Poverty creates and perpetuates social injustice

[cali]

The most oppressed and despised people in this country are the poor. People have stated that economic security won't, for instance, help AA parents from fearing for their child when he leaves the house in the morning. But actually it will go a damn long way. If your kid is walking out the door into a safe neighborhood on his way to a good safe school, that will put a lot of your fears to rest. What else don't you have to worry about if you're economically secure? You don't have to worry about your kid getting enough food to eat, or seeing a doctor when they're sick. For that matter, you don't have to worry about your kid being humiliated and made to sit in a dark auditorium because he or she didn't have the money to participate in a fun school activity.

Poverty causes illness, both physical and emotional/mental. It's been linked to brain damage. It devastates bodies and minds and spirits. I'm not saying economic justice is more important than social justice, but there are more than a few here who claim emphatically that social justice is somehow separate from and more important than economic justice.

They are profoundly wrong.

[polly7]

1. Of course it does.

Look at the poorest of the poor all around the world, and who is chosen, by corrupt or weak gov'ts willing to trade it's citizens' rights for financial and corporate intervention - to be the ones who starve first, are left homeless, are chased out by violence - those without means - they are the children, and destitute women and men, migrants and any minority. Anyone who doesn't see this is operating from within some sort of bubble that continues to benefit their own welfare and advance some la-la land claim that makes no fucking sense whatsoever.

[Bjorn Against]

2. Agreed, economic justice and social justice are intertwined

You can not have one without the other.

Minority communities have faced economic injustice for centuries and until we address that injustice there will be no social justice.

Addressing economic injustice does not mean you ignore other forms of injustice, we need to tackle injustice wherever it occurs which means focusing on both economic and social factors.

[daleanime]

10. Amen.....

[hifiguy]

20. Anyone with six functioning synapses knows this.

Yet there are still some, here, of all places, who cannot figure it out.

There is only so much that the government can do on issues which involve personal attitudes. There are still plenty of racist assholes around 50 years after LBJ's Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts became law. Governmental policy can secure and enforce some rights - women's control over their own bodies, the right to vote, genuinely equal legal rights for LGBT people, the enactment of just and fair economic policies that benefit the majority, et al., but there is precious little it can do to change the attitudes that are at the root of many "social justice" issues. Societal evolution is as much a part of that kind of change as is governmental policies.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

54. Well said. The question then becomes which candidate best understands the problems of the downtrodden and has demonstrated leadership in solving those problems.

[LittleBlue]

3. The radical movement toward social justice the last 200 years was based on economic justice

Do these social justice folks wonder why for over 3000 years social justice either moved at a crawl or not at all, and then suddenly made great leaps after our economic liberation began 200 years ago?

This debate is perpetuated by people who don't understand our history

[Fairgo]

36. This is correct

well said.

[DanTex]

4. Yet, in the 50s there was much less economic inequality, but more racial inequality.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

6. I suspect PoC who lived through the 50s might disagree with you on 'much less economic inequality',

but even if we put that aside, you're cherrypicking a specific timeframe to make your argument. I can do the same and point to the 20s and 30s, when there was much more racial inequality AND economic inequality.

Where I think we can both probably agree is that economic inequality and non-economic inequalities don't follow a perfect correlation. And I'll certainly agree with the people who say fixing economic inequality does not guarantee any other sort of equality will be fixed automatically as a result. Where I think that argument is weak, though, is in that we KNOW money is power in our society. If you have money, you have the power to work to mold society far more effectively. Unfortunately, most of the money is concentrated in the hands of people who are perfectly fine continuing social injustice, and indeed expanding social injustice. Taking that money and putting it in the hands of people who have a vested interest in social justice is only going to shift the balance of power, and further the cause of social justice.

Heck, if we raised the top marginal rates to 90%, and put EVERY single penny of that money towards reparations, just think of the power that would give people of colour to push all sorts of other social reforms. To make their voices heard more, to make politicians listen to them, to make corporations listen to them.

[cali]

7. and enormous POVERTY. Did you think the war on poverty was against a figment

of LBJ's imagination? gad. you need a history lesson.

[rhett o rick]

21. Good point but I doubt for the reason you intended. The racial inequality was a

carry over for a century of horrible racial inequality. It didn't get worse because of the "less economic inequality" of the time in fact it helped the advancements that came in racial equality.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

5. I would have said 'exacerbates' instead of creates.

I think to say 'creates' requires redefining and expanding the meaning social injustice in a way that it isn't currently used by most folks.

