• mathemachristian[he]@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    Now I donā€™t know about how things are where you are but over here itā€™s more suspicious to be Catholic or, heaven help, Freikirchlich, than Muslim. Turks give other Turks shit for being Bavarian.

    So the fact that some people make Kumpir-jokes (arguably actually idpol) is supposed to assure me that there is no anti-turkish racism? I have family members whose business gets harassed by cops for no other reason than them being turkish. Their business is in a very non-white neighborhood in the supposedly oh so leftist Hamburg. They arenā€™t as integrated as italians who by the way Iā€™ve also witnessed being "other"ed on one occasion so clearly even they arenā€™t on-par with the non-immigrants in Germany.

    Yes, going ahead in such a situation and saying ā€œThis is all about peopleā€™s ancestors being from Turkeyā€ is precisely idpol

    Well Iā€™m not. Iā€™m talking about the cops double and triple checking turkish businesses in an unnecessarily disruptive manner for no reason other than them being suspicous of their turkishness. Donā€™t tell me that it isnā€™t ā€œall about peopleā€™s ancestors being from Turkeyā€ because it most assuredly is.

    makes you kin to the Grey Wolves

    That was really hurtful for reasons you couldnā€™t know. But please be mindful of bad-jacketing even by association.

    It always takes a while for a population to settle but Turks are now at a status Italians achieved quite quickly (do those even register on your ā€œnon-whiteā€ radar?)

    I can only assume that you wrote this (and the rest of that paragraph) before I edited in my last paragraph in the comment above yours, so Iā€™ll reiterate it here. Iā€™m not the one ascribing white/non-white to people, Iā€™m talking about groups of people that are racistly viewed as such and the effects such a view on people has. So e.g. an italian who might be too brown and gets clocked as ā€œnon-whiteā€ might experience discrimination in which case I would be talking about ā€œdiscrimination against a non-white personā€. People that are regularly discriminated against in such a way might group together to lobby for equal rights, create safe spaces where they can just be and form a community centered around the racist prescription they were given. Such groups, spaces and communities will then get under attack by the racists and therefore need special protection. That isnā€™t idpol. It is a vital strategy to form solidarity among people that experience discrimination others donā€™t. Something others cannot relate to, canā€™t see the full extent of damage caused and therefore canā€™t be as helpful in solving. Itā€™s not about ā€œsegregating hairstylesā€, itā€™s about listening to oppressed people and what they say they need in order to protect themselves and their community. Iā€™m not saying they canā€™t be wrong, but I am saying people that donā€™t experience what they do, should be real careful about judging whether they are.

    because the material conditions arenā€™t buried under layers and layers of idpol-generated enmity

    You got this the wrong way around. The racist enmity is what caused people to band together. Liberals then tried to ā€œtarget audiencesā€ by how they were grouped together creating idpol. By a similar logic I could claim that rainbow capitalism or pinkwashing is caused by the LGBTQ community coming together, thatā€™s absurd and frankly puts the blame for racism on the people fighting it. The people importing idpol are the german right-wingers repeating the absurd lies of the US right-wing, not people that speak against racist discrimination.

    Then talk about the education system, why the son of a baker generally doesnā€™t become an engineer even though he has the talent and smarts. Next to capital ownership education is the primary, because inherited, class divide in Germany.

    You donā€™t know what I talk about in regards to german politics because youā€™re replying to me in a thread kicked off about a comment I made about US politics! But Iā€™ll be damned if I shut up about the racist barriers of entry non-white germans face in higher education.

    Youā€™re right about the AfD voters not being labor aristocracy, that was imprecise (therefore wrong). What I meant was the implied promise of more welfare once the immigrants stop ā€œleechingā€ off the welfare systems. This promise is, as you rightfully pointed out, something every major party in Germany promises in some phrasing or another and the precariat have noticed that the established parties donā€™t live up to it. I think that is how the BSW is going to make a dent, it hasnā€™t disappointed yet.

    But at the heart of this ā€œX people need to go because they only leech off the welfare systemsā€ is the lie that everyone has the same opportunities and possibilities regardless of origin (born here, refugee, turk, white, just pick a job and get busy) and the reality that people which can be grouped together by some trait depend more on welfare then necessarily implies that these people are innately more dependent on it. Coupled with the lie that there isnā€™t enough wealth for everyone and you have an effective way to get the precariat in arms against them. Maybe calling them a precariat aristocracy would be better but where the labor aristocrats already get payed more, they simply get promised more so I donā€™t know (precariat to-be-aristocracy? Iā€™m just making shit up now). This isnā€™t the only strategy liberals use to agitate obviously but itā€™s a major and effective one.

