Lizzy blocks a lot of folks who press her on various questions she doesn't want to answer. So you are now part of good trouble company. Congratulations!https://twitter.com/nberlat/status/1338722587824836609 …
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The mistake White progs have made with White populists like Bruenig and Glenn Greenwald is thinking that their support for single-payer healthcare also makes them progressive. Well, Friedrich Von Hayek, the cofounder of free market economics, also supported single-payer.
Hayek was anything but a socialist or Marxist. He did recognize that the last thing markets should handle is anything related to health (as well as life). Because any sensible economist can tell you if you want to maximize death, make healthcare a purely market activity.
Hayek, however, didn't necessarily apply this sensible thinking to anything else. Neither does Bruenig or her fellow White populists. In both cases, it's because they are ideologues. In Bruenig's case, its Catholic-driven conservative populism that is also White Supremacist.
Note that Bruenig didn't consider Berlatsky's overall point (which is that the parent-child relationship is naturally a coercive one in many ways for many good reasons, but it can also be abusive, something to which psychiatrists, interventionists and social workers can attest).
But that's not shocking. Bruenig isn't a deep thinker anyway. What should shock progs (not really) is that Bruenig didn't consider one prime example of how parent-child relationships can be abusive: When kids are come out as one of the LGBTQ.
There are parents who force their kids into conversion therapy once they find out that their kids are gay. There are parents who kick their kids out of their homes once they come out as lesbian or non-binary. There are parents who refuse to help their kids transition.
A lot of that abuse is implicitly allowed in parental-child relationships, often by Christian, often Catholic and White Evangelical, institutions who should be following Christ's first command: Love everyone! Many parents use the Bible to justify such abuse.
For someone like Bruenig, the idea that such abuse is possible in what is naturally (and until a child turns 18) a coercive relationship, and can often extend into a youth's adult years seems impossible. But in many ways, that's likely because their dogma overwhelms sense.
As a parent, my view is that my job is to raise my child to be an independent person. Which means he will eventually be out of my control. Which, in turn, means I have to be willing to take on the transition from authority figure to guide and counselor, to wise elder.
But in order to do that, I have had to look hard at the areas of my own parenting (and my own childhood) in which, well, things could have been better. It's rough work - and there are some areas in which I grew up with a tad too much coercion (and in other cases, not enough).
Then I have to change so that I can be a better parent. That's hard work - and no one gets it right. But I will admit that right now, with a seven-year-old, coercion is part of the job. The question is how much? That's something every parent must ask at all times.
The mistake Bruenig makes is thinking that there is no point in which parental coercion can't be abusive. It can be, and oftentimes, happens when children find out that they aren't binary or will never want to be in relationship with someone of the opposite gender.
If Richard Gelles and Richard Wexler, combatants over the role of government in child welfare, can agree that there's a point where parental authority can become abusive (and they do), then the rest of us can agree that is possible, too.
By understanding how parental authority can go from being necessarily coercive (because children lack the ability to make many life-affecting decisions for themselves until they are late in their teenage years), we can also understand how other forms of authority can be abusive.
Because in many ways, the parent-child relationship (and the family systems built around them) are models for how our community and governmental systems operate, often to the detriment of the marginalized and oppressed.
I love even bigots and evil people because God and Christ tell me so. But that doesn't mean I have to tolerate what they do or associate with them in the world. https://twitter.com/ashe_simon/status/1338870055820357635 …
To take Ross' point further: Quite a bit of what happens in American public education is coercive to the point of abusive. Some 23 states allow teachers and school leaders to beat students. One out of every 1,000 preschoolers are spanked by school folks.https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2020/10/13/ending-corporal-punishment-of-preschool-age-children/ …
The adults in school systems are allowed to do this because of the concept of en loco parentis, that is, the ability of schools to act in place of parents. In this country, parents can spank children - so long as they aren't Black and don't run afoul of child welfare agencies.
We put cops in schools, who can then arrest and assault children and youth if they run afoul of some rule or law enacted by the school system or state. In many ways, school discipline is reflective of what is done by too many parents at home.https://dropoutnation.net/2015/07/16/damage-of-bad-discipline/ …
If we are all being honest, a major reason why it so hard to end overuse of harsh discipline in schools is because you have a contingent of parents who think that it is cool to destroy children's emotional and physical wellbeing - and don't mind it being done to their own kin.
There is really a lot of romanticizing by folks about how they were spanked by their parents and they turned out 'okay'. To paraphrase @michaelharriot, those folks didn't turn out fine at all.
To quote a wise man, or several...https://twitter.com/selmekki/status/1181911528343248896 …
At a certain point, by the time they reach K-12, parents have other tools they can use to ensure discipline. To wit: My son is quite remorseful (and better-able to follow directions) after I take his stuffed animals away for misbehavior.
Your child at age six or seven is quite able to reason. They don't fully grasp consequences because the brain doesn't develop that capacity until age 25. But they like their toys - and hate when they can't play with them.
Keep in mind that at a certain point, this, too, can be abusive. As parents, we have to figure out which behaviors are truly detrimental to their well-being (as well as to our pocketbooks), and which behaviors are just things we hate because we all have quirks.
Meanwhile Berlatsky, whose comments (and Bruenig's response to them) started this thread, has gotten the usual pile-on from folks who don't do much thinking. This includes even some Black people. [Happens.] Good news is that others do.https://twitter.com/BriannaWu/status/1338926476033462272 …
This isn't shocking. Family and parenting are pretty personal. Also: Our parents modeled our own ways of childrearing. If some were being honest, many of their parents needed therapy. They need therapy, too.
But Berlatsky's overall point isn't wrong. Parenting is necessarily coercive - because that's what raising kids requires - and yet, can be abusive (and we know that to be true; not controversial to say).https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1338623627093307397 …
It's as if folks don't realize that there are a lot of families where parents are just abusive as hell, often because they are replicating the abusive behaviors of their parents.https://twitter.com/thespinsterymc/status/1338600666571411462 …
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