I find so much of the rhetoric in this thread so disturbing, and I just want everyone to honestly think what solutions you’re leaving yourself once you’ve accepted the premise that all these...
Exemplary
I find so much of the rhetoric in this thread so disturbing, and I just want everyone to honestly think what solutions you’re leaving yourself once you’ve accepted the premise that all these problems are solely the responsibility of the marginalized group in question, and that any attempt to contextualize these problems into broader social issues is dishonest, and somehow an attempt to justify or excuse the behavior rather than merely understand it.
If you really think that rural white Americans are just stupid racists that will never change, and there’s literally nothing anyone who isn’t a rural white American can do about it, I really feel like there’s only two choices at that point and I’m not comfortable with it at all.
Yeah it disturbs me a bit as well. This topic has 'locked' written all over it, so might be a waste of time for me to even comment, but I'll give it a shot anyhow. I get the feeling that it's sort...
Exemplary
If you really think that rural white Americans are just stupid racists that will never change, and there’s literally nothing anyone who isn’t a rural white American can do about it, I really feel like there’s only two choices at that point and I’m not comfortable with it at all.
Yeah it disturbs me a bit as well. This topic has 'locked' written all over it, so might be a waste of time for me to even comment, but I'll give it a shot anyhow.
I get the feeling that it's sort of a retaliatory type of thinking where 'the other side' does it, so there's no point in having nuance in opinions over others who have very different perspectives or lives from our own if others can't do it either.
I know there's lots of genuinely racist people out there, I mean you don't have the history that the US has without it having once existed and I find that it's natural there is going to be generational carryover of that so it's not like it goes away entirely even if as a whole the country has made great strides. However I do find that it's quite destructive and detracts from otherwise valid perspectives when there's this automatic assumption of 'racist' of wide swathes of people when much of it is not truly racism as it is just racial bias. What I mean is that calling someone a racist makes it so they devalue your perspective, and in many cases it's possible that the person isn't harboring ill-intentions towards other races or they may have some thoughts of idealism towards racial equality but they fall short of that through numerous racial biases they may have ingrained in them that they don't realize. To simply label them as a racist is to them a radical mislabeling that makes the one calling them that both appear to be unreasonable and delusional because it doesn't match how they perceive themselves. This labeling of people who might have decent or non-harmful intentions is stripping the humanity out conversations and interactions and it sends us down a road where I also don't think there's any good outcomes.
And I'm not necessarily just solely criticizing people for acting this way, I get that the environment makes it so you're either like a doormat, being taken advantage of, or simply not having a conversation in good faith in any case when you attempt to take the high road and the other people with different perspectives simply don't care and still act with the same deficits that fit the above. Even if you stop calling varying groups of people racists, it doesn't stop them from labeling you all kinds of various things and treating you in a negative manner. I don't know the solutions to that, personally I find that somewhat similar to the idea of me going into a middle school or high school, where I'd be emotionally or mentally inept at dealing with teenagers that might harass me or such and retaliation isn't an option and neither is rational argument. It's partly why I've thought I could never handle being a teacher in those environments, I have no idea how one handles such situations.
The thing that I really hate about this book and this article in particular, is basically all of the people they’re referencing, in my opinion, seem highly aware of all of these problems, and...
The thing that I really hate about this book and this article in particular, is basically all of the people they’re referencing, in my opinion, seem highly aware of all of these problems, and don’t even hesitate to talk about them. In fact, from what I find in my studies, the broad majority of their research is principally concerned with trying to understand and explain where these feelings are coming from. Whereas the people who wrote this book and this article seem to be content to just leave it at “they are just angry, racist people, it’s that simple”.
I think a very important thing to consider is that racism was not always geographically constrained in the United States. 150 years ago racism was prevalent as hell pretty much everywhere, in cities, in the countryside, wherever. So why is it that nobody ever bothers to ask “what are the sociological factors that went into urban areas being so much more successful when it came to overcoming racist attitudes than rural ones, and is it really nothing that we can’t find a way to extend to rural areas today?”
I think a lot of the decline in overtly racist views in urban areas came from the dismantling of redlining, segregation, and other policies that kept races separated even when they lived in the...
I think a lot of the decline in overtly racist views in urban areas came from the dismantling of redlining, segregation, and other policies that kept races separated even when they lived in the same area. Rural areas had these policies undone as well, but the lower population density of rural areas means that natural comingling happens slower than in cities.
The natural solution is to have people in rural areas do more travel to urban areas or other countries, attend universities away from their original rural communities, or take jobs that are outside of their original communities. The military integrating was a big factor in desegregation more widely in the US because people of all races and birthplaces had to learn to trust and rely on each other in combat.
I feel like co-mingling is part of it but perhaps not all. Cities became far far far richer than rural communities, and cities tend to be where you chose to go. ie, folks who moved into the city...
Exemplary
I feel like co-mingling is part of it but perhaps not all.
Cities became far far far richer than rural communities, and cities tend to be where you chose to go. ie, folks who moved into the city were the outsiders who had to shift their views to adjust. There is this generational "I used to be a rural person, now I have folks from other races as my new neighbors and also I became so much richer"
Contrast with the plight of the rual communities exploited by big coal and big fisher and Walmart et al:
We've always been here doing our thing, now we have imported labour undercutting our wages drastically and we became so much poorer.
How the heck else are they supposed to feel about the new people in their community that exploitative employers brought in? When city people talk about immigration, we're talking about middle class families coming and there's a cool new restaurant on the block, or a software engineer, or even that refugee family that came and opened up a chocolate shop. We're not talking about welcoming a bus load of impoverished workers who live "on campus" at the fishing yard who can be paid fewer peanuts than you.
I agree that doomerism isn't constructive, but is there any way to confront racism expecting no effort on the part of racists? Who benefits from tiptoeing around calling racism what it is? When...
I agree that doomerism isn't constructive, but is there any way to confront racism expecting no effort on the part of racists? Who benefits from tiptoeing around calling racism what it is? When 'understanding' or 'contextualizing' racism does in fact justify that racism, who does it help?
It's equally un-constructive to ignore the problem by validating racism whatsoever or "understand" them on any level that lends credibility to it; you're not going to beat the right wing at their own game.
The comments on tildes are less optimistic than the White Rage authors:
Unfortunately, in our critics’ zeal to insist that we are the problem, they can’t stop themselves from reading into our book things we never wrote. “It is baffling why these new, self-proclaimed saviors of rural America cannot see that their gross mischaracterization of rural life feeds into the resentments driving” the increasingly right-wing tilt of rural areas, Jacobs writes. We never proclaimed ourselves anything, let alone the saviors of rural America. In another article attacking us, he writes, “Schaller and Waldman simply want us to write off rural America as the land of radical extremism,” when nothing could be further from the truth; we call rural whites “the essential minority” because of their central political role, and the last thing we want anyone to do is “write off rural America.” We argue that the return of political competition to rural areas is vital, but that will take not only Democrats making more of an effort but rural people demanding more from the Republicans who take their votes and give so little in return.
Since our book came out, we’ve had many conversations with rural Americans—journalists, activists, and ordinary people—who have told us that it accurately reflects what they see in their communities. Christopher Gibbs is a case in point. A Maplewood, Ohio, farmer who raises corn, soybeans, and alfalfa hay and supervises an 85-head cow/calf operation, Gibbs is the board president of Rural Voices USA. A former Shelby County Republican Party chair who, remarkably, is now the county’s Democratic Party chair, Gibbs interviewed us for his podcast. He doesn’t agree with everything we write, but he told us that he “lives this book every day” in his rural county. He concluded our interview by saying our book may not provide an easy foldout “road map” to revive rural America, but “it’s chock full of clues” for those interested in “helping rural folks get what they deserve in policy.”
Maybe it's a bad comparison, but how did gay rights activists start building support in countries where over 90% of the population said same sex attraction was an abomination? I kinda doubt they...
Maybe it's a bad comparison, but how did gay rights activists start building support in countries where over 90% of the population said same sex attraction was an abomination?
I kinda doubt they started by calling everyone homophobic. That might play well amongst your allies that already support what you're advocating for, but I think you need a different tact to educate people and bring them into the fold.
