While this is not a substantive critique of my theory, I agree (especially after talking to Pseudonym): we need to help the poor on the basis that they are often misvalued by the wealthy, ultra wealthy, corporate entities, etc. in ways that cut across group lines.
However, I do think that helping minorities and vulnerable or disadvantaged groups should help correct poverty to a large degree due to the disproportionate representation on that front.
Indeed, it does seem a little strange that every time I write about fighting entrenched racism in the context of justice, someone usually starts lecturing from the pulpit about how we need to address poverty as a whole seemingly independently of issues of race. The two are, clearly, inextricably linked. If we truly want to help the impoverished, we have to help those who have throughout history been disadvantaged relative to the white majority because of largely conditional economic and social progress favoring that majority.
The key thing is we need to address the conditions that cause poverty — racial discrimination is one of these, but is not the sole cause by any means. However, if we ignore poverty itself and its economic causes, we will probably disproportionately help more privileged portions of said minority groups. For instance, to use two examples from my thread, Clarence Thomas and my aforementioned example of Sheryl Sandberg really don’t need helping, but will receive a disproportionate benefit over poor Black people and poor women if we seek to improve the lot of Black people or women but ignore underlying poverty.
Another concern is that only helping minorities and not helping poor White people is likely to be counterproductive in the long run, as poor White people will potentially see themselves as being specifically and selectively left out while other people are helped and will hence be driven into the arms of reaction — which will only serve to prevent further progress in the future.
Nowhere did I suggest that we not help poor white people. Clearly that would be stupid. What I was saying is that we cannot address poverty if we do not address the reality that black people specifically have been the targets of discrimination that has (largely) hampered their economic success. That’s it. We just need to take into account the added layer of racism that informs policy while addressing the other causes of poverty.
I did not claim that it was.
I don’t know why we would ignore economic causes. I am just pointing out that this stuff is all interrelated, and that to claim to want to help the impoverished is, at least to me, a claim to want to address racism and bigotry at large. As to whether or not some rich black people, for example, might benefit from measures taken to create a more equitable system: that can probably be addressed on a policy level, and even if it were the case, I don’t know if I would care that much given it were the result of a net positive.
For instance, a twenty-dollar minimum wage would likely disproportionately help poor black people, but it doesn’t exactly add up to an unfair advantage for Clarence Thomas, does it?
Thus, it seems to me we can have measures that both address poverty and also address the reality of racial inequity without fundamentally breaking the system.
Oh, I agree that we can, should, and must help address the fundamental underlying economic issues behind poverty at the same time as we address issues like racial discrimination.
It just seemed like from your comments that you thought that addressing issues such as racial discrimination would automatically help address the majority of poverty and that the economic causes of poverty beyond things such as systemic racism are of lesser concern.
(Your position seemed to be a mirror image of criticized versions of “no war but the class war” — just as that position is frequently criticized for seeking to end class oppression and exploitation while ignoring systemic racism and sexism and like or at least treating them as strictly secondary, your position seemed to seek to address systemic racism while treating class oppression and exploitation as secondary to it.)
I mean, I don’t think I said anything to that effect. I just stated the necessity of addressing systemic racism to the overall project of creating a just society. Must I always couch such claims in some broader picture or project? I don’t think that there needs to be some hierarchy of legitimate causes of poverty or constant consideration of every factor at play in order to speak about justice. Black people have had it worse than white people in almost every way throughout the history of the U.S., and their plight is central to bringing about justice. I think one should be able to say that without reference to any other group or matter.
Part of why I thought that is that in the context of this thread poverty (and hence class oppression and exploitation) seemed to be treated as different to things like systemic racism. This may have not been your intention, but it was implicit by omission, as is commonly the case with liberal anti-racism, which seeks to end racial oppression without practically addressing class oppression and exploitation.
Class oppression and exploitation can be described in value specific terms just fine, even if I didn’t emphasize that until Pseudonym pointed out that one could address perhaps all groups and group identities in these terms - although doing so is only meaningful if it is justified by the situation or qualities of that group, e.g. white supremacists have entirely no basis for the way they (mis)value Somalian immigrants.
Yes, and we both omitted the mentally ill, who by and large would benefit disproportionately from better treatment and government programs - even compared to people in extreme poverty. I don’t think it is serious to claim that I intended to advocate for liberal anti-racism merely because I didn’t address class oppression and exploitation too directly. Mostly because I’m telling you that that wasn’t my intention. I didn’t declare my OP the definitive document on justice. It is more of a template than anything and should be treated as such.
Understood. I do have a tendency to perceive ‘social justice’ unqualified within the context of modern Western societies as being liberal in nature, because if someone does not go out and say that they are a socialist or that their view is from a socialist perspective (whether democratic socialist, anarchist, Marxist, Christian, Jewish, etc.) they probably aren’t.
I agree that there is a tendency among many liberals towards downplaying the economic factors related to injustice and, being a democratic socialist myself, I am familiar with the associated frustrations. But in the case of the relatively narrow philosophical lens I develop in the OP, I cannot address all forms of oppression at once. It was merely convenient to specifically address racism - something very obvious, pervasive, and relatively simpler, in my opinion, to discuss than economic concerns in the context of the OP.
Even though you can attempt to address people’s concerns piecemeal, and it may be easier to digest this way (e.g. uplift People of Color’s interests without fundamental changes to the underlying economic system), you will ultimately fail to liberate humanity as a whole this way.
Addressing racial oppression alone will only liberate those People of Color who are male and already relatively well-off. Addressing class oppression and exploitation alone won’t liberate half of humanity (i.e. women), and not even that as non-White workers are likely to not be fully liberated either. Addressing women’s oppression alone will only liberate those women who are already relatively privileged. And so on.
Ultimately, you have to tackle all forms of oppression head-on if you seek to liberate humanity as a whole.