    And it must be countered by clear language that doesnā€™t flatten the labor class into a single homogenous entity in a way Bobby Reichs tweet does. This goes for the US and for us.

    • barsoap@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Their business is in a very non-white neighborhood in the supposedly oh so leftist Hamburg.

      Hamburg is a police state itā€™s very easy to get harassed by police there. Remember when they declared pretty much all of Altona a ā€œdanger zoneā€? That wasnā€™t about immigrants it was about leftists, they kicked off the whole thing by claiming, falsely, that a police station was attacked by ā€œpeople wearing St. Pauli scarfsā€.

      Iā€™m not saying they canā€™t be wrong, but I am saying people that donā€™t experience what they do, should be real careful about judging whether they are.

      Yes, please do tell me whether Hamburg cops make a distinction between someone looking like they visit the barber thrice a day vs. a punk. By considering your groupsā€™ issues, be that Turks or immigrants in general, to be oh so special, unknown to everyone else, youā€™re othering yourself. Is there surname discrimination when looking for a flat? Yes. Is there discrimination against Kevins? Also yes because in reality itā€™s about socio-economic status and both foreign last name or ā€œlow-classā€ native first name are proxies for low socio-economic standing. The solution is not to preach ā€œoh liberal landlord, youā€™re being so racist, please ignore your concerns about your tenantā€™s incomesā€ as that ignores their systemic financial interest in discriminating against people with low wages, it will never work, the solution is social housing, which, I already mentioned, weā€™re lacking at least one million units of: That kind of discrimination can only exist in an environment where thereā€™s too few flats on the market, if landlords actually needed to search for tenants then theyā€™d be willing to interview everyone ā€“ and then discriminate by actual, not assumed, socio-economic status. Itā€™s not just immigrants that donā€™t fit into the normative lens of the usual rightoid suspects. Remember who were the first the Nazis put into camps?

      makes you kin to the Grey Wolves

      That was really hurtful for reasons you couldnā€™t know. But please be mindful of bad-jacketing even by association.

      Just because you donā€™t want to deport or do worse to people doesnā€™t mean that the in-outgroup psychology isnā€™t the same, and is breeding ground for worse. Yes, that realisation can hurt. Itā€™s also vital. Swimming against the stream is insufficient, you have to get out of the fucking river, take a breather, have a Mojito, learn to walk, and then throw live vests at the swimmers, first and foremost those that cling to other swimmers.

      because the material conditions arenā€™t buried under layers and layers of idpol-generated enmity

      You got this the wrong way around. The racist enmity is what caused people to band together.

      Ah, there we have it. ā€œAfD voters and therefore the east are all Nazisā€. Especially Kevin, of course, why else could Kevin be angry as youā€™re denying that discrimination against him can exist. No, they didnā€™t suddenly become (more) racist. No, demagogues didnā€™t suddenly learn radically new tricks that made them magnitudes more effective: The underlying conditions, the seeds of betrayal and anger, that they exploit became more and more wide-spread, the precariat grew and grew while conditions and pressures got worse and worse.

      What I meant was the implied promise of more welfare once the immigrants stop ā€œleechingā€ off the welfare systems. This promise is, as you rightfully pointed out, something every major party in Germany promises in some phrasing or another and the precariat have noticed that the established parties donā€™t live up to it.

      I donā€™t think I ever said that as I disagree with it: Welfare recipients in general, the whole precariat, is getting squeezed. The whole thing started in the 90s when the federal republic lost its (nominal only, but still) socialist rival to the east. Noone is ever promising more welfare for anyone, itā€™s always ā€œthose lazy buggers simply donā€™t want to workā€. ā€œPoverty is a choiceā€ etc, etc. Social darwinism.

      But at the heart of this ā€œX people need to go because they only leech off the welfare systemsā€ is the lie that everyone has the same opportunities and possibilities regardless of origin (born here, refugee, turk, white, just pick a job and get busy)

      Add ā€œorganic potato but parents live off Hartz IVā€ to the list of people without equal opportunities and we could have a seed of agreement. ā€œBildungsferne Schichtenā€, as the euphemism goes. Then, ask yourself the following: Daughter of an Iranian Doctor of medicine. Is she going to study, or is she going to work at a supermarket? The career paths of children of Turkish Gastarbeiter arenā€™t that exceptional when you compare them not to the German average, but that of German Hauptschule graduates: None of their parents ever had a university degree (largely farmers from Anatolia), which meant Hauptschule, at best Realschule. A Turk with Abitur much less degree is rare not because theyā€™re Turks but because their parents didnā€™t study.

