This was not written by me, but by one of our new members. It's too good not to share here in its entirety. As always, everyone here is welcome and encouraged to share your links and essays with us at WayoftheBern (last Tuesday we experienced 87,000+ unique visitors and 200,000 page views, and are over 7,500 subscribers now) to help keep C99 in our readers minds. ~ Thumb

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To those pointing fingers...

By chimpaman

This is an...essay of sorts? Rant? that I thought I'd share with this subreddit because I think most here sympathize. Whether or not I'll share it elsewhere--with friends and family already out for blood because I didn't bend the knee to Clinton (for reference, I voted Stein)--remains to be seen...

To those pointing fingers:

Casting baseless aspersions at people that they don't understand racism or sexism helps no one; if anything, it deepens the divides in this country and in the larger world. You don't have to be a direct target of injustice to recognize and understand it; you only have to live in the world with open eyes and an open heart. The proof is written throughout history, which is littered with the corpses and ruined lives of people who spent everything fighting for those less fortunate than themselves—and you are not among their number.

Liberalism used to be about individuals and their empowerment—of judging each and every human by the content of their character, not the color of their skin; of making sure each and every human could have the dignity of a living wage. Neoliberalism and neoconservatism, out of base political, power-seeking motives, have jointly perverted those noble goals into identifying people first and foremost by whatever group they seem to belong to so that they can be "messaged" during campaigning, including demonizing the "other," on both sides. Not because power-hungry people on either side care about the groups they target, but because it has proven to be an effective strategy for them to achieve and consolidate power.

We've swallowed the bait, which has chest-bursted into hate.

Liberalism, and now even progressivism, has been coopted by pandering Machiavellian corporatocratists on one hand and social media Thought Police on the other, just as conservatism has been coopted by similar corporatocratism on one hand and fundamentalism on the other. If we continue down these parallel regressive paths, the ethos that will grow more and more attractive to more and more people will be non-pacifist anarchism.

Restlessness is manifestly growing among the poor as the middle-class plummets to join them in poverty, but instead of changing course, your ruling class has militarized the police to quell dissent.

A gay black Muslim woman living in South Central has more in common with a straight white atheist man living in the Inland Empire than either has with suburbanites clucking their tongues at other suburbanites about their supposed privilege and bigotry, and all of them have more in common with each other than with the “leaders” they’re squabbling about. A destitute Rust Belt family has more in common with a family of Syrian refugees than either has with the rapacious global elite—the stars of the Panama Papers—whose avarice causes their suffering.

But we all turn to this same extravagantly wealthy class for rescue from the desperate circumstances they’ve created. We look to them for help. They won’t help us. Many of them can’t help us; it’s not in their nature. Psychopathy is overrepresented in their class—and that is not a proletariat rant; scientific studies have demonstrated it. Those that have already done damage belong in institutions that prevent them from further harming society, not in ones that allow them to decide what shape society will take.

Sure, in this latest presidential result, bigotry would’ve played a minor role on both sides even if the two candidates hadn’t both actively encouraged it. It always does. Tribalism is an unfortunate adaptation that served our survival well when we were scattered bands of hunter-gatherers living red in tooth and claw; it has long since lost its purpose, but human nature as a whole is a glacier, not a river. Society, though, has in the last century flowed rapidly toward across-the-board equality, and most people would like to see their neighbors prosper—but our tribal instincts are still too easily stoked in times of hardship.

But even with both candidates playing divide-and-conquer, bigotry still only played a minor role in the outcome. The primary deciding factor was, as it usually is, economic. The people you are trying to shame as bigots, whom you treat as if their electoral preference was a mortal sin, as if they are trying to hasten the apocalypse—do you really think all 60 million of them are monsters?—voted the way they voted because economic policy has completely failed them. The victorious candidate won because he represented at least the possibility for economic change. Whether or not that change will be positive remains to be seen, but his voters are not trying to pull others down; they are trying to pull their heads above water. If you truly seek to protect the disadvantaged, look also to their suffering.

The poisonous identity-politics bullying and shaming in which many of you are engaging is targeting many people who can’t fully articulate their outrage, who can’t clearly explain to you exactly what you’re doing. You are making enemies of people who did not want to be your enemies. In closely following this election, I have frequented both liberal and conservative forums, I have consumed both liberal and conservative media, mainstream and alternative, I have spoken to liberal and conservative friends and strangers, and the greatest number of hateful people I have encountered are those who behave as you do.

In my forty-plus years, I have never been called a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a bigot of any kind—until this election. Until, although I loudly supported other female and minority candidates, I questioned the character of one candidate who happened to be female, whereupon I discovered, much to my chagrin, that I am seething with prejudice, that I am blind to suffering in the world.

It’s so beyond the pale that it would be farcical if these issues weren’t so serious.

You who are engaging in this behavior online are as out of control as those Portlanders who bizarrely thought emo Kristallnacht was the best way to show people they would stand against any burgeoning fascism.

(Edit: adding a line here--)

If you tell me, “that was just a few people,” I’ll tell you it is just a few people on the other side, too. When you understand that, you will have taken your first step into a larger world.

Most of America simply wants better lives for themselves and their children; it’s a cliché that happens to be true. By extension, again, most also want better lives for their neighbors, whatever their identities. To those who fight for equality, you are winning the war; your victory will largely be complete when the older generations pass on. You are hammering on people who are no longer your foes. You are allowing yourself to be manipulated by contemptible elitists into widening divides that were closing, because it makes you turn to them for answers instead of to each other. Your assaults on your fellow citizens empowers them, not us. It does not empower you, unless you also seek to be contemptible.

This has always been at heart a class-based question, not an identity-based one: “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or does it explode?” That is the primary question of our time, the struggle of the 99 percent against the 1. That is a struggle they are winning, and they are pulling away. Identity politics is a heavy weapon in their arsenal, as is corporate media, and they wield both like cleavers. We have to reject both and seek common truth.

To those pointing fingers: instead of telling others how awful they are, show them how good you are. Get down to a soup kitchen, engage the people you’re serving, and thank them for the time they chose to spend with you instead of congratulating yourself on your altruism. If you’ve got a particular skill set that could benefit others—construction, law, music, sociology, finance, education, fill in the blank—get yourself to a local nonprofit and thank them for the free opportunity they’re giving you to practice your skills and improve your character and your understanding of others. If you’ve got the time and the means, get yourself to Standing Rock and share the load with most disadvantaged peoples—hands down, no contest—in our society: Native Americans. Share the load with the planet that sustains you.

Or don’t. Tell me all about how horrible I am in the comments below, and then go buy yourself a smoothie. You could even treat yourself to a wrap; you’ll surely have earned it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/5cliwe/to_those_pointing_...