They kind of did, actually. Here in the US the event that is considered to have kicked off the gay rights movement was a riot. People calling a spade a spade is an important part of the overall...
They kind of did, actually. Here in the US the event that is considered to have kicked off the gay rights movement was a riot. People calling a spade a spade is an important part of the overall discourse.
LGBT rights are also far from a settled thing. There are tons of people who are biding their time to relieve us of our hard-earned rights or to make our lives more miserable.
It's certainly an interesting comparison to bring up when gay rights advanced by framing the movement as Love vs Hate. I'd say it's pretty hard to characterize the gay rights movement as shying...
It's certainly an interesting comparison to bring up when gay rights advanced by framing the movement as Love vs Hate. I'd say it's pretty hard to characterize the gay rights movement as shying away from calling their opponents hateful.
Gay rights have seen success because gay people didn't stay in the closet for fear that they might alienate homophobic family, friends or neighbors. Sure gay rights weren't won by calling people homophobes and calling it a day, but the LGBT movement also didn't wait around to bring homophobes into the fold. And many of those homophobes never came into the fold. It's not the fault of the gay rights movement that gay children don't talk their homophobic parents anymore.
Over the last several years, LGBT rights have lost ground to right-wingers who have found inroads via "centrists" who frequently and obsessively worry that the "woke" trans people have gone too far. And then gay teachers get fired, books get banned, trans teenagers get what little support they had taken away. Of course these so-called centrists say they disagree with all of that authoritarian conservative stuff like book bans, and then go right back to commiserating with homophobes about how too far the woke have gone.
I don't want to get too deep into queer stuff because it's just going to get messy, but I feel like there has to be a space for forgiveness and changing minds. In our lifetimes, millions of people...
I don't want to get too deep into queer stuff because it's just going to get messy, but I feel like there has to be a space for forgiveness and changing minds. In our lifetimes, millions of people have gone from being disgusted by gay people to supportive allies.
Love vs hate is really useful when you're trying to help a person understand the broad movement. It's much less useful to personally call someone a hateful homophobe that wants gay people to stay in the closet. Even if it's true, people usually aren't persuaded by direct attacks. Calling someone racist to their face has the same effect. Their behavior can definitely be racist, but I don't think it changes any minds to directly attack them (because modern racists already know that racism is bad).
Love vs hate is a perfectly fine framing, but it wasn't the only framing either. As you were getting at, normalizing same sex attraction was a hugely important part of the movement. Nowadays, most people personally know a gay person, and it's much harder for someone to hate their friends and family.
I feel like race relations are very similar. Many rural folk love their neighbor José and even enjoy the local taqueria and Chinese restaurant. It's easy to be racist in the abstract or even in a mob, but it's much harder to personally hate someone you know. Building strong and diverse local communities is a much more effective way to fight racism.
In our lifetimes, millions of people have died and been replaced by new people. About 1% of the US population dies each year. (1000 deaths per 100,000 people.) In 1996, 68% of Americans opposed...
In our lifetimes, millions of people have died and been replaced by new people.
About 1% of the US population dies each year. (1000 deaths per 100,000 people.) In 1996, 68% of Americans opposed same-sex marriage, while only 27% supported. In 2018, 67% of Americans supported same-sex marriage, while only 31% opposed. That's 22 years, or enough time for a whole generation to come to adulthood, and for 22% of Americans to die. There is still some shift not attributed to replacement, but if you look at the General Social Survey data for approval of same-sex sexual relations, you can see that for a given person, favorability is basically unchanging. In 2000, 46% of 18-34 year olds said it was wrong. 18 years later in 2018, 46% of people 35-49 said it was wrong.
TL;DR: It's not all about people changing their minds, it's often people with bigoted beliefs dying off and being replaced by less awful people.
I agree that generational change is a huge part of changing social attitudes, but that's not the only reason opinions change. There's no guarantee younger generations will always have less awful...
I agree that generational change is a huge part of changing social attitudes, but that's not the only reason opinions change. There's no guarantee younger generations will always have less awful opinions either. History isn't a continual march towards progress.
It's an old study, but Pew Research shows that even a decade ago opinions were changing within generations. Personally knowing a gay person was the most common reason someone started supporting gay rights.
Totally. With a 22% turnover in Americans, there was a 40% shift in sentiment. People aren't completely static, but the change was definitely down to LGBT+ visibility among loved ones. Tying it...
Totally. With a 22% turnover in Americans, there was a 40% shift in sentiment. People aren't completely static, but the change was definitely down to LGBT+ visibility among loved ones. Tying it back to the racism the larger thread is talking about, it's a lot harder to overturn racism by the venue of someone one day discovering that their sister has been an undocumented immigrant all along.
That's reasonable. I still think it's possible for immigrants to bring energy and industry to dying rural areas though. Everyone agrees a shrinking population slowly kills towns, so immigration...
That's reasonable. I still think it's possible for immigrants to bring energy and industry to dying rural areas though.
Everyone agrees a shrinking population slowly kills towns, so immigration can play an important role in providing labor and opportunities in underserved regions. Meeting people and having new experiences could change some minds with time!
I agree, but I think it would be a hard sell in many cases. Many immigrants will want to settle in places with other people like them for a number of reasons, ranging from social support, a shared...
I agree, but I think it would be a hard sell in many cases. Many immigrants will want to settle in places with other people like them for a number of reasons, ranging from social support, a shared cultural experience of immigration from their region, existing understood career opportunities, etc. The reasons why there are chinatowns all over the USA still exist to this day. In the face of a larger indifferent or hostile population, it's all the more important to have a strong social network. Even the individual Chinese families that spread out across the continent to open restaurants in the mid-1900's did so on the back of direct restaurant management training and subsidized assistance from the more established cultural groups on the west coast.
So it's absolutely possible for immigrants to have a part in revitalizing underserved regions, but there have to be good reasons for them to go there as opposed to a place that will be more welcoming, more supportive, and with more established paths to making a living. They won't just go to some rural town full of people who won't give them a fair shake without some reason to think they can make a life there.
There's two ways I can see that happening.
The region develops natural word of mouth that it's a great place to live, the people are welcoming, and there's decent jobs worth moving there to have.
There's direct or indirect subsidies on some level that will make up for the uncertain welcome, unclear job prospects, and unwelcoming populace and draw people there.
Frankly, I don't see either of those being likely? I'd be interested if you see a different route forward, though.
To clarify a bit, I agree really small towns of a couple thousand people or less are unlikely to attract many immigrants. They can't even hold onto their current populations. However, some...
To clarify a bit, I agree really small towns of a couple thousand people or less are unlikely to attract many immigrants. They can't even hold onto their current populations.
However, some slightly larger industrial towns with shrinking labor pools and aging populations are already benefiting from immigration. I don't think there need to be any subsidies. Educated immigrants are a boost to the economy when allowed to work and engage with local industries. My favourite example is Maine integrating immigrants into the lobster industry:
Chadai Gatembo, 18, who came to Maine two years ago from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mr. Gatembo trekked into the United States from Central America, spent two weeks in a Texas detention center and then followed others who were originally from Congo to Maine. He lived in a youth shelter for a time, but now resides with foster parents, has learned English, has been approved for work authorization and is about to graduate from high school.
Mr. Gatembo would like to go to college, but he also enjoyed learning to lobster last summer. He is planning to do it again this year, entertaining the possibility of one day becoming a full-fledged lobsterman.
“Every immigrant, people from different countries, moved here looking for opportunities,” Mr. Gatembo said. “I have a lot of interests — lobster is one of them.”
I'm all on board with immigration, both as a way to bolster our fading native population and as an opportunity to share our quality of life (such as it is) with others. I love that article, but...
I'm all on board with immigration, both as a way to bolster our fading native population and as an opportunity to share our quality of life (such as it is) with others.
I love that article, but something stood out to me:
... and then followed others who were originally from Congo to Maine.
This is my point exactly. He went to Maine because there was already a welcoming community there. How do we make it happen more often when there isn't? How do we make it so that anyone, immigrants included, can easily move to any city that would benefit from more people, rather than depending on the specific cultural centers that individuals forged? If our country will continue to depend upon a flexible, atomized, and highly-mobile workforce, how do we support that, socially, so that people really can intermix?
