You're viewing part of a thread.
I don't know how we're reading the same sentence and arrive at opposite conclusions. Even if you were right about the goldrush in indian land not being a motivating factor for droves of immigrants I think my larger point, how incomparable the motivation for white immigrants and the currently oppressed immigrants is, still stands by the actions the europeans undertook upon arrival. This is not about dividing people into racist groups, but clearly talking about the racial divide that was drawn up by the capitalist class. Not talking about the deep racism in the european immigrant movement, regardless of their class status, in fear of "deepening grudges" is revisionist.
Even if you were right about the goldrush in indian land not being a motivating factor for droves of immigrants
No it absolutely was the motivating factor. Setting out to pan gold is precisely not setting out to murder Chinese is what I'm saying, that was plan C or D thought up long after arriving. If the American dream had ever been real, or if American politics and society back then had not been as racialised, it would not have come to that -- it's not just up to the failed gold rushers now between a rock and a hard place but also the racist state institutions implemented by Anglo America who gave them at least implicit permission to do it, or even egged it on.
In my mind OP's post wants to say "[this group] came here for that dream, they never got it, let's finally make it real [for everyone]". Are other interpretations possible? I'd say so, but I'd also say one should be charitable.
Also didn't the Chinese come for that exact dream. Last I checked Chinese had white skin (sorry my Europeanness is shining through).
Setting out to pan gold is precisely not setting out to murder Chinese is what I'm saying, that was plan C or D thought up long after arriving.
Oh I see what you meant. To me that still reads like they were simply misled on who to plunder and what the loot would be.
But regardless I do agree that what you said was OPs message and I also agree with it, but I don't think it will be achieved by appealing to sentiment, whitewashing history, especially where the wealth comes from, and in general trying to appease the crowd with false equivalences, because they serve to hide the root of the present injustices. Furthermore I see no reason to be charitable to someone like Robert Reich.
Edit I don't know enough about the chinese immigrants to comment on what brought them to the US. In racist terms chinese and east asians are considered "yellow" not "white".
To me that still reads like they were simply misled on who to plunder and what the loot would be.
"Plundering natives" is not a motive I'd expect, at least not from immigrants who read Karl May. More "get rich off the vast wilderness". I think that accusation should, among labourers, be limited to people going for agricultural land, displacing communities already living there.
but I don’t think it will be achieved by appealing to sentiment, whitewashing history, especially where the wealth comes from, and in general trying to appease the crowd with false equivalences,
The majority of the wealth comes off the back of the workers. The miners, people working in industry, it's the same in the US as it's in Europe: Other sectors are important and even crucial (e.g. food production) but it terms of GDP and capacity to produce goods, industry it's where it's at.
Y'all should definitely be giving land back but say Detroit didn't become an industrial powerhouse because natives were sent on the trail of tears, or southern farmers exploited black slaves. If all wealth the US had was only from those aspects then you'd still be an agrarian society.
Is it possible to come to a synthesis there, not ignoring the atrocities committed but acknowledging the important (not sole) role that skilled European labourers had in building the economic backbone of the US, a backbone without which implementing Utopian dreams would be, well, Utopian?
Because as I see it, if, as soon as someone says, "my grandfather was a miner" and you instantly bring up the one or other atrocity some mining community committed against other people you're saying "we all would have been better off without you, you people contributed nothing": It's way easier to get people to acknowledge past or present wrongs when you leave them their pride in their accomplishments. "All that wealth is stolen" is the exact opposite of that, grandpa didn't work backbreaking 14-hour shifts for that, without health insurance. He did it so that his kids would have a better life. Was he worse off than a slave on a cotton plantation? No, of course not, but it's still where the bulk of the wealth comes from. Wealth is not created in proportion to suffering.
Furthermore I see no reason to be charitable to someone like Robert Reich.
I have no idea who the guy is and I probably don't want to know.
Im going to disengage here. I am one last time going to urge you to read that book. Also just because there seems to be a misunderstanding here let me say that I'm not USian, I'm german.
Also just because there seems to be a misunderstanding here let me say that I’m not USian, I’m german.
My gods that's even worse. Why, then, are you that steeped in reductionist, racialised, US analysis? Activists and theorists over there don't see the water they're swimming in, don't realise how their unwillingness and/or incapacity to think outside of that framework perpetuates it. It allows people to stay depoliticised by engaging in performativism, segregating hair styles becomes more important than material fucking conditions. Idpol is the worst thing that happened to the left since Stalin and the exact opposite of what you should be steeped in, and that's rapprochement. Which is exactly where I tried to carefully lead you.
Side note do watch Reservation Dogs.
OK excuse me you talk about material "fucking" conditions and ignore or relativize the colonial history of the Hegemon. You're in for a rude awakening if you think your rapprochement of liberal "hearts and minds" or whatever the fuck it is that you're looking to accomplish will ever be possible. I urge you so much more to read that exact book I'm pushing if only to see how the white communists and socialists and unionists kept fucking things up and kept playing into the racist divide with these kind of civility politics that you're pushing, while ignoring the native american or black american comrade. Because its these divides that are currently being amped up right here in Germany, the second most subservient country to the Hegemon.
