I’m broadly left-libertarian, with strong sympathy for people suffering from poverty, poor health, lack of education etc. To the extent skin color is a very strong multiplier I take it seriously, but not symbolically. It’s a good analysis variable but a terrible symbolizing one.
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Forget Asians, who are more likely to not fit politics implied by ‘POC’ than fit. Even rich blacks/Hispanics are likely going to be misfits in ways that seriously undermine intent (for example take roles intended to represent but not actually do so because of ‘white’ incentives)
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Someone (I think ) joked that what America needs is a class war, not a culture war. I’d rather not have a war at all, but I agree if we must have one, a “class war” (though not necessarily constructed in socialist terms) is a healthier one to have.
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One reason I think is a net healthy addition to the political stage, despite being skeptical of her economic policies is that she seems to be pursuing this class-over-culture framing. Not saying drop cultural identity. Just don’t make it the flag/symbolizing variable.
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Tldr: it’s your choice whether to use the term. It doesn’t offend me, but it does not serve me either. It represents a slight negative utility which I would tolerate if I thought it was at least helping people who needed help, but it doesn’t do that either.
So I don’t use it.
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I was with you until “correlation is not causation”. My POV: We can’t think through and solve for economic inequity without recognizing racism’s role in its construction. We can’t address one social ill without addressing the constellation of structures that generate it.
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Sure. Using the term POC is just a lousy tactic towards that end.
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Agreed we need tactics to help more people join an “imagined community” not constructed by race. But at the same time, the imagined community of nation is also troubled. What are we asking people to BE beyond race or “American” [sic] or “Ghanese” etc?
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Whatever they want that does not involve coopting others who don’t actually share the identity. Free market of identities rather than bureaucracy. Most people do fine without strongly “being” anything .
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Perhaps. It's never been tried anywhere. Free market identity politics is an idea whose time has come.
I mean, there are neurodiverse and neurotypical people, alcoholics and non-binary people......1/x
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But I'm curious, you think the popularization of the term 'POC' involves a co-optation of sorts? Colonization being the historical force it was, I think the rise of a 'colour coalition' makes a sort of natural sense.
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As in, it's possible that among the groups being oppressed by divide and conquer oppressors, one group carries more blame than the other. As in, is the very TERM 'POC' so alienating to white people?
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Of course, there will be 'POC' might not consider themselves a part of the color coalition and not find the term 'POC' representative/useful, as you do. And I agree with you re your analysis on AOC, she's a canny coalition spotter/builder.
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Sort of like free market economics has never been successfully tried? Identity production is a group cultural activity, no? Except in myths like the USA’s “self-made man”.