      Be a good leftist and spend some of your solidarity budget on Kevin. Itā€™s going to pay off a thousandfold because it will create conditions under which addressing things like racial profiling doesnā€™t sound like ā€œoh great another way for them to ignore usā€. Democracies have capacity limits, when you fix shit that concerns a huge number of people suddenly those have time and nerve for solidarity, if OTOH you try to fix particular interests you risk getting lumped up with the exact people that try to avoid fixing core issues, and resistance will be stiff. This isnā€™t some new insight itā€™s political strategy 101. The quickest way to address Y is indeed to focus on addressing X, and do Y as soon as thereā€™s enough trust that X is being taken care of.

      • mathemachristian[he]@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        You keep projecting what you think Iā€™m advocating for when all Iā€™ve so far revealed is that Iā€™m advocating for clear language that doesnā€™t flatten reality but acknowledges the different struggles people face, including racist ones. Why do you think that would stop short of a person born into poverty or to one born to parents who didnt have the privilege of a higher education and therefore canā€™t pass on what they havenā€™t learned? You keep talking about this in ways that reveal that for you other peoples struggle is an abstract thought exercise, which is why I advised caution when telling others how to safeguard against or combat racism.

        Hamburg is a police state itā€™s very easy to get harassed by police there. Remember when they declared pretty much all of Altona a ā€œdanger zoneā€? That wasnā€™t about immigrants it was about leftists, they kicked off the whole thing by claiming, falsely, that a police station was attacked by ā€œpeople wearing St. Pauli scarfsā€.

        Believe me I know.

        Yes, please do tell me whether Hamburg cops make a distinction between someone looking like they visit the barber thrice a day vs. a punk.

        Obviously they do.

        By considering your groupsā€™ issues, be that Turks or immigrants in general, to be oh so special, unknown to everyone else, youā€™re othering yourself.

        No, I was othered unprompted. By Turks. They arenā€™t ā€œmy groupā€ any less than the ā€œeast germansā€. A comrade is a comrade, a racist isnā€™t.

        Is there surname discrimination when looking for a flat? Yes. Is there discrimination against Kevins? Also yes because in reality itā€™s about socio-economic status and both foreign last name or ā€œlow-classā€ native first name are proxies for low socio-economic standing.

        Not entirely. The prejudice Kevin faces is different from the one Jihad faces. That doesnā€™t make Kevins struggle less real. I donā€™t understand why you keep thinking I want to diminish someones struggle when Iā€™ve repeatedly called for language that doesnā€™t hide injustices. Iā€™ve helped both a ā€œKevinā€ and a ā€œJihadā€ try to find apartments while needing rent relief. One was presumed to have snuck into this country and probably dangerous and the other was ā€œjustā€ presumed to be lazy. It both sucks, but one of them had it harder. And we arenā€™t going to be addressing any of it if we canā€™t talk about how or why the systems is the way it is.

        The solution is not to preach ā€œoh liberal landlord, youā€™re being so racist, please ignore your concerns about your tenantā€™s incomesā€ as that ignores their systemic financial interest in discriminating against people with low wages, it will never work, the solution is social housing, which, I already mentioned, weā€™re lacking at least one million units of: That kind of discrimination can only exist in an environment where thereā€™s too few flats on the market, if landlords actually needed to search for tenants then theyā€™d be willing to interview everyone ā€“ and then discriminate by actual, not assumed, socio-economic status. Itā€™s not just immigrants that donā€™t fit into the normative lens of the usual rightoid suspects. Remember who were the first the Nazis put into camps?

        Complete projection. I donā€™t know where this is coming from.

        Just because you donā€™t want to deport or do worse to people doesnā€™t mean that the in-outgroup psychology isnā€™t the same, and is breeding ground for worse. Yes, that realisation can hurt. Itā€™s also vital. Swimming against the stream is insufficient, you have to get out of the fucking river, take a breather, have a Mojito, learn to walk

        More evidence that this is just a thought exercise for you. The grey wolves kill people like me. The fact that you persist after I told you it was hurtful because you are so sure in your (wrong) assumption for why that might be tells me that you donā€™t know what youā€™re talking about. Which makes it less hurtful, so at least thereā€™s that, but itā€™s a bad sign about how I think of you because I would like to think of you as a comrade. So why persist in something I told you to be hurtful?

        and then throw live vests at the swimmers, first and foremost those that cling to other swimmers.