I can think of plenty of small things like regulatory streamlining to support local development or reducing mortgage lengths, but I don't have any one comprehensive answer. Increasing immigrant...
I can think of plenty of small things like regulatory streamlining to support local development or reducing mortgage lengths, but I don't have any one comprehensive answer. Increasing immigrant labor visas and encouraging company sponsorship might help. It's a hard problem.
That said, new immigrant communities are forming and growing in some regions. I can't find any info on why the first Congolese immigrant moved to Maine (even this 2019 NYT article says it's a mystery). It almost seems a bit random where immigrant communities form sometimes, but they are forming and supporting local industries all the same.
There's a place for forgiveness and changing minds, sure. And simply calling people homophobes to their face is probably ineffective, but no one here is arguing that. You really seem to want to...
There's a place for forgiveness and changing minds, sure. And simply calling people homophobes to their face is probably ineffective, but no one here is arguing that.
You really seem to want to rewrite the story of the LGBT rights movement with homophobes as the main character, like it's all some kind of redemption story for homophobic people who saw the error of their ways and then gave gay people their rights out of the goodness of their heart because gay people really went out of their way to not offend their homophobic sensibilities. That's just not the way things happened, and it really diminishes the efforts and bravery of LGBT people in the movement.
It's great to think that some of them can change, but it's not a prerequisite. Step one isn't get all the homophobes to see the light and accept gay people. You can't fight homophobia by pretending homophobes don't exist, or fight racism pretending that racists don't exist, and then euphemistically downplaying homophobia and racism when the evidence is clear.
Many rural folk love their neighbor José and even enjoy the local taqueria and Chinese restaurant.
What does it really count for if they vote to deport José? Does it matter that they have a gay "friend" if they vote for keeping gay people from getting married? What's it count for if, while being "nice" to gay or black or trans or immigrant people to their face, among different company, they perpetuate all of the racist bias that puts all of those groups in danger?
I don't want to erase the gays from the gay rights movement. I've just been focusing on how we get people with bigoted opinions to soften their stances and come around to our side. I see where...
I don't want to erase the gays from the gay rights movement. I've just been focusing on how we get people with bigoted opinions to soften their stances and come around to our side.
What does it really count for if they vote to deport José? Does it matter that they have a gay "friend" if they vote for keeping gay people from getting married? What's it count for if, while being "nice" to gay or black or trans or immigrant people to their face, among different company, they perpetuate all of the racist bias that puts all of those groups in danger?
I see where you're coming from. A lot of people have conflicting ideas and practices though. Humans tend to be a big ball of contradictions and post-hoc reasoning! For example, how many environmentalists talk about how critical climate change is but don't drive a hybrid or electric car or try to cycle or take the train whenever possible?
I think it's completely normal for people to have contradictory actions and opinions. Obviously it's a problem that some people hold racist opinions or vote against their interests. I think we'd agree it's much easier to explain the benefits of immigration to someone that personally enjoys Taco Tuesdays or the local falafel shop though.
I've had a much easier time convincing my grandmother to vote for parties that support gay marriage as more people in our extended family have come out as gay. Unless there's some great gay replacement conspiracy I don't know about, we'll always need loving allies to create lasting support for queer people. Minorities need the support of a majority in democracies.
I think that's a great comparison, and the lesson I take from it is: these changes are mostly generational, not individual. I grew up in a Catholic environment where homophobia was the norm and I...
I think that's a great comparison, and the lesson I take from it is: these changes are mostly generational, not individual. I grew up in a Catholic environment where homophobia was the norm and I have never witnessed an adult changing their mind about this. Rather, many of those adults failed to convince their children because we had access to art and media that contained stronger arguments.
I don’t really know who you think is expecting there to be no effort on the parts of people expressing racism and I don’t really know who you think is tiptoeing around “calling racism what it is”,...
I don’t really know who you think is expecting there to be no effort on the parts of people expressing racism and I don’t really know who you think is tiptoeing around “calling racism what it is”, but it sure isn’t me. And I also do not understand what in particular you were referring to when you say that efforts to understand racism “does in fact justify that racism”.
All I’m saying is you have to believe that there is some other answer then “they are just racist and angry simple as that and it can’t be changed” because then you will be left with only one way to solve the problem and I really want you to think about what that way is and decide if you are comfortable with that.
This article is the authors of White Rural Rage responding to accusations that they misrepresented research by saying essentially that they misrepresented nothing; they just didn't tiptoe around...
This article is the authors of White Rural Rage responding to accusations that they misrepresented research by saying essentially that they misrepresented nothing; they just didn't tiptoe around the fact that the research itself clearly illustrated racism among white rural people. I referred to that. I also quoted what the kinds of solutions they hint at.
All I’m saying is you have to believe that there is some other answer then “they are just racist and angry simple as that and it can’t be changed” because then you will be left with only one way to solve the problem and I really want you to think about what that way is and decide if you are comfortable with that.
I think you've created your own bleak, false dichotomy here. In which we either roll over and accept that they must have some rational reason for their racism or ... what? It seems like you're making some vague reference to violence as if it's an inevitability, but I think the way forward has more possibilities that you imagine.
There's a difference between say, recognizing economic and social challenges faced by rural Americans and understanding the reasons why they are racist or xenophobic. Addressing the economic and social challenges facing rural Americans is solvable and you can do that without caring whatsoever about why they're racist because economic challenges are not reasons for their racism.
Like the White Rage the passage I quoted, you can certainly offer rural voters more than the politicians who take advantage of their racism. Republicans aren't keeping rural hospitals open and affordable, they're not creating economic opportunity for rural Americans. Deporting dreamers doesn't help rural people, anti-trans legislation doesn't help them. The list goes on.
We don't have to change them. We don't have to understand their racism as if their racism is something reasonable. We don't have to cater to their racist concerns. That's not the same as taking no action at all, and there's not "only one way left to solve the problem" as you claim.
Honest question: do you really read what I wrote and think that I believe that there might be a rational reason to be racist? Because it’s not true, and I feel like a lot of what you’re saying is...
Honest question: do you really read what I wrote and think that I believe that there might be a rational reason to be racist? Because it’s not true, and I feel like a lot of what you’re saying is based on this incorrect inference about me so until we clear that up, I’d prefer not to engage with the rest of this comment.
I have no reason to believe that you intend to rationalize racism and I likewise didn't and don't intend to make that point. Hope that makes that clear. I read what you wrote and also this...
I have no reason to believe that you intend to rationalize racism and I likewise didn't and don't intend to make that point. Hope that makes that clear.
I read what you wrote and also this comment. I am more under the impression that you missed a key argument the authors of White Rural Rage, which I more or less reiterated.
I'm rather surprised there aren't more 3edgy5me lefty types who stir shit online about a "fentanyl solution to the honkey problem." Heck, there aren't even any notable edgy right-wingers LARPing...
If you really think that rural white Americans are just stupid racists that will never change, and there’s literally nothing anyone who isn’t a rural white American can do about it, I really feel like there’s only two choices at that point and I’m not comfortable with it at all.
I'm rather surprised there aren't more 3edgy5me lefty types who stir shit online about a "fentanyl solution to the honkey problem." Heck, there aren't even any notable edgy right-wingers LARPing as radical minority racialists saying these things to cause drama. It's suspiciously quiet. Hopefully it stays that way.
The usual lies, damned lies, and statistics line. "They've got a point about immigrants using welfare!" AND? Welfare is a net positive and improves earning potential which means more contributions...
The usual lies, damned lies, and statistics line. "They've got a point about immigrants using welfare!" AND? Welfare is a net positive and improves earning potential which means more contributions to taxes.
But I'm guessing all the rural voters are good with corn subsidies.
It's all a justification for fear of the other. Why not, instead of justifying their hatred, we speak of the success of welfare programs in maintaining a basic quality of life while integrating into the American system? Why not be mad at Walmart for having their employees require benefits to survive instead of the people, members of their community, who work there?
Your examples do a good job of identifying a major culprit when discussing complex issues - we take the framing of these issues for granted when discussing them. When the blame is shifted from the...