[MineralMan]

8. Social injustice creates and perpetuates poverty

Both statement are true. Correcting either will work to correct the other.

[Phlem]

9. But I has to has my freedoms!

Last edited Sat May 30, 2015, 11:04 PM - Edit history (5)

Money is power in this day and age and while we need social justice in a very bad way, it's not going to happen unless we have economic equality. How can we organize when we spend ALL our time working 2 jobs just to make ends meet. How can we have a national effect when we're too poor, starving, homeless, and unemployed.

And hell yes poverty breads stress and sickness. Ferguson anyone? A powder keg in neighborhoods all across america just waiting for a match.

If people want to fight back, take the one thing that the 1% finances it's miserable political purchases with, Money.

[daleanime]

12. Hell yes....

[Maedhros]

13. Unequal pay for equal work is one of the biggest injustices in our society,

and an economic one.

[Phlem]

39. Agreed,

Last edited Sun May 31, 2015, 03:42 PM - Edit history (2)

and when our standard Cost of Living = A and we give Job A = to someone else in another country who's cost living is less, considerably less, then the negative net affect is double here. A bread winner who supported a family of 3 is now struggling and competing with hundreds of other deserving bread winners for 1 position because a corporation just needed the extra cash. And in a society that's all about money, that leads most of us getting screwed.

Off shoring needs to end period else we're all eventually resigned to 3rd world status in the future. We need manufacturing back.

Instead we focused on any social issues that do not deal with economics and what ever gains we meet, we are also eventually poorer along the way.

Rinse, repeat.

[Maedhros]

11. In an honest discussion of social and economic justice,

I don't believe many people would claim that one is exclusive of the other.

But we rarely see honest discussion on DU these days. This false dichotomy is the fabrication of a few posters who need to mask their candidate's weakness on economic issues by claiming the opponent is ignoring social issues.

The argument is clearly false, but that's not stopping it from propagating.

[smokey nj]

14. I wish I could rec this response. That is exactly what's going on.

[daleanime]

15. Doubt is the easiest crop to raise.

Plant early and often.

[Romulox]

18. Just flat out call them on it. It's a 100% fabricated dichotomy. nt

[hifiguy]

25. So much this..

And it shouldn't be tolerated, It verges on Faux/Rove tactics.

[Maedhros]

27. They're being clever about it.

A: Throw out a post attacking "those people" who "ignore" social justice issues and "only care about" economic justice, and then explain how social justice issues are overwhelmingly the most important.

B: This, of course, will inevitably prompt heated responses from others defending the importance of addressing economic injustice...

C: ...which is then used as evidence that A is true.

and voila! We're fighting over a false dichotomy and not talking about one candidate's horrible positions vis-a-vis economic injustice.

[hifiguy]

28. Straight out of the Atwater/Rove playbook.

And it sickens me.

[Maedhros]

29. Makes me determined. [n/t]

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. Well said. There is nothing romantic, uplifting, or noble about poverty.

Been there, done that, and can attest to it.

And, I'm damned sure that there are any number of Blacks, Hispanics, Women, Gays, etc who can also attest to it.

[Romulox]

17. Economic inequality and deprivation is simply not a "Social Issue"...

is a shit statement*.

(*blast from DU's past!)

[Maedhros]

23. This article in the June 2014 issue of The Atlantic by Ta-Nehisi Coates

very carefully details the calculated economic injustice perpetrated against Black Americans since the end of the Civil War:

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

How anyone can, with a straight face, claim that economic justice is separate and at odds with social justice, baffles me. The only conclusion I can reach is that anyone making such a claim is being purposefully disingenuous or is exceptionally ignorant of history.

[Romulox]

24. It's just opposition research crap from the Clinton campaign. POC and women suffer *the most*

from inequality in this society.

[bettyellen]

19. I was just told I could fly to another country for an abortion. Seriously?

Is that where we are now- telling women and POC to earn more and skirt the laws instead of change them. True allies would never suggest such a thing.
Fuck that noise.

[PeaceNikki]

32. Wow.

Wtf?

[bettyellen]

34. Because it's the economy and "I'm so privileged" as if that matters....

When I was pregnant, I was alone living hand to mouth trying to support myself- could not rely on my catholic parents to help. it turned out okay, but one evening could have altered my life forever. So fucking priviledged!

[Bluenorthwest]

22. And the reverse is also just as true. The fact is the DU dust up about all of this comes from people

insisting that they are separate and economic issues profoundly more important. It was a concerted effort by a handful of people.

