this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2024
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Well, White Supremacy is also the politics of identy, i.e. Identity Politics.
The Racism is the seeing of other human beings as defined above all by the genetics they were born with (i.e. race, gender, sexual orientation), the religious affiliation they got from their parents or the geographical location they were born in and then presuming things about them based on that (which is quite literally Prejudice), it's not in which specific race/gender/sexual-orientation/religion/nationality you see as good/victims or bad/oppressors.
One is not any less Racist when, for example, the race whose people one presumes are "good people" is not White - the Racism is the making presumptions about people based on their race, so the specific races such a prejudiced person thinks are "good" or "bad" are entirelly relevant in determining if the one making presumptions is a Racist or not.
Ultimatelly, all such "identity" groups have good people and bad people, and when they're in a situation with power and no accountability, bad people do bad things independently of their "identity".
This Racism of the modern self-identified Identity Politics practicioners was made painfully obvious by how the Liberals in places like the US and Germany reacted to the Israeli Genocide in Gaza - for years they've been prejudiced about people based on their ethnicity whilst passing that shit as anti-racism because their list of "good ethnicities" and "bad ethnicities" was different from that of the traditional racists, and one of the "good ethnicities" in their worldview was Jews and when it turned out that the self-proclaimed representatives of all Jews - Israel - was led by some trully horrible people who were mass murdering people based on their ethnicity, out came the Liberals in its defense because of the ethnicity it claimed to represent (and often being very overt about how it was all due to ethnicity, such as how Scholz in Germany and Biden in the US very overtly stating their "unwavering support for the Jewish Nation"), and further making their prejudices and racism obvious with the ultra-racist claim that Israel represented the Jewish Religion even when many Jews said it did not, and the even more extreme racist accusations of anti-semitism against those demonstrating against the Israeli Genocide (imagine how extremelly racist you have to be to claim that being against Genocide is being against the Jewish Religion, which logically is the same as saying Genocide is a Jewish thing). These self-proclaimed anti-racists didn't drop their support for Israel as anybody driven by principles would have done based on their actions, they doubled down on it and did it very overtly based solely on the ethnicity that country claims to represent, exactly like all the other Racists act.
This shit is no less Racists than supporting the government of Appartheid South Africa because of them being though of as White.
Anyways, the fairest and real Leftie take on unfairness and suffering is to correct the unfairness and suffering and go at it by descending order of intensity (i.e. start by going after the biggest ones), quite independently of the genetics the victims and perpetrators were born with or the "reasons" why some assholes - the tradition racists - go around inflicting pain on others: the action is that is wrong and must be punished and the hurt and harm to the victimed corrected and grabing the "logic" of the aggressor and twisting it around keeps the agressor's way of thinking alive and hence the unfairness of treatment, and just moves the unfairness around rather than stop it.
There was a lot to unpack in what you said. A shit ton of you being upset over the situation in Israel and a lot of you trying to shift the blame.
I find it strange you attack the only people who would agree with you stances. Everyone I know who claims to be liberal is bewildered at what Israel has done. The conservatives I know approve of Isreal's right to defend themselves at any cost.
Also that last bit about the oppressed becoming the oppressor is interesting especially when you see what happened in South Africa and Israel. The answer is of course to recognize and stop the cycle but it does often feel like a pendulum.
True, good point on Israel.
Liberal politicians are the ones who are "Relaxed about Genocidal ethno-Fascism", whilst it makes sense that genuine Liberals (so, Liberal out of principle, not merely political followers), would also be against what's going on in Israel if only because killing people is the ultimate reduction of their freedom.
I should have been more clear about meaning Liberal Politicians when I used the word "Liberal".
I don't actually think Identity Politics is Liberal, I think it's something build on top of Liberalism by politicians, in the best cases out of convenience - it's far easier to address certain things by reducing people to identity groups and then fighting for entire groups and/or passing measures that affect all of a group equally and it actually works up to a point - and in the worst cases just as pure hypocrisy and even greed - it makes for simple slogans that politically work well and are easy to sell, brings them votes and if a politician happens to be a member of an identity that person can advance their own personal upsides by claiming measures that benefit them are for the identity group (this by the way, is also how the Far-Right tends to use identity politics, only they use different identities).
That said you're at the very least misreading my words on the whole "oppressed becoming the oppressor" - what I wrote is that all groups contain people who will do bad things when they have the power and no accountability. At no point did I claimed they were oppressed, oppressors or one of them who had become the other, much less part of "THE oppressed" or "THE oppressor".
Sure, sometimes the tables turn and people who are themselves oppressed and members of a group containing mainly oppressed get power and then become themselves oppressors, but that's not related to any identity and it's not even needed that the whole group stops being oppressed, just that individual: it's simply that assholes who are powerless usually risk a lot by acting as assholes, whilst people in positions of power can often act as assholes if they so wish and get away with it, so assholes will do it.
Further, there is no need for those people to be in a grand category called "THE oppressed" or "THE oppressors" - often assholes who behave meekly when faced with somebody with more power will behave as assholes towards those with less power: such double-face is a pretty common dynamic in schoolyard bullies or even company bullies (look to middle and lower level management to find those). Such people are both oppressed and oppressors - in other words, even at this level the trying to tag people as something isn't helpful: both the oppression done to that person in the middle and the oppression that person themself does are wrong and should be stopped, and an "oppressor" tag here just muddles a situation were there are two wrong actions going on and the victim of one happens to be the perpetrator of the other.