Comment on The FCC can now punish telecom providers for charging customers more for less
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 11 months agoSeems to not be a race problem, it is more on working class vs. wealthy class problem.
Those are interlinked, though. Due to centuries of institutionalised racism and related inequities, people of color are extremely overrepresented amongst the poor. As a result, what hurts the poor in general hurts more people of color than white people.
Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Yes, but the racism is a smaller portion of the overall problem so labeling it as race discrimination narrows it. While it transitively is racist, labeling it as such narrows it to only a portion of the problem. It’s unlikely the execs of the companies are saying “let’s charge white people less”, they’re doing it by area and income. If that unintentionally becomes racist, going after them for racism won’t get anywhere.
If two people in neighboring communities are paying drastically differently for the same service, but they’re both the same race, there’s still a problem but it’s not racist.
We should be trying to just give all Americans equivalent internet options, regardless of race. The race part is just one piece of the overall problem and the outcome of of a different problem.
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I get what you’re saying and I partially agree, but here’s how I see it:
Class struggle is race struggle and vice versa. You can’t help or hurt all poor people without helping or hurting a lot of people of color and anyone who’s paying attention knows that.
Why does that matter, you may ask? Because, while the false notion that systemic economic inequality is the fault of impoverished individuals more than the system and those in charge of it is still widely believed, holding the same notions about racial inequality is deservedly regarded as abhorrent.
The rich and powerful disproportionately abusing the working poor doesn’t inspire anywhere near as much righteous indignation as them disproportionately abusing people of color, even though the actions themselves are identical.
Regardless of intention, racist outcomes are a stronger argument for systemic change than anti-worker outcomes when it comes to countries like the US where regulatory capture and demagoguery favoring money and power over humanity IS the system.
Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Yes, totally agree.
While I agree, I think this is where we differ. I don’t think we should then just limit our “fighting back” as being about race. I won’t be satisfied by this bill if all it does is makes sure that ISPs fuck over people in certain areas, but do it equally across races. ISPs could fuck white people harder so then it’s not a race problem. Or they could fuck people of color slightly less, but still have drastically different pricing in Kentucky than in California. At that point race is no longer a real argument, but the class war continues and the problem still exists.
I just don’t think we should reduce the arguments to an argument of race. While that may fire people up more in the current climate, it’s narrowing the issue.
If that’s the case, than we can fight this as a class war and still solve the other issue. The underlying issue is class and financial fleecing, which is itself also racist, but solving the race problem doesn’t solve the whole issue. People need to see this for what it is to solve it, and “distracting” away from the core of the issue makes it harder to solve.
Why not both?
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 11 months ago
That’s what I’m trying to say: it IS about both, so it behoves us to focus on both rather than completely ignore the racial aspects in favor of a less comprehensive strategy of only mentioning the aspects that are least likely to garner headlines and wide public support.
I’m no fan of demagoguery, but when the TRUTH is an effective argument bound to illicit the kind of emotional reaction necessary to make any headway in a broken media and political system, you don’t just discard the most effective argument.