If we look back a few decades, white working class men was a core voter group in left politics in both the US and the EU. Where I live (Sweden), socialist values like equality and an end to classism where very popular in the young male demographic. The social party held a close 50% majority for almost 60 years, only to drop by almost 20% in the last two decades, and the biggest change in demographic is young working class white men that has left. Every data point regarding trust that I have seen is showing that they have lost faith that the socialist movement is advocating for them.
Classism, Racism and Sexism might be all separate axis, but one can't be a advocate for a demographic and at the same time demonize them.
It holds hostage the notion of socialism in exchange for further protecting and excusing bad behavior by a privileged class.
Plenty of white people are not demonized. There is essentially no consequence for bad behavior but dirty looks. And if white men want to punish the upper white class for neglecting them, maybe they should stop pushing rich non-working-class men forward as their proxies.
> And if white men want to punish the upper white class for neglecting them, maybe they should stop pushing rich non-working-class men forward as their proxies.
An eye for an eye only leads to a blind world. How common isn't it to hear that if immigrants want help, maybe they should stop committing crime? The answer by the state and by research is the same: that the negative behavior cause by low social economical group is caused by the low social economical status. The solution is not an eye for an eye (more prison, harsher punishment, deportation, blaming them for their own situation), but rather helping them out of the low social economical status they are in.
I'm pointing out that specific minorities are being unfairly treated and your response is to infer that, not being part of the minority, the folks inflicting this must be part of the majority and then say: "demonization!"
I'm not using the word demon here. I'm saying what's obviously happening. What 20 people just got fired at Uber for doing, and more have been told they can take training or leave over. I'm not sure why recognizing there is a problem for certain people is "demonization" but it seems very fair we cannot call abusers abusers because it will hurt their feelings, but care not at all for the rights of the victims to seek redress.
> Young white men deserve protected status in the same way that young black men deserve protected status.
... What?
> The commonality here is the social economical status
Then why are there more black men in jail then white men even normalizing for economic status and type of crime? You keep suggesting that if we just listened to the stats this would be clear, but observing the stats a picture totally discordant with your worldview emerges.
> The solution is not an eye for an eye (more prison, harsher punishment, deportation, blaming them for their own situation), but rather helping them out of the low social economical status they are in.
I'm happy to help, and I do. But also: folks need to admit they're part of a system perpetrating wrongdoing and work to end that wrongdoing. Everyone has a shared duty to do this as part of our society.
I'm not sure how your response here addressed my criticism about electing super rich white men as proxies if the real problems are caused by the rich unfairly treating the poor, as you imply...
Black people are overrepresented in crime statistics in the US. Calling all black people criminals will not only hurt them, it is racism. Immigrants are also highly overrepresented in crime statistics here in Sweden, and calling them all criminals would be nationalistic and racist.
> ... What?
And this is why both EU and US political landscape has changed in the last 20 years. The inability to empathize with people that need help is in my view the biggest cause of harm in politics and reason why it becomes polarized. A person i need is a person in need, regardless of skin color, gender, sexual orientation, or what other demographic you can put them in.
> even normalizing for economic status
Normalizing for economic status removes the wast difference in crime demographic data. It is the single biggest factor, dwarfing any other attribute. If you provide data and only a single attribute then social economical status is a better predictor than anything else combined. This fact is so established that the Swedish government has taken rather extreme stance where they refuse to issue any new reports on the subject since any non-social economical attributes are just considered noise in the system. The second or third biggest attributes, regardless which ones they are, can only be political abused in order to not focus (and funding) solutions to the biggest one.
> folks need to admit they're part of a system perpetrating wrongdoing
The beauty with addressing social economical status is that you do not need to force black people (or in the case in my nation, immigrants) to admit that they belong to a group of criminals. Rather you create general moral rules which empathize with people in need. Black people are not part of some system perpetrating black people doing crime, and demanding that black people as a group need to take responsible for black people crime is just an other form of collective punishment.
> rich unfairly treating the poor, as you imply
Also called class society and is a core tenet of left politics.
> 'm not sure how your response here addressed my criticism about electing super rich white men
If we want diversity in experience and perspective then companies (and politics) should look at the rich part of your statement, not the white men part for which your comment exclusively talked about. To ignore the social economical aspect is to pretend it doesn't exist.
That's absolutely not the case, it's just that classism is often used as a blind for other forms of discrimination. Classism, Racism and Sexism are all separate axis of potential discrimination. Many intersectional feminists talk regularly about class, but we ALSO make time to distinctly address other forms of systemic discrimination.
I believe so firmly that classism is a major gate to our field that I reshaped my entire career around addressing these issues. So don't tell me I don't care about that or that I'm unfairly excluding that from my rhetoric.