[gollygee]

58. +1000

As if social injustice doesn't create and perpetuate poverty. That's the whole history of this country.

[ananda]

26. Thank you.

We really need serious and immediate action aimed towards
redistribution of wealth and alleviation of poverty in this
country.

[Hoyt]

30. +1.

[Cleita]

31. Something my Swedish neighbor said to me circa 1984. She was married to an American.

It was in the beginning of when we started seeing homeless and they were going through our alley and the garbage cans looking for aluminum cans to sell. Prior to this, I, who was born in 1940 had never seen this behavior in the USA, which started shortly after Reagan was elected, and she never had in Sweden. I had seen plenty of it in South America. One day she found a homeless man in the alley who looked sick, like he might have had a heart attack. She got me involved and I called an ambulance but after the EMTs talked to the man and maybe discovering he didn't have insurance, they called the police instead. The police managed to get him to the County Hospital ER. All this took hours to accomplish. A day later, my neighbor was curious as to what happened to him and inquired. It seemed he died enroute to the hospital of a massive heart attack.

When my neighbor came over to tell me, she was livid. She said this would never happen in Sweden. She usually was critical of her home country because she felt they had too many rules about people's behavior and liked the way Americans were free to make choices even bad ones if they wanted to. But this was too much for her. She said the Swedes would never allow someone to live in the gutter let alone die in one. She said our country takes care of people like those poor street people culling the garbage cans in our alley.

It's the first time I sat back and started to think that maybe we weren't the most compassionate and greatest nation in the world.

[MohRokTah]

33. So does racism, sexism, and bigotry.

Attempting to solve one without solving the others is a recipe for failure.

[BrotherIvan]

62. And no one is advocating we do that

No one.

[bettyellen]

35. Aspects of the bigotry and misogyny are unrelated to our paychecks- and require attention now.

Young women aren't going to magically get such great jobs that they can fly out and disappear for 3-5 days to get abortions. Racist police forces are not going to stop targeting youth because there are slow improvements in employment in their communities.
An economic solution alone will trickle down last- if at all- to those who need it most. Ignore the issues at your own peril. We know who's boats will rise first, and higher already in this scenario.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

55. Certainly.

They're intertwined, not identical. But as to 'an economic solution will trickle down last to those who need it most'... well, that's if the economic solution is designed by the usual suspects, who make sure that the vast majority of economic 'fixes' end up in the pockets of the 0.1%. Reparations would be an economic solution that would 'trickle up', for instance. And, as you point out, it still wouldn't end our racist 'justice' system, or end the Republican war on abortion. But it would give people who don't have the power or voice that money gives a chance to be heard by politicians for once. Like it or not, in our society money is power and speech. If you want those in the most desperate situations to be heard, money helps.

[Fairgo]

37. Agreed

Those who understand systems and history...know that arguing social justice in the absence of economic justice is oxymoronic. If you think it possible to address the former without the latter, the best you will imagine in your model is happy, comfortable slaves & peasants.

[Liberal_in_LA]

38. yes it does

[joshcryer]

40. Social injustice creates and perpetuates poverty.

AA people being unable to get mortgages, credit, and access to better education, AA people being forced to live in poor HUD homes in the hood, AA people being prevented from being able to vote.

I mean my god people the SCOTUS is about to fucking hear a social case, about people being able to fucking vote or not and whether they should "count" as people, and we're sitting here making excuses for social injustice. What the fuck is happening.

[Phlem]

41. "AA people being unable to get mortgages,

credit, and access to better education, AA people being forced to live in poor HUD homes in the hood, AA people being prevented from being able to vote."

These are economic issues. You listed economic issues before social issues, again.

That's what we're trying to say. Draw a hard line that is based on economic equality and the rest falls in place. Do you seriously think a band of homeless, jobless mobs are going to to rise up and stand for justice? That was OW but have economics changed?

No. It's gotten worse.

[JI7]

43. the point is they are unable to get it because of race

[Phlem]

49. Dude you are talking to someone who is half Filipino and half murican.

I've experienced the race shit all my life, my point is Bernie's opinion on race is that it shouldn't matter. I know people like that as well. If race is an issue, do you honestly think he will dismiss it during his economic equality tirade?

