King) are still required.

There is no dichotomy or cognitive dissonance here -- at least not for me.

====

Continuing the colloquy with krapp (specifically this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45850591 )

>The tl;dr is that we aren't there yet, and pretending otherwise allows the status quo of systemic racism to persist unchallenged.

Where, exactly, did I say anything of the sort? I won't leave you in suspense -- I said nothing of the kind, nor did I imply anything like it.

Rather, I took issue with (my perception of at least) your shallow dismissal of Dr. King's aspiration. Especially as I share that aspiration and am quite in favor of achieving the goal he set out there.

No, we're not there yet. But that doesn't mean Dr. King was lying. It just means we have more work to do.

>This part of the conversation is always tedious so I'll just post some articles and bow out.

Yes, this is quite tedious. Have a good day.

No I haven't retconned anything, I've just read more of King's words than that single part of that single speech. This part of the conversation is always tedious so I'll just post some articles and bow out.

The tl;dr is that we aren't there yet, and pretending otherwise allows the status quo of systemic racism to persist unchallenged.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/colinseale/2020/01/20/mlks-i-ha...

https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article...

https://theconversation.com/ketanji-brown-jackson-and-the-co...

https://www.aaihs.org/critical-race-theory-and-the-misapprop...

If you only read this one thing then you might come away with this misunderstanding.

MLK supported reparations and other policies that explicitly provided for black people.

> ... the left believes, or even phrases their policies to imply, that...

There's no meaningful "Left" policy in the US. We only have two Neoliberal parties. There's no "Leftist" Heritage Foundation, say. There's no PAC promoting socialized healthcare, for example.

This, frankly, strengthens your argument—the Democrats and mainstream liberalism don't espouse any feminist antipatriarchal ideology.

The meaning of a word or phrase within a community of speakers is determined by what is meant and understood when that word or phrase is used among that community of speakers.

You may have preferences about what certain words or phrases are used to mean, and that’s legitimate, and it furthermore is legitimate for you to pursue those preferences.

However, the previous commenter was not incorrect in using the phrase “the left” as they did. They were using it in a way that is a well established and understood way of using the phrase.

Now, I admit that I’ll sometimes feign misunderstanding when someone uses the word “literally” in ways counter to my preferences, so I’m noticing that my behavior might be slightly hypocritical. I could argue that I don’t say that their usage is “incorrect” or that they shouldn’t use the word as they do (indeed, I will typically state the opposite, that they aren’t “incorrect” or doing anything wrong by using it as they are), and therefore am not being hypocritical, but I’m not sure that’s compelling.

In any case, everyone knew what that person meant by “the left”, and I personally find this insistence on “correcting” that use of the term, to be a bit annoying. Though, of course, I recognize that you likely find the use in question of the phrase “the left” annoying. So, uh. Hm.

I’m not sure where that leaves us. I guess we’ll both just have to live with being occasionally annoyed, because I don't think we’ll be able to coordinate to change either behavior?

> everyone knew what that person meant by “the left”

Unfortunately, I am not included in "everyone". Could you describe what they meant?

>In any case, everyone knew what that person meant by “the left”, and I personally find this insistence on “correcting” that use of the term, to be a bit annoying. Though, of course, I recognize that you likely find the use in question of the phrase “the left” annoying. So, uh. Hm.

Then I shall annoy you further. I, as an American, am clear on the fact that there is no serious "left-wing" party or movement in the US. The farthest we may get is Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who are in point of fact centrists who lean slightly left.

The US Democratic Party runs from center-right to center-left, but much more on the center-right side.

Calling a center-right party "the left" is disingenuous in the extreme, IMNSHO.

That they're "left" of the far-right Republican Party isn't saying much. The Republican Party today would reject folks like Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan as communists, given their respective foci on environment regulation, universal healthcare, immigration and a raft of other issues that were never "leftist."

I get it. It's nice to have the cover of "conservative" as that presents the idea that the views of those who call themselves that are trying to "conserve" the good things about our society.

But the Republican Party of today isn't conservative. It is a far right (think Nigel Farage/Reform, AfD, etc.) radical reactionary party uninterested in democratic norms unless they try to use them to beat their opponents over the head with them to win political points.

U mad now bro? I hope so. The problem is that you're mad at the wrong folks.

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