Memes

"Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to re-educate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn."

“The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power.”

“First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”.”

--Dr. Martin Luther King Junior

MLK Jr., famous for talking about how much he loves white moderates right

“Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn."

- Dr. Martin Luther King Junior

Unless you think the point of feminism (for example) is to make men second class citizens. That’s just not a thing. It’s a rhetoric created by assholes to get ignorant people on board with their continued grossness.

I think there may be some radicals who genuinely wish for that, but those don't represent the entire movement and usually only pay lip service to the cause where it aligns with their personal beliefs. They should be ignored.

There's also a psychological phenomenon that occurs in 'elite classes' where they think that someone getting more means they get less. They literally cannot fathom someone getting welfare without it affecting them negatively. It's one of the reasons why poor people still support Republicans.

Meanwhile, the Right want to pull down your trousers to check your "gender".

At the same time, privileged people will still sometimes feel a loss of something when you're portioning out a finite resource. So if a particular group is 25% of the population and they were getting 75% of the pie before and now they're getting 25% of the pie, that's a loss. It's a justified loss, but it's still a loss.

That said, there are other things like rights that are not finite in any meaningful sense of the word. When someone is feeling a loss because an oppressed group gained rights, it's usually because they're an oppressive asshole.

The issue is that people generally view their situation not by how much they have, but how much more they have than others.

Some people are that way, but not "people generally."

No doubt that's appealing to some (one example is the USA civil rights movement in the 1960s, especially with states conforming to federal laws that mandate desegregation of schools) but I think another advantage for the privileged is the lack of competition for good jobs, study places etc.. If 50% of your peers are kept in slums then just by biological outcomes (lack of nutrition and sleep) the odds are very much in your favor. Throw in the psychological effects of poverty, mass incarceration, addiction and you have a situation like a running race where half the contestants have a broken leg. Fear of a level playing field might be another factor in why the privileged don't want equal rights. BUT, imagine if we had 50% more people working on a cure for cancer etc.