Your examples do a good job of identifying a major culprit when discussing complex issues - we take the framing of these issues for granted when discussing them.
When the blame is shifted from the worker to Wal-Mart exclusively, or from the success of a welfare state to hate for life circumstances of those unless prosperous places, the whole discussion gets muddled.
In line with your examples, I wish that there was more room for saying "Wal Mart workers and shoppers, what role did you play in ruining main street in your community" or "if you're in the south and on the dole, why do you still vote for governments who would erase your benefits?".
These quandaries are wrapped up in North American ideas about pride and bootstrap pulling that make people ignorant to sense and victimhood. Useful idiots is what the right calls these people, and 'worth ignoring' seems to be the constant position of the left.
Which really has never helped. People seem to love to demonize others but then defend people in similar circumstances. What should be done with someone who's poorly educated and voting against...
and 'worth ignoring' seems to be the constant position of the left.
Which really has never helped. People seem to love to demonize others but then defend people in similar circumstances. What should be done with someone who's poorly educated and voting against their own interests? The answer to that shouldn't depend on your region, skin color, religion, or anything else, and yet it sure seems to.
It's always chapped my ass that my fellow left of center do-gooders immediately mock a southern accent when mocking everything they dislike about the opposing side (and I'm in Canada for...
It's always chapped my ass that my fellow left of center do-gooders immediately mock a southern accent when mocking everything they dislike about the opposing side (and I'm in Canada for christsakes).
It's shitty team sport behavior for people who love straw men arguments and monolithic bad guys, and takes no steps to understand the lived experience of those they consider the enemy.
Being some intellectuals reactions to other intellectuals reactions to the first intellectuals book, this piece can't avoid having the tint of cringe. But forget that, because this bit is...
Being some intellectuals reactions to other intellectuals reactions to the first intellectuals book, this piece can't avoid having the tint of cringe. But forget that, because this bit is hilarious:
Soon after, Jacobs and his co-author write, “On a range of race-related questions, responses from rural residents veer from those of other Americans—and even from other Republicans—in significant ways.” As you might have guessed, “veer from” is the euphemism they deploy to say that rural whites express more racist attitudes. “And yet,” they go on, “for many rural residents, attitudes about races are intimately linked to perceptions of hard work, self-reliance, a disdain for government handouts, and the dangers of elites.” What they’re arguing, then, is that it’s not that many rural whites (to reiterate, not all, but many) are racist per se, it’s just that they think nonwhites don’t work hard, aren’t self-reliant, and are the clients of nefarious “elites.”
I noticed that abovementioned Nicholas Jacobs (co-writer of The Rural Voter) is the same guy whose criticism of the book was mentioned in this Tilde thread
I hope you can keep track, but here I quote myself from above thread quoting him:
I've also noticed this bit (emphasis mine)
On specific issues, this politics would acknowledge that rural and nonrural Trump voters see issues through different lenses, even if, come Election Day, they are voting the same way; you have to talk to them differently. On immigration, it would mean accepting the fact that, in some communities, particularly those with financial challenges, concerns about the social burden of immigration is not always an expression of hate.
But the author links to another article to support this claim. Guess I have to quote that, too.
Schaller and Waldman note, for example, that rural whites are more likely than urban and suburban Americans to see immigrants as a “burden on our country”. Yet the authors never consider if these respondents might have facts in their favour. According to the latest Survey of Income and Program Participation by the US Census, more than half of immigrant-headed households use at least one public welfare programme, compared with 39 per cent for native-born households. It is true that immigrants fare somewhat better when scholars study individual, rather than household, welfare use. But the point is that fears over immigration’s social burdens are neither obviously wrong nor necessarily hateful.
So the authors says that those not-college-educated people-of-the land folksy folks who vote Trump because the intellectuals are being mean to them, suddenly their concern about non-white people are based on statistics. It's just science, and not racist at all. And therefore (this is what the author is hinting) we should do something against the immigrants to win the folksy folks over.
The majority of Danish political parties have gone this route, trying to cater to the voters concern about non-white people. And sure, it may win some voters over, but I think that the right are simply better at being racist.
(Of course, the author doesn't actuallly say we should do something against the immigrants, he just say that the rural peoples concern about non-white people are not really racist and we should "accepting the fact" ... so he's not saying it, but he's also not not saying it. I know it is a very short paragraph I'm replying to, but the idea of trying to appeal to a target groups concern about non-white people, without mentioning how, exactly, we should do that, to me it sounds like he's being intentially vague.)
This sounds a bit like a rhetorical trick I've noticed in Denmark, where urban people use the rural people (or just "people") as a shield for their own opinions, transfering their own view on the non-white as analytic or understanding of the concerns of the rural populace.
This quote stuck out to me. That’s a lot of words to say, “I’m not racist but…” and we all know full well that when you hear that statement, someone is about to say some racist shit.
What they’re arguing, then, is that it’s not that many rural whites (to reiterate, not all, but many) are racist per se, it’s just that they think nonwhites don’t work hard, aren’t self-reliant, and are the clients of nefarious “elites.”
This quote stuck out to me. That’s a lot of words to say, “I’m not racist but…” and we all know full well that when you hear that statement, someone is about to say some racist shit.
Finding racism in poor, uneducated communities disconnected from the social mainstream shouldn't be surprising. There's the same kind and intensity of racism in poor Black and Latino communities....
Finding racism in poor, uneducated communities disconnected from the social mainstream shouldn't be surprising. There's the same kind and intensity of racism in poor Black and Latino communities.
That kind of relative low social status, lack of education, and social disconnection/isolation naturally produce racism.
I'd say that's partially true, but I think the flames are purposely and continuously fanned by the content and media they consume. They aren't living in a bubble.
I'd say that's partially true, but I think the flames are purposely and continuously fanned by the content and media they consume. They aren't living in a bubble.
True, but that's also true of every community, and especially true of people who lack education: they are susceptible to content that affirm their biases. The purpose of education is challenge...
True, but that's also true of every community, and especially true of people who lack education: they are susceptible to content that affirm their biases.
The purpose of education is challenge one's own biases and to (hopefully) cultivate a mind that continually self-examines.
Aren't rural whites living a bubble though? I think there's little social crossover with liberal educated or POC societal bubbles.
I actually wonder if this wouldn't change without the electoral college and without house districts working the way they do right now. Currently everything is so gerrymandered, you can actually...
I actually wonder if this wouldn't change without the electoral college and without house districts working the way they do right now. Currently everything is so gerrymandered, you can actually forget certain areas from a political perspective. The people who don't think this way can be drowned out by those who do, and then feel disillusioned themselves by being ignored.
Or the related "I want to stop immigration but only to stop right-wing extremism I swear" takes I've been seeing far too much recently. Even here on Tildes.
Or the related "I want to stop immigration but only to stop right-wing extremism I swear" takes I've been seeing far too much recently. Even here on Tildes.
I understand the point you're trying to make, but I'm not sure it helps Tildes as a community to link a three month old post to bring up meta grievances. There's a malice label if you feel it's...
I understand the point you're trying to make, but I'm not sure it helps Tildes as a community to link a three month old post to bring up meta grievances. There's a malice label if you feel it's necessary, though I personally want to hear diverse perspectives to learn how people think.
Yeah I follow the train of thought. Fortunately, I think it's okay to discuss ideas and trends broadly. Not every statement has to have a source or citation. Mostly, I want to avoid creating any...
Yeah I follow the train of thought. Fortunately, I think it's okay to discuss ideas and trends broadly. Not every statement has to have a source or citation. Mostly, I want to avoid creating any bad blood within the community :)
Is it really overdue? I've been seeing articles like this one pop up occasionally since 2016. The cause of rural white resentment doesn't matter. Putting an end to it does. Trump doesn't care...
Is it really overdue?
I've been seeing articles like this one pop up occasionally since 2016.
The cause of rural white resentment doesn't matter. Putting an end to it does.
Trump doesn't care about them. Trump was POTUS for 4 years and did nothing for them .
Trump only cares about himself and by extension, the rich.
People who vote for Trump hoping to see a positive difference are fools.
