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Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

You conflate what politicians do with what I am talking about. However that is understandable, from my experience talking with you in the past few years about politics, elections in particular, it seems you put a lot of inevitable faith (I'm not sure this is the best choice in words, but I can't think of a more apt way to phrase what I am thinking) in politicians and the political process. That is not the focus of what I am talking about, merely one side of the equation. Education, community initiative, economic reform, these things are substantive factors which must also be directly and consistently addressed.


Unfortunately that is too many degrees not true, so advocacy is just as important as action.

i've seen it at all kinds of levels, from classroom debate to community organizing to union organizing to city council to mayoral & state elections to arts management to novel writing etc etc etc-- so many "progressives" that much rather bitch than build unless it's all kinds of "the white man/ the rich man made me do it" excuse-making.

here's a funny (funny curious not funny haha) thing i heard from a black libertarian economist: before the minimum wage, black unemployment was nearly non-existent. since the establishment of the minimum wage, black unemployment began to grow.

now, there may be all kinds of arguments for and against the minimum wage, but a black libertarian economist saying those kinds of things is contrary to everything the stereotypical left will teach you. the same guy saying that affirmative action hurts rather than help blacks will be labeled as "he's not really black". anything that makes you think "hey, maybe everything i knew is wrong" is instantly labeled and suppressed. "uncle tom" "sellout" "house negro" etc. etc.

i'm not agreeing with the guy necessarily, i'm saying that any questioning of the same old shit will be suppressed by those who profit from things as they are-- the politics of the oppressed victim.

as a "minority" myself, married to another "minority" person, i'm sick and tired of bullshit minority pandering and bullcaca that gets nothing done except perpetuate a toxic ideology of resentment that harms people's outlook, aspirations, and relations with others. fuck that bullshit. it's self-ghettoization. culture doesn't have to be limited by genetics-- ideas have no skin color-- everybody needs to open their thick skulls, grow, and look past the mindset that created the old problems because that is the same mindset that perpetuates them.