[joshcryer]

53. That is obviously the ideal.

But Sanders recognizes that race does matter now, among many other social issues such as womens rights across the board. This is what's so annoying about Sanders' supporters falling for this trap. He's not arguing that crap. He is patiently waiting for the correct medium to express those ideas, be it in questions with the news, or in campaign events where those are pressing issues to those he's speaking to. When he is in South Carolina if he doesn't mention race disparity, then people can get all bent out of shape. But that's simply not going to happen because Sanders knows it's an issue and will address it as the campaign rolls out.

It's been four fucking days and people are making up these outlandish arguments. And worse, others are for some reason taking the opposite side of the argument just because they somehow identify with it.

[joshcryer]

44. They get excluded because of biases.

Not because of economics.

Yes, we can play these semantic games about social vs economic, that's fine and dandy, it can go into circles.

Is redistricting to further disenfranchise minorities who can't vote a social or economic issue?

[Phlem]

48. And laws can be written to exclude bias.

We just need people/politicians who have a track record for supporting the underdog, long term, not one who clears millions for fucking speeches.

[joshcryer]

51. You mistake my commentary.

Clinton's rhetoric doesn't touch Wall Street because she has in her own mind that it's a losing issue. I think that is wrong but I wouldn't see anyone believing her if she went full on Warren or Sanders on that particular issue and I think her advisers even are saying not to go there because it would be a "flip flop" and they think the media would eviscerate her. That's why her campaign is very low key with very managed roundtables. No gotchas. Keep it easy. Coast into the nomination. I think this is going to backfire on her when she is at the debates and I guarantee that Sanders is going to make a huge showing because Clinton doesn't want to touch it.

That being said, I think this "social issues aren't as big of a deal as economic issues" argument is a canard. Built up by people who think Sanders, of all people, doesn't address social issues. One need only read his book, "Outsider in the House," particularly chapter 5 where he addresses head on social issues and how, explicitly, Republicans are the ones who pit social issues against the people causing them to be in the sordid state that they are in.

I think people are looking for "gotchas" to pit Sanders and Clinton against each other and people are falling into these clickbait traps and stupid arguments. All the level headed people rightly say that they cannot be separated. It can be argued that many social issues are at their heart economic. But for me the question is whether or not we're saying "let's increase spending and taxation" or "let's empower people through laws that extend their rights."

Something like, say, the Paycheck Fairness Act, that's easily argued to be an act that is economic in nature, but it is trying to extend the rights of women and minorities who are disadvantaged, by their gender or race. It does not increase taxes. It does not hurt Wall Street. It does not hit the wealthiest people. All it does is say to equalize how people are paid. The thing almost passed, even, we just didn't have the votes in the Senate. It's not controversial.

And that's the biggest thing for me, social issues can be passed a lot easier than economic ones, look at how hard the stimulus was to pass, when the country was literally facing a great depression. Even then the stimulus wasn't nearly big enough as Krugman pointed out. So pragmatically, I know it's a dirty word, go for the social changes as much as possible, and fight for the opportunity when you can get the economic issues handled when you can muster the votes.

[OilemFirchen]

67. The right to vote is not an economic issue.

Neither are redlining, food deserts, haphazard and unenforced zoning laws, lax policing or preferential infrastructure improvements.

I'm never going to pulled into this internecine squabble, but it's naive to suggest that income equality will mitigate institutional racial (and class) inequities.

[Recursion]

46. And even in this thread people can't bring themselves to say "race"

But use the euphemism "social".

[joshcryer]

47. True.

Of course social justice isn't just about race as some will note, it's also about reproductive freedom, equal pay for women, things like that. But the biggest gap is within racial boundaries. Still.

[Phlem]

50. I've said it twice.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

56. Because saying 'social' includes women and gays.

If we simply talked about race, we'd be accused of throwing them to the curb, that we 'only' care about PoC, and not gays or women. After all, that's how this started, with the attack on Bernie that if he didn't mention their problems in his first speech that he was throwing them to the curb and 'didn't care about them'.

[Bluenorthwest]

57. If you don't mind, the areas of bias which create actual crimes against persons involve race,

sexuality and gender and also religion. We say 'social justice' to be inclusive and correct not to defend against accusations of bigotry. It is ironic that religious bias is not mentioned in these discussions for two reasons, first being that in recent weeks bias against Muslims has been a major area of discussion and second being that Bernie Sanders is himself Jewish.
Of the approximately 1200 crimes against persons motivated by bias against the victim's religion, 60% of those crimes are against Jewish people like Bernie. About 15% are against Muslims, we don't have as many Muslims so this does not mean people are less biased toward Muslims but it does indicate much bias against Jews.

