[charliesharding]

> Disabled white men certainly have their own struggles; disabled black men would have even more struggles.

This is a bizarre take. It sounds like you're saying that no matter what the individual circumstances are, race is the ultimate decider of one's struggle. It could be argued that this is the exact line of thinking that leads to "systemic racism". It's surprising how prevalent this view is, on HN especially. Not two months ago there was a top voted article about how dangerous and stifling the "victimhood mentality" can be. If that is true, why would you so willingly put an entire race of people in the victim bucket? It smacks of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

I am and always will be on your side if you're advocating for personal empowerment of people and groups but I disagree with the tactic of using group membership as the most important deciding factor of someone's experience and a means to discredit one person over another due solely to the nature of their group intersections.

[wpietri]

The people describing racism, sexism, ableism, etc, and their impacts are not primarily the ones "using group membership". The problem starts and rests with the those systems, and is driven by the people who benefit from and act to sustain those systems.

If you want people to be truly equal, you need to work to end those systems. And that requires starting with an honest account of what's happening.

As a straight white dude, I definitely understand the urge to try to sweep the problems under the rug. It's much more comfortable to think that things are fine. But as MLK explained, we won't solve these problems without a "dynamic tension" that comes from making the problems very clear.

We didn't have slavery or Jim Crow or the Nadir because of people trying to fight race-based oppression. We had those things because race-based oppression is materially and mentally beneficial to a lot of the people on the oppressor end of those systems. And we won't end them by pretending that speaking clearly about racism is somehow the real racism.

[UncleMeat]

That's not the conclusion here. The conclusion is that there are many axes of oppression and one does not invalidate the other. The kind of thinking you describe was more common in the 60s and 70s but has fallen out of favor after the rise of black feminism and intersectional analysis.

Race does not bind more tightly than other aspects. Ableism exists. But the existence of white people who suffer in a myriad of ways does not negate the existence of white privilege in places like the US.

[charliesharding]

> The conclusion is that there are many axes of oppression and one does not invalidate the other

Yet this is the inevitable consequence of intersectional analysis.. It describes a way to calculate value discrepancy of opinions based off group membership of the opinion holder. This is just an attempt to overcorrect the "axes of oppression" from sins of the past. The solution moving forward should not be to sin in the opposite direction - this will just create backlash (re: Charlottesville). It should be centered around empowering individuals and telling people that they can achieve anything because they can. Telling people that they are victims is a great way to ruin them. Everyone is a victim to one thing or another. The answer isn't to dwell and blame your victimhood or oppressors, the answer is to go out there and achieve.

[fzeroracer]

It seems strange to place the blame of Charlottesville on people trying to fix racism rather than the racists responsible for things such as murder or, you know, racism.

This reeks to me of a similar argument against gay marriage, where there wouldn't be nearly as much violence towards them if they didn't try and demand their rights immediately.

[charliesharding]

Good intentions do not absolve people of objectively bad ideas. I drew that comparison because they are playing opposite sides of the same game of identity politics, which I'm saying is inherently flawed

[fzeroracer]

It's interesting that you say that, since looking through your post history here you've engaged in identity politics all the same.

Everyone engages in some form of identity politics. The post we were responding to engaged in identity politics as well because they believed white men were discriminated against the most.

If you want to make an arguments make an actual argument against their position, not one against the concept of identity politics because that's an inherently flawed argument.

[MockObject]

> If you want to make an arguments make an actual argument against their position, not one against the concept of identity politics because that's an inherently flawed argument.

It's not inherently flawed to a liberal of the 1960s - 2010s, who idealized universal principles, individual identities, colorblindness, and single standards of behavior to be applied to all, regardless of sex, race, etc.

Please, have the intellectual honesty not to erase that entire era. It's not necessary to do that in order to promote the contrary ideology of intersectionality.

[charliesharding]

Right, as in I'm arguing that it's a bad way to view the world... Total non sequitur. No, not everyone engages in identity politics. Only people who are looking for an easy out and not individually assessing ideas and their ramifications

[wpietri]

Complaining about identity politics is a big way white men practice identity politics, Charles. When there's a problem, refusing to let people talk about the problem becomes part of the problem.

[charliesharding]

What makes you think it's ok to make wide, sweeping generalizations about how people of a certain race and gender think and how do you think that doesn't constitute racism?