a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by Kafke
Kafke  ·  3421 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Democracy is only for rich white guys

Certainly. I don't deny this. Historically speaking, old white males were certainly privileged in terms of the law and business. And indeed there were laws enacted to keep things this way.

In modern society, those laws and restrictions have been all but removed, so now it boils down to who's rich and has societal power. Which happen to be mostly those rich white guys and their families.

The reason I make the correction is because we similar things happening in other parts of the world, but with whatever the majority demographic happens to be there. The most powerful men in africa aren't rich white guys. They are, quite frankly, rich african guys. The most powerful people in china/japan aren't rich white guys. They are rich chinese/japanese guys.

It just happens that in the US, we've had the history of rich white guys controlling the landscape and legal system. That doesn't mean all white guys are privileged or are biased for. It just means that most rich people happen to be old white guys.

As such, the real demographic we are talking about are rich people. Not white guys. Just look at any homeless white guy. Where's the privilege? Where's the power? You don't see it. Yet, look at any rich person (regardless of ethnicity/gender), and you'll immediately see the power. You don't see begging homeless rich people. But you do see rich and powerful black women.

White males just happen to be the majority demographic in the US. And rich people happen to be older most of the time (due to a variety of reasons).