9.2 - A Rainbow of Inequality: When Social Control Masquerades as Social Justice

When ideas and movements that threaten to overturn established hierarchies of power are absorbed into elite institutions like Ivy League universities and for-profit corporations, they get transformed into ideas that support the status quo, while remaining cloaked in the language and symbols of radicalism and egalitarianism. The replacement of the word “equality” by the word “equity” in the worlds of academia, NGOs, activism, and corporate HR departments, is an example of the attempts by elite people and institutions to transform historical movements for racial and gender equality, into ideas that promote the interest of elites - in particular, economic inequality and the division of the working public into antagonistic groups who don't join together to fight for their mutual interests. In this episode we explore how forms of oppression based on cultural factors like skin colour or gender or religion, etc, can only be understood and effectively combated by understanding them in the context of economic exploitation and economic competition which is what the human propensity to discriminate evolved for in the first place. ALL MUSIC BY STARSIXNINE: starsixnine.bandcamp.com https://spotify.link/uYoXHLwmkDb *PLEASE* SHARE AND LET PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THIS SERIES!! I purposefully don’t monetize my channel in order to spare you the annoying ads, and it takes me weeks to make these (this one took almost 3 months!), so please help if you can! PATREON PER EPISODE DONATIONS: https://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics PAYPAL ONE TIME OR MONTHLY DONATIONS: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=XJ6HBHFJ6C3RU KO-FI ONE TIME OR MONTHLY DONATIONS: ko-fi.com/whatispolitics TRANSCRIPT: https://wp.me/p6YVOe-e3 BIBLIOGRAPHY: https://www.patreon.com/posts/87358296 AUDIO PODCAST: https://www.podfollow.com/worbs or search for “worbs” on your podcast app RSS FEED: http://feeds.feedburner.com/WHATISPOLITICS tweeter: @worbsintowords CHAPTERS 0:00 If the slavery abolitionists had been liberal “antiracists” 0:29 Introduction: thesis 2:04 Equality and the left 5:46 How the terms left and right became confused 10:41 Equity vs. equality: liberal vs. conservative takes 15:17 Liberal vs conservative methods of maintaining economic inequality 16:52 Lizard People: right wingers disguised as left wingers 17:59 The Class Filter: turning egalitarian ideas into hierarchical poop 22:47 Equity vs. Equality: definitions and lizard semantics 24:50 Equity for rich people vs normal people 25:47 Lizard words in the law 26:41 “Serious injury” to the landlord in the 1970s vs today 31:17 “Be Excellent to Eachother”: ambiguous worbs as a power grab 33:19 Lizard politicians left and right 35:20 “Antiracism” & “equity”: How to pretend to do social justice 36:23 Roots of racial and gender discrimination 37:07 Exploitation and racism in the United States 38:34 “Minimal Group” discrimination experiments 39:17 Racism and self-interest: the economics of “Dying of Whiteness” 41:21 Discrimination instincts in tribal vs civilization contexts 41:50 Racism in utopia vs. in capitalism 43:51 Chris Rock vs. Crack Rock: racism and economic inequality 46:55 The Brown Pill: eliminating racism but not economic inequality 49:32 Lizard morals: why rich people need poverty 51:40 Lizard social justice: Ibram X. Kendi’s “antiracism” and “equity” 53:26 If the Abolitionists had been “antiracists” 54:10 Benefits of “equity” for the ruling classes: PR and self-delusion 56:21 French colonialism and liberal identity politics 57:49 Robin DiAngelo trains people to be anti-black racists 59:57 Divide and conquer: why corporations love ineffective “antiracist” trainings 1:01:01 Lizard “equity” as a make work program for Harvard kids 1:02:12 “Antiracism” begets Afropessimism 1:02:38 Legitimating the ruling class: Gauls in the Senate 1:03:33 Obama protects racist banks and wipes out black wealth 1:05:02 Politics of representation in dictatorships (“communist,” fascist and corporate) 1:06:10 Ivy League admissions 1:08:52 The Matthew Effect: deindustrialization and black history 1:11:04 Warp drives for animal shelters 1:11:58 “Antiracism”: rich brown people as a stand-in for poor brown people 1:14:49 “Antiracism”: Asians are too boring 1:15:58 Rainbow race war for rich kids 1:17:08 Left proposals for college admissions 1:20:21 TLDR RECAP 1:24:52 Gimme