Can We Have A Toughtful/Respectful Discussion Of Civil Rights Versus Income Inequality ???

[YoungDemCA]

230. Here's a history lesson: women, people of color, poor immigrants, and LGBT people...

have always been oppressed in this country, and much (though not all) of that oppression has been economic.

Nowadays, it seems like the non-oppressed (since people don't like being called "privileged", it offends their delicate sensibilities ) corollaries to those respective groups - men, whites, native-born Americans, the "middle class", heterosexuals and anyone else who has otherwise benefited from a long history of this inequality and injustice - it seems like members of the non-oppressed groups are finally "paying attention." The reason? Because issues like economic inequality, unemployment, etc., are starting to affect them. To put it bluntly: They see their own status, their own power and privilege being eroded, and they are understandably scared shitless.

One way that a dominant group can assert its power over oppressed groups is by claiming that the concerns of the oppressed groups don't matter, or that they don't matter as much as the concerns of the dominant group - which the dominant group just assumes are universal priorities. That's privilege. That's what I have seen, and many others on this board (or who were on this board...) can back me up on that.

You want an honest discussion? How about some intellectual honesty from your "comrades", from those who claim re: the challenges and struggles that face us today, "It's not race, it's not gender, it's not sexuality, it's not any of those things...it's economic class!" Because from what I can tell, many of the loudest drumbeats for the "class war" to be our focus, our priority, come from the same people who have minimized, dismissed, bullied, and otherwise been tone-deaf on the "identity politics" issues.

Women, people of color, the LGBT community, poor immigrants, etc. have always been fighting against ALL forms of injustice-economic, social, racial-many of them, on this board, since before DU was started, or even since before I was born (since I am a fairly young adult, after all...), or since before the Reagan administration....you get the idea. Yet the dominant, privileged culture didn't merely neglect those organizers and activists, it actively opposed them. That history needs to be acknowledged and accounted for, before we can do anything else.

Unfortunately, judging by some (but not all, mercifully) of the responses in this thread, the tone-deafness and casual dismissals and willful ignorance of the everyday lives, experiences, and struggles of those whose political priorities are considered "divisive identity politics" are still issues. So, to answer your original question: No, we can't. At least, not yet.