        How about instead to those closest to drowning? What do you propose we do about the people that arenā€™t close to drowning but steal the vests from under the people that are?

        Ah, there we have it. ā€œAfD voters and therefore the east are all Nazisā€. Especially Kevin, of course, why else could Kevin be angry as youā€™re denying that discrimination against him can exist. No, they didnā€™t suddenly become (more) racist. No, demagogues didnā€™t suddenly learn radically new tricks that made them magnitudes more effective: The underlying conditions, the seeds of betrayal and anger, that they exploit became more and more wide-spread, the precariat grew and grew while conditions and pressures got worse and worse.

        Even more evidence that this is just a thought exercise for you, when Iā€™m talking about ā€œthe racistsā€ Iā€™m not talking about some abstract demographic, I am thinking of real people. I can visualize their faces. I wasnā€™t talking about ā€œAfD voters and therefore the eastā€ and the fact that your first response always seems to be ā€œbut wonā€™t you think of the people voting AfDā€ is making me increasingly wary of you. I was working under the assumption that this ā€œbridging the divideā€ thing is a pet project that youā€™re overly invested in but Iā€™m increasingly running low on good faith to offer you especially since I donā€™t seem to get any in return.

        To be sure Iā€™m not against ā€œbridging the divideā€ or dismissive of people in the east, especially since they got capitalism working against them double-time when compared to the west. I donā€™t think of them as AfD voting nazis. But you have to understand that for me to call someone who did vote AfD a comrade, they have to earn my trust first because they probably need to unlearn some racist shit or at the very least learn materialist thinking.

        I donā€™t think I ever said that as I disagree with it: Welfare recipients in general, the whole precariat, is getting squeezed. The whole thing started in the 90s when the federal republic lost its (nominal only, but still) socialist rival to the east. Noone is ever promising more welfare for anyone, itā€™s always ā€œthose lazy buggers simply donā€™t want to workā€. ā€œPoverty is a choiceā€ etc, etc. Social darwinism.

        Right, immigrants was used as a stand-in for really anyone requiring welfare. Itā€™s just that the media focus really is on the immigrants at the moment. But again I am well aware that there are other marginalised groups.

        Add ā€œorganic potato but parents live off Hartz IVā€ to the list of people without equal opportunities and we could have a seed of agreement. ā€œBildungsferne Schichtenā€, as the euphemism goes.

        They were never off the list. I do not understand why you think they would be.

        A Turk with Abitur much less degree is rare not because theyā€™re Turks but because their parents didnā€™t study.

        Thatā€™s an untrue simplification. Turkish people are racistly discriminated against even in school. If their parents didnā€™t have a good education obviously getting Abitur will be even harder, same as for any other person, but they might face additional hurdles or just different hurdles than others. Same for disabled people, they will face bigger hurdles than their able-bodied friends with the same background. Same for girls getting into STEM, their gender probably will cause the barrier for them to be even higher than for boys with a similar non-academic household. Naming the reasons for why some people face different obstacles isnā€™t idpol, itā€™s materialist.

        Be a good leftist and spend some of your solidarity budget on Kevin. Itā€™s going to pay off a thousandfold because it will create conditions under which addressing things like racial profiling doesnā€™t sound like ā€œoh great another way for them to ignore usā€.

        Kevin always had my solidarity, but I expect to have his. Itā€™s not unconditional. Also it doesnā€™t need to be budgeted? What a weird way of thinking about it.

        Democracies have capacity limits, when you fix shit that concerns a huge number of people suddenly those have time and nerve for solidarity,

        True, which is why Iā€™m advocating for precise language to name concerns so that we get to those with the most first. Because time and again once the majority got theirs the minority was left behind. The people whose only motivation is that their concerns get addressed will lose any motivation once they are. Tit for tat is not solidarity and will never achieve justice.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          Why do you think that would stop short of a person born into poverty or to one born to parents who didnt have the privilege of a higher education and therefore canā€™t pass on what they havenā€™t learned?

          Because you kept emphasising one thing while not acknowledging the other, or misread it, like the ā€œthe precariat gets promised more welfareā€ stuff. I was acknowledging all kinds of racial stuff from the very start, arguing about cause vs. symptom and the order in which things are best addressed so that things get done as fast as possible.

          The grey wolves kill people like me.

          And Nazis kill people like me. Fascists gotta fascist, no surprises there. If you ever spotted any psychological pattern of mine that matches what Nazis do Iā€™d fucking want you to tell me.

          How about instead to those closest to drowning?