You’re in for a rude awakening if you think your rapprochement of liberal “hearts and minds” or whatever the fuck it is that you’re looking to accomplish will ever be possible.
Read some European post-war history. Ask the North Irish -- both sides and yes that was a settler-colonial/apartheid situation. The examples are literally endless.
OTOH, point me to a single instance where Idpol has brought peace.
Why don't you read some US history, I implore you to, then visit some of the nonwhite neighborhoods in major German cities and you will see how relevant it is for us today.
nonwhite neighborhoods in major German cities
You mean immigrant neigbourhoods and I grew up in one, thank you. WTF is "nonwhite" even supposed to mean have you ever seen a Turk or Syrian. The principal systemic problem immigrants face is coming from low socio-economic status combined with our lack of social mobility, in places right-out enforced by the education system, which also affects Kevin. Reform of education is typically blocked by Bildungsbürger.
And I see you ignored my question: When has Idpol ever brought peace?
And before you mention it: No, the east didn't suddenly turn Nazi. The west still has a larger proportion of people with closed right-extremist world-view, while the east still has a larger proportion of socialists. What's happening is feelings of betrayal and people being fed up with voting for politicians who caused the issues they, as in the common man, have. We're lacking over 1m social housing units, rent is becoming more and more unaffordable while the SPD opposes expropriating landlords, the CSU is talking about sanctioning 0.045% of welfare recipients ("Totalverweigerer"), 99.99% of which should probably be judged incapable of work and fall under SGB XII, and btw social darwinism is a form of group-focussed enmity. The greens rather bankrupt house owners than do the right thing, both when it comes to politics and technology, and give municipalities money to set up district heating. Yes, the AfD programme is turbo-neoliberal and against the interest of their voters -- and the voters tend to know that. It's the same kind of phenomenon that made Argentinians vote Milei into power: It's bad, but at least not the established bad and it's a boot up the arse of the established parties. I do have a fuckton of issues with Wagah Zarenknecht but expect her to soak up the vast majority of those AfD votes.
How fucking long have I heard "You can care about two things at the same time", referring to "Yes we can have gay marriage and care about social housing". The same parties then did the former, and that's good and proper, but failed at the latter, while calling themselves the creme de la creme of leftists. That's performativism. I'm sure a gazillion of gay homeless couples are glad that they now can be gay married homeless couples. The country needs a specific focus on the latter kind of matters. Fix that shit and you'll find that a lot of other problems suddenly vanish because they were never causes, they were symptoms. "X is important to me and everyone and needs to be addressed but you aren't so I'm going to block Y" is politics as usual, you can't blue sky idealist yourself around that: If you want to fix Y get X fixed.
I grew up in Turkey. I have seen plenty of Turks, also Kurds also Arabs. Which is how I also know what it's like to be a religious minority, what it's like to have the police hound you for it or just the weirdness of sticking out in a crowd like a sore thumb. Which is how experienced the importance of the community of people like oneself, a concept that often gets misrepresented in the so-called "identity politics" which therefore should be opposed, but that doesn't make it less real. And if you think there is not a similar acceptable/non-acceptable split along ethnic, cultural and religious lines in our society then your dreaming. I completely ignored your question because this is not idpol. This is about acknowledging the material effects ones cultural, ethnic or religious background and appearance has on ones life, to which the history of how we, and for the US how they, got here is vitally important.
I don't know why you'd think I would say that the east has "suddenly" turned nazi. That just came out of nowhere and I have no idea how the rest of your comment relates to anything we're talking about. I guess you think I'm just doing "performative" leftism to ingratiate myself to minorities or something. I don't know. I'm not, I just care about clear language that doesn't hide the privilege some laborers have over others, because that's how you fight the labor-aristocracy of the AfD voters. The rationale that "if we all have the same opportunities, then how come the people with a non-standard german background are so much more dependent on social welfare" needs to be rooted out at the beginning of "we all have the same opportunities" because we don't.
Edit: Sorry I'm gonna add a bigger paragraph after posting about the whole white/non-white thing. I use these racist terms to describe how our racist society groups people according to their appearance and not as a scientific term where you can decide if someone is white or not, the fact that this is not possible is the precise contradiction that racists use to garner support from people they will oppress later. Whether someone is white or not, or "really" German or not, is very fluid and dependent on the situation. An ethnically Turkish person can pass as white and not be pulled from traffic into a routine check but they would probably be treated as non-white if during a traffic stop the cop learned their name. The way people treat a Jewish person might change after people find out that they are a Jew. They didn't suddenly switch from white to nonwhite in a material way, those categories don't really exist, but the way they are viewed and accordingly how they are treated did.