You sound like you want to put an end to BeanBurrito's argument. Why not understand their cause and where they're coming from? Why does one side deserve compassion and understanding but the other...
You sound like you want to put an end to BeanBurrito's argument. Why not understand their cause and where they're coming from? Why does one side deserve compassion and understanding but the other doesn't?
Many political sides tend to have some amount of validity. Being against that side doesn't always mean you don't understand that side but that the person may realize when you do sympathize with it, it makes that side stronger and the extreme versions of that side feel emboldened to commit violence. In some climates, tolerance for some political ideologies can create flare-ups which won't have tolerance for you and your ideology so people are cautious to sympathize with it, it doesn't mean they don't understand it.
I'm white, male, rural and I've never felt like people should cry for me because I don't feel understood; if anything I feel like that notion is way over-played. The relatively recent upheaval that initiated with the Tea Party a decade ago when they de-cried that the world wasn't giving them enough attention, I just don't understand it. Then again I'm rural because I like the world to forget about me. I don't expect people to pay attention to me as I do my own thing and expect the world not to evolve around me.
I can't tell if you got the point of my post backward or not. It's a nonsensical statement. Understanding the causes is vital to putting an end to it with nonviolent means.
I can't tell if you got the point of my post backward or not.
The cause of rural white resentment doesn't matter. Putting an end to it does.
It's a nonsensical statement. Understanding the causes is vital to putting an end to it with nonviolent means.
You have my intentions confused. I don't want to "put an end to it". People are just always going to be unsatisfied about something and not every minor problem can be solved. Yeah, those people...
You have my intentions confused. I don't want to "put an end to it". People are just always going to be unsatisfied about something and not every minor problem can be solved. Yeah, those people have problems. I have problems. Everyone has problems. I'm just not quick to resort to saying other people are the cause of my problems and I think it's something we'd be better off learning.
I haven't read the book or the criticism of that book that this article is responding to, so I'm not sure whether they have a good point about the "scholars" they seem to be at war with. It all...
I haven't read the book or the criticism of that book that this article is responding to, so I'm not sure whether they have a good point about the "scholars" they seem to be at war with.
It all seems kind of moot to me. America needs an honest assessment of rural white resentment to happen among rural whites themselves, and no amount of scholarly books or think pieces is going to reach them. They think you're a pedophilic satanist who wants to inject them with poison and brainwash their children to be gay.
100%. As much as I think the Jacobs critique posted recently did point out an important difference between resentment and anger and how to approach them, that article would go nowhere with the...
100%. As much as I think the Jacobs critique posted recently did point out an important difference between resentment and anger and how to approach them, that article would go nowhere with the people he's begging "everyone" to try to understand. Even using the term "a politics" is an immediate conversation ender for most people.
And in politics especially if 55% of demographic group vote a certain way then all discussions get short handed into “demographic group believes this” when in fact 45% of demographic group voted...
And in politics especially if 55% of demographic group vote a certain way then all discussions get short handed into “demographic group believes this” when in fact 45% of demographic group voted the other way.
I hate to be so reductive to say they're just dumb and racist. But man does it really seem to come down to that a lot of the time. You can dress it up but it always seems to be just a ton of...
I hate to be so reductive to say they're just dumb and racist. But man does it really seem to come down to that a lot of the time.
You can dress it up but it always seems to be just a ton of people who don't understand why bad things are happening to them. They either can't or wont look at the real situation or causes and blindly trust some of the most obviously untrustworthy prople. Then actively fight against their own self interest, dragging the rest of the country along with them.
This feels like you described my parents to a T. Especially the won't look at the real situation and blindly trust some of the most obviously untrustworthy people. sigh. And when they look at me...
This feels like you described my parents to a T. Especially the won't look at the real situation and blindly trust some of the most obviously untrustworthy people. sigh. And when they look at me and see the same so they refuse to listen to me... how do you reach out to some one that willfully blind? My stepmom will hide behind "you can't trust anyone" while completely trusting Trump, Tucker Carlson, and Fox News (unless they say something she doesn't agree with like when I pointed out even Fox News said Trump said something that even she couldn't deny made trump look bad... then all media is bad).
If only we could teach intellectual humility in school. People need to be okay sitting with the thought that they might be wrong - maybe have been for quite a while. If you've trained that mental...
Exemplary
If only we could teach intellectual humility in school. People need to be okay sitting with the thought that they might be wrong - maybe have been for quite a while. If you've trained that mental muscle well it's little more than a sting and then you can pull your head up and take a less biased accounting of the options to move to.
There are a lot of videos (like this one) where people are forced to reveal their self-contradictions. These people are clearly trying to reconcile two different matters that can not be reconciled. And to be fair, if you're put on the spot with a camera in your face it's not exactly a comfortable moment where you can sit and reflect as long as you need. But I really do doubt that these people end up reorganizing their thoughts much afterwards. If you want to be right, and it's clear that "being right" is a strong driving force among humans, it means being able to acknowledge certain things you believed in were wrong. You have to work backwards and find where something went wrong, pluck that out, and then re-assess everything downstream from there.
I mean to be fair, I know I can fall into the same trap (I hate being wrong and I really hate admitting it. I might admit it to myself later after the fact and honor sometimes gets me to then...
I mean to be fair, I know I can fall into the same trap (I hate being wrong and I really hate admitting it. I might admit it to myself later after the fact and honor sometimes gets me to then admit it to the person that I was wrong. So the parents I refer to up there are my stepmom and my dad but my mom and dad are both very stubborn about admitting they are wrong. But I try to at least be more like my mom who if you back off will think about it and admit she is wrong if she decides she is. My dad though will come up with reasons why he was right. My stepmom isn't so bad about being stubborn but she's super brainwashed by Fox News and also knows I myself have a habit of not liking to admit I'm wrong so she uses that against me when we argue too saying I'm just like her but am the one believing the liars. I try to argue with her that at least I can admit I have bias but she doesn't get that not being able to even see your bias makes you much more susceptible to lies.
When an opinion piece calls for a grand reexamination of a viewpoint or a national conversation, what exactly are they asking for? Even if we could get everyone in America on the same Zoom call,...
When an opinion piece calls for a grand reexamination of a viewpoint or a national conversation, what exactly are they asking for? Even if we could get everyone in America on the same Zoom call, we'll probably just go back to our corners when it comes to our biases.
Yet opinions clearly change over time. Somehow, interracial marriage was normalized in the past century even though it used to be forbidden. There must be some way that hearts and minds change...
Yet opinions clearly change over time. Somehow, interracial marriage was normalized in the past century even though it used to be forbidden. There must be some way that hearts and minds change over the years. Maybe someone's rhetoric convinces someone or some event sparks a change of heart.
I find so much of the rhetoric in this thread so disturbing, and I just want everyone to honestly think what solutions you’re leaving yourself once you’ve accepted the premise that all these problems are solely the responsibility of the marginalized group in question, and that any attempt to contextualize these problems into broader social issues is dishonest, and somehow an attempt to justify or excuse the behavior rather than merely understand it.
If you really think that rural white Americans are just stupid racists that will never change, and there’s literally nothing anyone who isn’t a rural white American can do about it, I really feel like there’s only two choices at that point and I’m not comfortable with it at all.
Yeah it disturbs me a bit as well. This topic has 'locked' written all over it, so might be a waste of time for me to even comment, but I'll give it a shot anyhow.
I get the feeling that it's sort of a retaliatory type of thinking where 'the other side' does it, so there's no point in having nuance in opinions over others who have very different perspectives or lives from our own if others can't do it either.
I know there's lots of genuinely racist people out there, I mean you don't have the history that the US has without it having once existed and I find that it's natural there is going to be generational carryover of that so it's not like it goes away entirely even if as a whole the country has made great strides. However I do find that it's quite destructive and detracts from otherwise valid perspectives when there's this automatic assumption of 'racist' of wide swathes of people when much of it is not truly racism as it is just racial bias. What I mean is that calling someone a racist makes it so they devalue your perspective, and in many cases it's possible that the person isn't harboring ill-intentions towards other races or they may have some thoughts of idealism towards racial equality but they fall short of that through numerous racial biases they may have ingrained in them that they don't realize. To simply label them as a racist is to them a radical mislabeling that makes the one calling them that both appear to be unreasonable and delusional because it doesn't match how they perceive themselves. This labeling of people who might have decent or non-harmful intentions is stripping the humanity out conversations and interactions and it sends us down a road where I also don't think there's any good outcomes.
