COVID's Still Here Because "All Lives Matter" is a Lie
But it is inarguable, and I can prove it.
A combination of racism, classism, ageism, and ableism — all connected in that they all rely on a hierarchy of human value — and the indifference to the suffering of certain groups’ members is at the heart of our failures.
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From there, the horses were out of the barn, as the saying goes, and there was no bringing them back. Concern about COVID was associated with liberalism and Democrats, which means those perceived as the constituencies of the Democratic Party: Black folks and other peoples of color, and people who live in large metropolitan areas.
So a combination of racial indifference (and class indifference, as it was also disproportionately impacting low-wage workers), along with regional prejudices, tied in the minds of the right to political party cleavages, caused much of the nation to demand taking our collective foot off the brake.
Rolling the dice became easier for millions because the people who were, in their minds, at-risk were unlike them in critical ways.
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Because like racism and classism, ageism reflects a hierarchy of human value. And in the face of a deadly pandemic, the elderly are at the bottom of that hierarchy.
In addition to off-handed remarks about the dead being mostly old, those opposed to distancing and masking were quick to suggest that if you didn’t have some pre-existing condition, you had nothing to worry about.
But what was the message here? First, the implicit subtext was, they were already sick, and that was their own fault. They should have taken care of themselves. Sorry about the diabetes, but you should have eaten better. Sorry about the cancer, but I bet you were a smoker. Sorry about the high blood pressure — should have done yoga or CrossFit, lazy.
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And whereas the first months of the pandemic saw a clustering of deaths in large cities, by the end of 2020, the dying was disproportionately happening in whiter and rural areas.
So although age-adjusted mortality is still disproportionate for Black and brown folks, the overall death percentages for whites roughly mirror the white population now.
What all this means is that there are hundreds of thousands of white families who have buried their loved ones because large percentages of Americans — especially people like them — didn’t take COVID seriously when it was seen as a Black and big-city problem.
Sadly, because the political battle lines are hardened, even as white death spreads across the country, and younger death — the result of a variant wreaking havoc on people much healthier than last year’s victims — those who staked their claim to denial and “muh freedoms” are backed into a corner, too ideologically rigid to admit they were wrong.
But hopefully the rest of us can learn the lesson, even if the anti-vax fanatics refuse to do so.
And that lesson is this: Indifference is toxic, and it seeps into the soil upon which we all stand.
[link:https://timjwise.medium.com/covids-still-here-because-all-lives-matter-is-a-lie-c05210bfaa7d|]
Emphasis mine
More at the link and worth reading the whole thing IMO
They have backed themselves into a empathy free white lives matter corner from which is there is no way out without admitting they were wrong. But at least they have horse wormer, so there is that 👀
The soil right now according to the NYT hot spot map.
= new reply since forum marked as read
past and present that contradicts what they want to believe. Fwiw, I've read that many will reject their own behaviors if they're somehow made aware of them. They want to be good (they believe they are!), but reportedly most tend to be low in ability for self awareness.
One thing we know, all societies will always have members who are prone to excessive hostility toward change and differences, and need authoritarian leaders to obey. Bad leaders will always be able use their fears to incite great hostility in them and direct it against people who eat potatoes instead of pasta or those who live on the other side of the river. Race differences not needed.
It's always the job of those capable of being responsible to keep them in check, and we really lost control. Maybe more education regarding moral issues -- for everyone? Can't make everyone believe all lives matter but can underline that it as a guiding, working principle for the majority who do.
that'd have to be true. They don't, not to anyone, not at least in this world. Or any others anyone might go on to.
I think the statement can ONLY be true or false for each individual.
We're not ants. Never were, never will be.
And that any standard or principle that would require everyone to meet it to be true is no standard at all. Rather a denial of standard and denial of principle. This is the real world, after all.
I also don't think it has to be completely true for each of us all the time. We can fail our own beliefs sometimes without negating our own potential for goodness permanently.
But these days genuine depraved indifference to all lives, and vicious hatreds, are soaring. It's far, FAR worse on the right, but also growing shockingly prevalent on the left in response. And that's why I was thinking as I was.
Many of the trumpists really do hate everyone not with them, and we know from studies are one opportunistic mob away from violence. That almost everyone goes around encased in a car these days, not walking alone or traveling in packs, is a good thing.
Given that giant threat to everyone right now, I don't think we should allow them to distract our thinking only to the W-on-B racism of some rabid conservatives. We also can't spend all our time wrestling in racist swamps without soaking up some of their stink and forgetting our duty to all, even them.
I wouldn't put it on a placard and take it to a BLM march, but of course all lives really do matter, and for liberal Democrats, anyway, that principle underlies all others.
I think we've been far too tolerant of spreading deadly disease to others and not calling it out for what it is.
But there are ways to stand against that without a factional antipathy that denies them all respect and consideration, denies it's ever deserved. And that makes people incapable of empathy for what it is to be strongly conservative in a frightening world moving inexorably on without them. They matter too.
or be denying somewhere within that they've betrayed almost all they once claimed to be. We're seeing a lot of anger and defensiveness that others don't respect, and even despise, who they see themselves as now. At the same time, many are deservedly loved and respected by those they care about and give to.
the hypocrisy has not died.
Response to Soph0571 (Original post)
