• rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Racism is an intersection of power structures, historical injustice, and poverty. Truth be told, that’s the recipe for all systemic injustice. The US was built for white men; the native Americans were being genocided, women were domestic slaves, and black people were chattel. Because the US reneged on reparations for ex-slaves after the civil war, a vast majority of black Americans entered the society in abject poverty. Because women, slaves, and native Americans had to be totally disenfranchised to be subjugated, laws were made to ensure disenfranchisement was long lasting. The rest of society continued to build up around these discriminatory laws, which could inflict more harm onto the group. A lot of these laws were even color blind; red zoning was on the basis of poverty.

    But remember how I said former slaves were in abject poverty? Well, generational wealth plays a part here too. Wealth from family is far more important than we want to admit in this country. Some black people were able to become moderately wealthy, but that’s not everyone or even most people. Most remained in poverty after 1 generation from slavery. When red zoning excluded poverty-stricken areas, they excluded most black people.

    But that’s not the end of the story. Now, we’ve understood how red zoning is harmful and repealed those laws. But segregated neighborhoods are even more segregated than before! Why? Well the racist history of enforced poverty makes it hard to build local wealth in those areas, our government has made it exceedingly hard to escape poverty, and poverty is worsening due to wealth accumulation by billionaires.

    • nifty@lemmy.worldOP
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      10 hours ago

      I agree with all of that, I’ve said similar things myself. I think the problem is that globalism changed the equation, and that’s why you now have Indian Americans who are a core part of Trump’s admin.

      If anti-racial people keep saying that the system is rigged against minorities, then rich minorities are always going to be used as counterexamples. Because that’s the reality now, the power structures favor the wealthy, regardless of race, gender, or any other characteristic.

      People trying to protect DEI and CRT will just come across as out of touch with reality, and appear as wanting favoritism, especially as the population of poor whites is also growing. If democrats want to win more elections, they should put forth policies that are in the Nordic model so that they help everyone. If anti-racists and inclusive folks want to build a better future for minorities, they have to think outside of the CRT/DEI box because the system now is not unfavorable to minorities, only the poor.

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        I’m at a loss for words. I just gave you a literal example of CRT that you agree with, but you’re still going on about how it isn’t relevant and “backwards”. The laws have to dismantle the biases built into the system before we can safely remove DEI programs without risk of unfair exclusion. I also want a world where those programs are no longer necessary. We have to build it first.

        • nifty@lemmy.worldOP
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          9 hours ago

          Maybe you’re right, and it’s too bad they did away with DEI before we got get any stats on its usefulness for the overall population. I remember that corporates starting removing DEI way before Trump started talking about it because they didn’t find that it did anything which contributed to their growth or leadership.

          Edit this article shows why some people think removing DEI is racist. It’s true that anti-DEI is often favored by racist people as well.

          https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-02-01/why-companies-are-scaling-back-dei-in-america