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Rich white people stay silent about/actively encourage racism because they’d prefer people hate each other rather than notice the way they became rich. For decades there have been organized movements to make poor white people feel closer to millionaires than to other poor people.
Poor white people are never going to be millionaires, especially if they keep voting against their own interests, but they won’t have time to think about that if they’re convinced the “other” is out to get them. Plus, far-right media encourages “me first” mentality, and...
...the audience learns to assume everyone thinks that way, that it’s a free-for-all and your only hope is to arm yourself against your neighbors and only trust people who say they won’t disarm you. They hold millionaires up as examples for themselves. Selfishness as a virtue.
And so people are kept low, hungry, dying, but it’s obviously not the fault of the rich, who deserve everything they have because they “earned it” by being righteously selfish. It must be these other people who are taking all the resources.
That’s where racism helps the selfish rich person’s cause. It’s most effective to “other” people who seem dramatically different in some way, so they’re easier to group and stereotype. Instead of demonizing people for bad actions, they demonize based on looks and culture.
Rich people are byproducts and beneficiaries of racism. They perpetuate it in order to keep their power. This is true today, and it was true when their colonizing ancestors labeled people as sub-human, trafficked them as slaves, and built “civilizations” that marginalized them.
We have the resources to take care of everyone. But we can’t do it without people actually caring about and trusting other people.
Those with power know that. Their goal is to never let that happen.
Those with power know that. Their goal is to never let that happen.
And honestly...they’re just plain racist. Anyone who watches someone else die and thinks only “how will this affect me?” does not value that person’s humanity. Patterns emerge every time that clearly demonstrate whose lives are cared about by whites and whose are not.
White people will tell themselves every time that it was an exception, or that it was “god’s justice”, or that it couldn’t be helped because the world is an unforgiving place. They don’t want to see their complicity in building the structures that make the world harsh.
They don’t want to acknowledge that they are at an advantage, even when it comes to life and death, because they are selfish, and they don’t want to lose any advantage whatsoever.
It’s easier for them to shift the blame onto their victims. So that’s what they do.
It’s easier for them to shift the blame onto their victims. So that’s what they do.
I said “they” a lot in this thread, but I’m white too. I benefit from structural inequality. There was a time, when I was younger, that I didn’t even believe in it. I grew up in a town that is over 90% white, and right-wing radio and TV were really taking off when I was a teen.
Even though I didn’t buy what I was hearing 100%, I bought enough of it. I felt safe and cozy in my lower-middle-class white world, and I thought America was a place that offered equal opportunity to people who worked hard. I was ableist and racist without realizing it.
(I was also sexist, enough that I still battle insidious internalized misogyny.)
I wrote an extremely racist history paper that I cringe to think about now, praising a black historical figure for succeeding without making any white people uncomfortable. (My teacher underlined my “points” and wrote “YES!” several times.)
I knew racism existed, but I thought it was overblown, not really a problem anymore. It was easy for me to think this because I didn’t know any black people—as far as I can remember, there were only two black kids in my entire high school.
Those are REASONS for why I started out completely oblivious, but they’re not excuses for staying that way. There is no excuse for that, for any of us. Once you grow up, start meeting people outside your childhood experience, there is no excuse.
At that point you are WILFULLY IGNORANT. You are CHOOSING not to see the pain your fellow human beings are going through and you are CHOOSING to allow it to continue. YOU ARE COMPLICIT.