And I'm not necessarily just solely criticizing people for acting this way, I get that the environment makes it so you're either like a doormat, being taken advantage of, or simply not having a conversation in good faith in any case when you attempt to take the high road and the other people with different perspectives simply don't care and still act with the same deficits that fit the above. Even if you stop calling varying groups of people racists, it doesn't stop them from labeling you all kinds of various things and treating you in a negative manner. I don't know the solutions to that, personally I find that somewhat similar to the idea of me going into a middle school or high school, where I'd be emotionally or mentally inept at dealing with teenagers that might harass me or such and retaliation isn't an option and neither is rational argument. It's partly why I've thought I could never handle being a teacher in those environments, I have no idea how one handles such situations.
The thing that I really hate about this book and this article in particular, is basically all of the people they’re referencing, in my opinion, seem highly aware of all of these problems, and don’t even hesitate to talk about them. In fact, from what I find in my studies, the broad majority of their research is principally concerned with trying to understand and explain where these feelings are coming from. Whereas the people who wrote this book and this article seem to be content to just leave it at “they are just angry, racist people, it’s that simple”.
I think a very important thing to consider is that racism was not always geographically constrained in the United States. 150 years ago racism was prevalent as hell pretty much everywhere, in cities, in the countryside, wherever. So why is it that nobody ever bothers to ask “what are the sociological factors that went into urban areas being so much more successful when it came to overcoming racist attitudes than rural ones, and is it really nothing that we can’t find a way to extend to rural areas today?”
I think a lot of the decline in overtly racist views in urban areas came from the dismantling of redlining, segregation, and other policies that kept races separated even when they lived in the same area. Rural areas had these policies undone as well, but the lower population density of rural areas means that natural comingling happens slower than in cities.
The natural solution is to have people in rural areas do more travel to urban areas or other countries, attend universities away from their original rural communities, or take jobs that are outside of their original communities. The military integrating was a big factor in desegregation more widely in the US because people of all races and birthplaces had to learn to trust and rely on each other in combat.
I feel like co-mingling is part of it but perhaps not all.
Cities became far far far richer than rural communities, and cities tend to be where you chose to go. ie, folks who moved into the city were the outsiders who had to shift their views to adjust. There is this generational "I used to be a rural person, now I have folks from other races as my new neighbors and also I became so much richer"
Contrast with the plight of the rual communities exploited by big coal and big fisher and Walmart et al:
We've always been here doing our thing, now we have imported labour undercutting our wages drastically and we became so much poorer.
How the heck else are they supposed to feel about the new people in their community that exploitative employers brought in? When city people talk about immigration, we're talking about middle class families coming and there's a cool new restaurant on the block, or a software engineer, or even that refugee family that came and opened up a chocolate shop. We're not talking about welcoming a bus load of impoverished workers who live "on campus" at the fishing yard who can be paid fewer peanuts than you.
I agree that doomerism isn't constructive, but is there any way to confront racism expecting no effort on the part of racists? Who benefits from tiptoeing around calling racism what it is? When 'understanding' or 'contextualizing' racism does in fact justify that racism, who does it help?
It's equally un-constructive to ignore the problem by validating racism whatsoever or "understand" them on any level that lends credibility to it; you're not going to beat the right wing at their own game.
The comments on tildes are less optimistic than the White Rage authors:
Maybe it's a bad comparison, but how did gay rights activists start building support in countries where over 90% of the population said same sex attraction was an abomination?
I kinda doubt they started by calling everyone homophobic. That might play well amongst your allies that already support what you're advocating for, but I think you need a different tact to educate people and bring them into the fold.
They kind of did, actually. Here in the US the event that is considered to have kicked off the gay rights movement was a riot. People calling a spade a spade is an important part of the overall discourse.
LGBT rights are also far from a settled thing. There are tons of people who are biding their time to relieve us of our hard-earned rights or to make our lives more miserable.
It's certainly an interesting comparison to bring up when gay rights advanced by framing the movement as Love vs Hate. I'd say it's pretty hard to characterize the gay rights movement as shying away from calling their opponents hateful.
Gay rights have seen success because gay people didn't stay in the closet for fear that they might alienate homophobic family, friends or neighbors. Sure gay rights weren't won by calling people homophobes and calling it a day, but the LGBT movement also didn't wait around to bring homophobes into the fold. And many of those homophobes never came into the fold. It's not the fault of the gay rights movement that gay children don't talk their homophobic parents anymore.
Over the last several years, LGBT rights have lost ground to right-wingers who have found inroads via "centrists" who frequently and obsessively worry that the "woke" trans people have gone too far. And then gay teachers get fired, books get banned, trans teenagers get what little support they had taken away. Of course these so-called centrists say they disagree with all of that authoritarian conservative stuff like book bans, and then go right back to commiserating with homophobes about how too far the woke have gone.
I don't want to get too deep into queer stuff because it's just going to get messy, but I feel like there has to be a space for forgiveness and changing minds. In our lifetimes, millions of people have gone from being disgusted by gay people to supportive allies.
Love vs hate is really useful when you're trying to help a person understand the broad movement. It's much less useful to personally call someone a hateful homophobe that wants gay people to stay in the closet. Even if it's true, people usually aren't persuaded by direct attacks. Calling someone racist to their face has the same effect. Their behavior can definitely be racist, but I don't think it changes any minds to directly attack them (because modern racists already know that racism is bad).
Love vs hate is a perfectly fine framing, but it wasn't the only framing either. As you were getting at, normalizing same sex attraction was a hugely important part of the movement. Nowadays, most people personally know a gay person, and it's much harder for someone to hate their friends and family.
I feel like race relations are very similar. Many rural folk love their neighbor José and even enjoy the local taqueria and Chinese restaurant. It's easy to be racist in the abstract or even in a mob, but it's much harder to personally hate someone you know. Building strong and diverse local communities is a much more effective way to fight racism.
In our lifetimes, millions of people have died and been replaced by new people.
About 1% of the US population dies each year. (1000 deaths per 100,000 people.) In 1996, 68% of Americans opposed same-sex marriage, while only 27% supported. In 2018, 67% of Americans supported same-sex marriage, while only 31% opposed. That's 22 years, or enough time for a whole generation to come to adulthood, and for 22% of Americans to die. There is still some shift not attributed to replacement, but if you look at the General Social Survey data for approval of same-sex sexual relations, you can see that for a given person, favorability is basically unchanging. In 2000, 46% of 18-34 year olds said it was wrong. 18 years later in 2018, 46% of people 35-49 said it was wrong.
TL;DR: It's not all about people changing their minds, it's often people with bigoted beliefs dying off and being replaced by less awful people.
I agree that generational change is a huge part of changing social attitudes, but that's not the only reason opinions change. There's no guarantee younger generations will always have less awful opinions either. History isn't a continual march towards progress.
It's an old study, but Pew Research shows that even a decade ago opinions were changing within generations. Personally knowing a gay person was the most common reason someone started supporting gay rights.
Totally. With a 22% turnover in Americans, there was a 40% shift in sentiment. People aren't completely static, but the change was definitely down to LGBT+ visibility among loved ones. Tying it back to the racism the larger thread is talking about, it's a lot harder to overturn racism by the venue of someone one day discovering that their sister has been an undocumented immigrant all along.
That's reasonable. I still think it's possible for immigrants to bring energy and industry to dying rural areas though.
Everyone agrees a shrinking population slowly kills towns, so immigration can play an important role in providing labor and opportunities in underserved regions. Meeting people and having new experiences could change some minds with time!
I agree, but I think it would be a hard sell in many cases. Many immigrants will want to settle in places with other people like them for a number of reasons, ranging from social support, a shared cultural experience of immigration from their region, existing understood career opportunities, etc. The reasons why there are chinatowns all over the USA still exist to this day. In the face of a larger indifferent or hostile population, it's all the more important to have a strong social network. Even the individual Chinese families that spread out across the continent to open restaurants in the mid-1900's did so on the back of direct restaurant management training and subsidized assistance from the more established cultural groups on the west coast.