And this particular 'social vs economic' division has been promoted on DU since long before Bernie entered the race, the same people were doing it using Liz Warren as their calling card, the same people post the same things for weeks and weeks. Here is an excerpt and link from 2 months ago...March 28.

"IT IS THE MONEY... IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE MONEY...
It has rarely been about anyone's civil rights...
The good news.... is that you fix income inequality... you make people happy...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026430750

Here is the version which ran May 13th...compare and contrast...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026669120


These themes, they are worked only by white straight men. Something to think about in and of itself.

[bettyellen]

60. I consider the war on women to be a social justice issue too-

As women are being denied rights and jailed for being pregnant. When people keep telling me that economics always improves our lives, I'm kind of shocked they do not recall this big rollback occurred recently. At the same time when so many women had their opportunities expanded and financial status improved we lost very significant rights.

Someone here actually responded that I was "privileged" and could get on an airplane to get an abortion. What the fucking fuck? I guess they assumed I was only concerned about this on a personal level- and if I had my own I would not care about a fair and healthy society for women?

Kind of showed me the ignorance and selfishness of some people. Money trumps everything. These are the people promising to help me out when their boat lifts.

[Bluenorthwest]

61. Absolutely. The other poster was saying they say 'social issues' instead of race to avoid angering

the women and gays. So I pointed out that there are other forms of bias as well, which on some days DUers think are very important. Recent major discussions about attitudes toward Muslims strongly indicate that most of DU thinks bias toward religious groups is a very important issue. But then when these 'social vs economic' threads come up religious bias is long forgotten and the focus is on 'gays and women getting pissed off'.
The whole Pam Geller thing, social issue. Not an economic issue. Most of DU had very strong opinions about that issue and not one person said 'this is manufactured to divide us, economic justice would cure all this anti Muslim bias'. No. They reserve that bullshit for women, LGBT and People of Color.

[BrotherIvan]

63. But you still have not pointed out a single Democratic candidate who is against

reproductive rights. Everyone is claiming that because Sanders didn't give a specific line for reproductive rights or racial inequality in his single speech, he is somehow only for economic issues. It is an absolutely false assertion.

[bettyellen]

65. Because I'm specifically talking about Sanders? I keep seeing people bitching about things that were

Never said. Especially complaining that Sanders is racist. why fucking bother when people are putting words in your mouth?

[BrotherIvan]

68. Ok

[Enthusiast]

42. K&R! This post should have hundreds of recommendations!

[Puzzledtraveller]

45. k&r

[Kalidurga]

52. Beautiful

IMO it is social injustice that creates poverty. But it's likely a chicken and an egg issue. I believe once people have more income equality there will be more diverse neighborhoods and that will go a long way toward breaking racial bias.

[gollygee]

59. And social injustice creates and perpetuates poverty

What I've seen is people claiming that economic justice is separate and more important than social justice. Which is also not so.

[BrotherIvan]

64. What I fail to understand is this

The current argument is that "Sanders did not address social issues in his campaign kickoff and didn't have people of color on the dais because Vermont is lily white." When shown his voting record and past statements, those "do not count" and these same posters say they feel that "I was not included."

So we must endlessly parse one 35 minute speech and hear about how proposing economic solutions for economic inequality somehow means the candidate is only for "white and men".

These same posters by implication or statement claim that Hillary Clinton will be so much better on social issues. So I looked up her campaign kickoff speech and will print the text in its entirety.

HILLARY CLINTON: I'm getting ready to do something, too. I'm running for president. Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times, but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top.

Everyday Americans need a champion and I want to be that champion. So you can do more than just get by, you can get ahead and stay ahead, because when families are strong, America is strong.

So I'm hitting the road to earn your vote, because it's your time and I hope you'll join me on this journey.

So, what in the actual fuck are we talking about?

[bettyellen]

66. I was never talking about Hillary- you've an over active imagination.

Same as when you started claiming people called Sanders a racist. Complete bullshit.

[BrotherIvan]

69. I wasn't speaking to or about you

I was addressing a larger discussion on DU that has happened in the last few days. Gaslighting what everyone saw doesn't work.

[bettyellen]

70. I saw many people repeat the lie that Bernie was a racist.

that's some crazy shit right there

[BrotherIvan]

71. On that, we agree

He's not a racist. And to imply as much is disgusting and shameful.

[bettyellen]

72. If anyone implied he was a racist - you'd have a point!