          You first have to get those clinging to them, dragging them down, off their back, or both will drown. Chances are you donā€™t even need a second vest non-swimmers tend to choose good swimmers to cling to, but you need special water martial arts training to get yourself out of that kind of situation. I know such things I have DLRG Bronze (seriously yes I have but at this point the metaphor might be at the breaking point).

          What do you propose we do about the people that arenā€™t close to drowning but steal the vests from under the people that are?

          Oh, the rich. Easy: We eat them. Youā€™re the Turk, you come up with a recipe. Anything as long as it involves expropriated chilli.

          Same for girls getting into STEM, their gender probably will cause the barrier for them to be even higher than for boys with a similar non-academic household.

          Eh Mathematics is pretty much 50/50, engineering is heavily male-dominated, but then you have e.g. biology which is female-dominated. Weā€™re at a stage where you have to drill down by subject and some of it will probably never vanish (ask Lego, they tried). And speaking of: Thereā€™s grade discrimination against boys and we donā€™t have nearly enough male teachers.

          Generally speaking thereā€™s lots of differences between the states when it comes to primary and secondary education. The eastern states are actually quite good when it comes to having at least remotely sane systems (the more different than Bavaria the better, more or less) but then theyā€™re (exception Berlin) also the ones with the fewest people with immigrant backgrounds. Back in my days SH hadnā€™t yet abolished the Realschule and let me tell you Gymnasiasts are awful in comparison. You can try as you want if you tell kids theyā€™re better or worse at a young age what you get is classism and if you justify one type of discrimination, you implicitly justify, and cause, all: Itā€™s way easier to learn looking down on a new group of people than it is to learn looking down the first time around.

          Because time and again once the majority got theirs the minority was left behind.

          How in the everloving fuck has the majority ever gotten theirs. I mean short of the labour aristocracy ā€“ which btw has a quite significant Turkish component, IG Metall and everything, you donā€™t need Abitur to work at VW. If you count by type of employment relation the precariat is about 30% of the workforce. Thirty, not even counting the unemployed. Even more are worried that theyā€™ll land there, about 12.5% never knew anything else and donā€™t expect better, either. The rest of the majority pays all the taxes while the rich donā€™t even begin to pay their fair share (or the wealth gap wouldnā€™t increase steadily).

          I acknowledge that thereā€™s room for different valuations here and we could play oppression Olympics all night long, but telling the precariat ā€œyouā€™ll have to waitā€ isnā€™t going to work. You can describe everything very accurately all day long people wonā€™t listen, the percentage of people who got fucked over since the 90s is too high to be ignored. Also risking them being stirrup holders for Nazis is just not worth it.

          • mathemachristian[he]@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            Alright I have already spent an undue amount of time and energy on you, Iā€™m giving up. Your reading skills are subpar, you donā€™t seem to be able to selfcrit, you keep using ML terms even though you clearly arenā€™t a Marxist, not even a materialist. You are an ā€œall lives matterā€ liberal wrecker and bully and certainly no comrade of mine.

            • barsoap@lemm.ee
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              10 months ago

              you keep using ML terms even though you clearly arenā€™t a Marxist, not even a materialist.

              Iā€™m an anarchist. Itā€™s not my fault MLs appropriated and abuse our terms and donā€™t understand power. I mean have you read Engelā€™s ā€œOn Authorityā€? Literally ā€œAnarchists think ball-point pens are oppressing them by dictating that you shall press a button and thatā€™s all theyā€™re aboutā€ kind of reasoning, a completely bourgie strawman.

              • mathemachristian[he]@lemm.ee
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                10 months ago

                An ā€œanarchistā€ that tries to keep a lid on anti-racism in case it might offend lol. An ā€œanarchistā€ that keeps gaslighting about how racist actions arenā€™t really about racism because white people face injustices as well. An ā€œanarchistā€ that is openly lying to me ā€œMathematics is 50/50 in male/femaleā€? Do you not see that my username is a portemanteau of mathematician and christian? Who do you think youre fooling. ā€œDonā€™t tell others they have to wait, youā€™ll have to wait yourself and once the majority has theirs your turn will comeā€ the fuck out of here lmao

                • barsoap@lemm.ee
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                  10 months ago

                  An ā€œanarchistā€ that is openly lying to me ā€œMathematics is 50/50 in male/femaleā€?

                  Oh sorry maths is actually 55% female. But, sure, narratives are stronger than statistics thatā€™s what you learn in maths. And you have the gall to talk about materialism, if you simply made a statement and didnā€™t know and didnā€™t bother to look it up thatā€™s one thing, not looking it up when accusing someone else of lying is a whole different game: Itā€™s political violence.