Core issue with Yang is one we find across bro culture world that lives adjacent to suffering, and often in service of those causing it, and that is an inability to even imagine that those impacted already have policy solutions and are not backwards villages waiting to be saved.

So while NYC mayoral candidates @Dianne4NYC @scottmstringer @mayawiley compete to show us who is listening to the experienced streets for solutions more, Andrew Yang is sending signals to those profiting off oppression that they will have a dutiful manager of the masses.

Coming out of digital ad tech world, when I moved to join policy and movements, I tried to bring as many along with me. And it was difficult work. It was work that often led to watching 26 year old techies lecture 65 year old housing organizers before even asking a question.

And an underling reality is that these men, winners of race and privilege lotteries, simply do believe we live in a meritocracy. And that, for example, public housing or unions struggle because of design and merit and innovation vs being actively attacked by the rich and racist.

Their mythology is strong enough to transform the reality of Elon Musk the digital banker whose apartheid South African parents owned a gem mine into a self made innovator, and Bezos who chose to prey on bookstores first an innovative bookseller who turned his ideas to profit.

What their mythology is truly protecting is the logical conclusion of the facts. The world is unfair because it’s rigged in their favor. Those who succeed point to their genius. Those who fail are embarrassed to admit they failed in a system rigged for them.

This is why they are also so hostile to “identity politics”. Because unboxing it would challenge everything they believe. Even among and sometimes especially among fellow people of color who uphold this white mythology more than their own beautiful histories and ancestors.