So it's absolutely possible for immigrants to have a part in revitalizing underserved regions, but there have to be good reasons for them to go there as opposed to a place that will be more welcoming, more supportive, and with more established paths to making a living. They won't just go to some rural town full of people who won't give them a fair shake without some reason to think they can make a life there.
There's two ways I can see that happening.
Frankly, I don't see either of those being likely? I'd be interested if you see a different route forward, though.
To clarify a bit, I agree really small towns of a couple thousand people or less are unlikely to attract many immigrants. They can't even hold onto their current populations.
However, some slightly larger industrial towns with shrinking labor pools and aging populations are already benefiting from immigration. I don't think there need to be any subsidies. Educated immigrants are a boost to the economy when allowed to work and engage with local industries. My favourite example is Maine integrating immigrants into the lobster industry:
I'm all on board with immigration, both as a way to bolster our fading native population and as an opportunity to share our quality of life (such as it is) with others.
I love that article, but something stood out to me:
This is my point exactly. He went to Maine because there was already a welcoming community there. How do we make it happen more often when there isn't? How do we make it so that anyone, immigrants included, can easily move to any city that would benefit from more people, rather than depending on the specific cultural centers that individuals forged? If our country will continue to depend upon a flexible, atomized, and highly-mobile workforce, how do we support that, socially, so that people really can intermix?
I can think of plenty of small things like regulatory streamlining to support local development or reducing mortgage lengths, but I don't have any one comprehensive answer. Increasing immigrant labor visas and encouraging company sponsorship might help. It's a hard problem.
That said, new immigrant communities are forming and growing in some regions. I can't find any info on why the first Congolese immigrant moved to Maine (even this 2019 NYT article says it's a mystery). It almost seems a bit random where immigrant communities form sometimes, but they are forming and supporting local industries all the same.
There's a place for forgiveness and changing minds, sure. And simply calling people homophobes to their face is probably ineffective, but no one here is arguing that.
You really seem to want to rewrite the story of the LGBT rights movement with homophobes as the main character, like it's all some kind of redemption story for homophobic people who saw the error of their ways and then gave gay people their rights out of the goodness of their heart because gay people really went out of their way to not offend their homophobic sensibilities. That's just not the way things happened, and it really diminishes the efforts and bravery of LGBT people in the movement.
It's great to think that some of them can change, but it's not a prerequisite. Step one isn't get all the homophobes to see the light and accept gay people. You can't fight homophobia by pretending homophobes don't exist, or fight racism pretending that racists don't exist, and then euphemistically downplaying homophobia and racism when the evidence is clear.
What does it really count for if they vote to deport José? Does it matter that they have a gay "friend" if they vote for keeping gay people from getting married? What's it count for if, while being "nice" to gay or black or trans or immigrant people to their face, among different company, they perpetuate all of the racist bias that puts all of those groups in danger?
I don't want to erase the gays from the gay rights movement. I've just been focusing on how we get people with bigoted opinions to soften their stances and come around to our side.
I see where you're coming from. A lot of people have conflicting ideas and practices though. Humans tend to be a big ball of contradictions and post-hoc reasoning! For example, how many environmentalists talk about how critical climate change is but don't drive a hybrid or electric car or try to cycle or take the train whenever possible?
I think it's completely normal for people to have contradictory actions and opinions. Obviously it's a problem that some people hold racist opinions or vote against their interests. I think we'd agree it's much easier to explain the benefits of immigration to someone that personally enjoys Taco Tuesdays or the local falafel shop though.
I've had a much easier time convincing my grandmother to vote for parties that support gay marriage as more people in our extended family have come out as gay. Unless there's some great gay replacement conspiracy I don't know about, we'll always need loving allies to create lasting support for queer people. Minorities need the support of a majority in democracies.
I think that's a great comparison, and the lesson I take from it is: these changes are mostly generational, not individual. I grew up in a Catholic environment where homophobia was the norm and I have never witnessed an adult changing their mind about this. Rather, many of those adults failed to convince their children because we had access to art and media that contained stronger arguments.
I don’t really know who you think is expecting there to be no effort on the parts of people expressing racism and I don’t really know who you think is tiptoeing around “calling racism what it is”, but it sure isn’t me. And I also do not understand what in particular you were referring to when you say that efforts to understand racism “does in fact justify that racism”.
All I’m saying is you have to believe that there is some other answer then “they are just racist and angry simple as that and it can’t be changed” because then you will be left with only one way to solve the problem and I really want you to think about what that way is and decide if you are comfortable with that.
This article is the authors of White Rural Rage responding to accusations that they misrepresented research by saying essentially that they misrepresented nothing; they just didn't tiptoe around the fact that the research itself clearly illustrated racism among white rural people. I referred to that. I also quoted what the kinds of solutions they hint at.
I think you've created your own bleak, false dichotomy here. In which we either roll over and accept that they must have some rational reason for their racism or ... what? It seems like you're making some vague reference to violence as if it's an inevitability, but I think the way forward has more possibilities that you imagine.
There's a difference between say, recognizing economic and social challenges faced by rural Americans and understanding the reasons why they are racist or xenophobic. Addressing the economic and social challenges facing rural Americans is solvable and you can do that without caring whatsoever about why they're racist because economic challenges are not reasons for their racism.
Like the White Rage the passage I quoted, you can certainly offer rural voters more than the politicians who take advantage of their racism. Republicans aren't keeping rural hospitals open and affordable, they're not creating economic opportunity for rural Americans. Deporting dreamers doesn't help rural people, anti-trans legislation doesn't help them. The list goes on.
We don't have to change them. We don't have to understand their racism as if their racism is something reasonable. We don't have to cater to their racist concerns. That's not the same as taking no action at all, and there's not "only one way left to solve the problem" as you claim.
Honest question: do you really read what I wrote and think that I believe that there might be a rational reason to be racist? Because it’s not true, and I feel like a lot of what you’re saying is based on this incorrect inference about me so until we clear that up, I’d prefer not to engage with the rest of this comment.
I have no reason to believe that you intend to rationalize racism and I likewise didn't and don't intend to make that point. Hope that makes that clear.
I read what you wrote and also this comment. I am more under the impression that you missed a key argument the authors of White Rural Rage, which I more or less reiterated.
I'm rather surprised there aren't more 3edgy5me lefty types who stir shit online about a "fentanyl solution to the honkey problem." Heck, there aren't even any notable edgy right-wingers LARPing as radical minority racialists saying these things to cause drama. It's suspiciously quiet. Hopefully it stays that way.
The usual lies, damned lies, and statistics line. "They've got a point about immigrants using welfare!" AND? Welfare is a net positive and improves earning potential which means more contributions to taxes.
But I'm guessing all the rural voters are good with corn subsidies.
It's all a justification for fear of the other. Why not, instead of justifying their hatred, we speak of the success of welfare programs in maintaining a basic quality of life while integrating into the American system? Why not be mad at Walmart for having their employees require benefits to survive instead of the people, members of their community, who work there?
There's my honest assessment.
Your examples do a good job of identifying a major culprit when discussing complex issues - we take the framing of these issues for granted when discussing them.
When the blame is shifted from the worker to Wal-Mart exclusively, or from the success of a welfare state to hate for life circumstances of those unless prosperous places, the whole discussion gets muddled.
In line with your examples, I wish that there was more room for saying "Wal Mart workers and shoppers, what role did you play in ruining main street in your community" or "if you're in the south and on the dole, why do you still vote for governments who would erase your benefits?".
These quandaries are wrapped up in North American ideas about pride and bootstrap pulling that make people ignorant to sense and victimhood. Useful idiots is what the right calls these people, and 'worth ignoring' seems to be the constant position of the left.
Which really has never helped. People seem to love to demonize others but then defend people in similar circumstances. What should be done with someone who's poorly educated and voting against their own interests? The answer to that shouldn't depend on your region, skin color, religion, or anything else, and yet it sure seems to.
It's always chapped my ass that my fellow left of center do-gooders immediately mock a southern accent when mocking everything they dislike about the opposing side (and I'm in Canada for christsakes).
It's shitty team sport behavior for people who love straw men arguments and monolithic bad guys, and takes no steps to understand the lived experience of those they consider the enemy.
Being some intellectuals reactions to other intellectuals reactions to the first intellectuals book, this piece can't avoid having the tint of cringe. But forget that, because this bit is hilarious:
I noticed that abovementioned Nicholas Jacobs (co-writer of The Rural Voter) is the same guy whose criticism of the book was mentioned in this Tilde thread
I hope you can keep track, but here I quote myself from above thread quoting him:
This sounds a bit like a rhetorical trick I've noticed in Denmark, where urban people use the rural people (or just "people") as a shield for their own opinions, transfering their own view on the non-white as analytic or understanding of the concerns of the rural populace.
This quote stuck out to me. That’s a lot of words to say, “I’m not racist but…” and we all know full well that when you hear that statement, someone is about to say some racist shit.
Finding racism in poor, uneducated communities disconnected from the social mainstream shouldn't be surprising. There's the same kind and intensity of racism in poor Black and Latino communities.
That kind of relative low social status, lack of education, and social disconnection/isolation naturally produce racism.
I'd say that's partially true, but I think the flames are purposely and continuously fanned by the content and media they consume. They aren't living in a bubble.
True, but that's also true of every community, and especially true of people who lack education: they are susceptible to content that affirm their biases.
The purpose of education is challenge one's own biases and to (hopefully) cultivate a mind that continually self-examines.
Aren't rural whites living a bubble though? I think there's little social crossover with liberal educated or POC societal bubbles.
I actually wonder if this wouldn't change without the electoral college and without house districts working the way they do right now. Currently everything is so gerrymandered, you can actually forget certain areas from a political perspective. The people who don't think this way can be drowned out by those who do, and then feel disillusioned themselves by being ignored.
Or the related "I want to stop immigration but only to stop right-wing extremism I swear" takes I've been seeing far too much recently. Even here on Tildes.
I understand the point you're trying to make, but I'm not sure it helps Tildes as a community to link a three month old post to bring up meta grievances. There's a malice label if you feel it's necessary, though I personally want to hear diverse perspectives to learn how people think.
I included a link because I was anticipating being asked for a source or context. If you think it's unhelpful to discussion I'll remove it.
Yeah I follow the train of thought. Fortunately, I think it's okay to discuss ideas and trends broadly. Not every statement has to have a source or citation. Mostly, I want to avoid creating any bad blood within the community :)
Is it really overdue?
I've been seeing articles like this one pop up occasionally since 2016.
The cause of rural white resentment doesn't matter. Putting an end to it does.
Trump doesn't care about them. Trump was POTUS for 4 years and did nothing for them .
Trump only cares about himself and by extension, the rich.
People who vote for Trump hoping to see a positive difference are fools.
How does one expect to be successful at putting an end to it if they do not first understand the cause?
You sound like you want to put an end to BeanBurrito's argument. Why not understand their cause and where they're coming from? Why does one side deserve compassion and understanding but the other doesn't?
Many political sides tend to have some amount of validity. Being against that side doesn't always mean you don't understand that side but that the person may realize when you do sympathize with it, it makes that side stronger and the extreme versions of that side feel emboldened to commit violence. In some climates, tolerance for some political ideologies can create flare-ups which won't have tolerance for you and your ideology so people are cautious to sympathize with it, it doesn't mean they don't understand it.
I'm white, male, rural and I've never felt like people should cry for me because I don't feel understood; if anything I feel like that notion is way over-played. The relatively recent upheaval that initiated with the Tea Party a decade ago when they de-cried that the world wasn't giving them enough attention, I just don't understand it. Then again I'm rural because I like the world to forget about me. I don't expect people to pay attention to me as I do my own thing and expect the world not to evolve around me.
I can't tell if you got the point of my post backward or not.
It's a nonsensical statement. Understanding the causes is vital to putting an end to it with nonviolent means.
You have my intentions confused. I don't want to "put an end to it". People are just always going to be unsatisfied about something and not every minor problem can be solved. Yeah, those people have problems. I have problems. Everyone has problems. I'm just not quick to resort to saying other people are the cause of my problems and I think it's something we'd be better off learning.
I haven't read the book or the criticism of that book that this article is responding to, so I'm not sure whether they have a good point about the "scholars" they seem to be at war with.
It all seems kind of moot to me. America needs an honest assessment of rural white resentment to happen among rural whites themselves, and no amount of scholarly books or think pieces is going to reach them. They think you're a pedophilic satanist who wants to inject them with poison and brainwash their children to be gay.
100%. As much as I think the Jacobs critique posted recently did point out an important difference between resentment and anger and how to approach them, that article would go nowhere with the people he's begging "everyone" to try to understand. Even using the term "a politics" is an immediate conversation ender for most people.
Talking about large, vague groups of people: difficult, not recommended.
And in politics especially if 55% of demographic group vote a certain way then all discussions get short handed into “demographic group believes this” when in fact 45% of demographic group voted the other way.
I hate to be so reductive to say they're just dumb and racist. But man does it really seem to come down to that a lot of the time.
You can dress it up but it always seems to be just a ton of people who don't understand why bad things are happening to them. They either can't or wont look at the real situation or causes and blindly trust some of the most obviously untrustworthy prople. Then actively fight against their own self interest, dragging the rest of the country along with them.
This feels like you described my parents to a T. Especially the won't look at the real situation and blindly trust some of the most obviously untrustworthy people. sigh. And when they look at me and see the same so they refuse to listen to me... how do you reach out to some one that willfully blind? My stepmom will hide behind "you can't trust anyone" while completely trusting Trump, Tucker Carlson, and Fox News (unless they say something she doesn't agree with like when I pointed out even Fox News said Trump said something that even she couldn't deny made trump look bad... then all media is bad).
If only we could teach intellectual humility in school. People need to be okay sitting with the thought that they might be wrong - maybe have been for quite a while. If you've trained that mental muscle well it's little more than a sting and then you can pull your head up and take a less biased accounting of the options to move to.
There are a lot of videos (like this one) where people are forced to reveal their self-contradictions. These people are clearly trying to reconcile two different matters that can not be reconciled. And to be fair, if you're put on the spot with a camera in your face it's not exactly a comfortable moment where you can sit and reflect as long as you need. But I really do doubt that these people end up reorganizing their thoughts much afterwards. If you want to be right, and it's clear that "being right" is a strong driving force among humans, it means being able to acknowledge certain things you believed in were wrong. You have to work backwards and find where something went wrong, pluck that out, and then re-assess everything downstream from there.
I mean to be fair, I know I can fall into the same trap (I hate being wrong and I really hate admitting it. I might admit it to myself later after the fact and honor sometimes gets me to then admit it to the person that I was wrong. So the parents I refer to up there are my stepmom and my dad but my mom and dad are both very stubborn about admitting they are wrong. But I try to at least be more like my mom who if you back off will think about it and admit she is wrong if she decides she is. My dad though will come up with reasons why he was right. My stepmom isn't so bad about being stubborn but she's super brainwashed by Fox News and also knows I myself have a habit of not liking to admit I'm wrong so she uses that against me when we argue too saying I'm just like her but am the one believing the liars. I try to argue with her that at least I can admit I have bias but she doesn't get that not being able to even see your bias makes you much more susceptible to lies.
Being able to admit you were wrong afterwards is still infinitely better than forever sticking to your guns.
When an opinion piece calls for a grand reexamination of a viewpoint or a national conversation, what exactly are they asking for? Even if we could get everyone in America on the same Zoom call, we'll probably just go back to our corners when it comes to our biases.
Yet opinions clearly change over time. Somehow, interracial marriage was normalized in the past century even though it used to be forbidden. There must be some way that hearts and minds change over the years. Maybe someone's rhetoric convinces someone or some event sparks a change of heart.
My understanding is that it's typically frowned upon to dump full articles in thread comments on Tildes
Appreciated:)
Please don't copy-paste the full text of an article. Limited excerpts are okay, but we can't have a full reproduction of an article here.
Apologies, thank you for the edit.