I don't plan on talking too much about that chart again, but I do want to say, on the topic of sources, this is exactly what I was criticizing. Instead of linking to the "Smithsonian Institution", you linked to an Op-Ed from the conservative "American Enterprise Institute". If you click on their link to the chart at question, you are brought to an Op-Ed from the conservative "The American Conservative" and within that second Op-Ed is a picture of the chart at question.

Just link the chart, dude.

I'm with you (and the rest of the left) for like... 90% of your argument. I might not agree with every minute detail, but I generally agree with the overall premise. I think where I disagree is with the solution to the problem. I don't see how something like affirmative action (a discriminatory practice by definition) is helpful. I don't see how demonizing white people and blaming them for every stumble of the black community is helpful. I don't see how defunding the police in areas with higher than average crime rates is helpful. By the way, I'm not claiming that these are YOUR suggested solutions or anything like that. But they are suggestions being pushed by many prominent left wing politicians and pretty much the entire Democratic party.

I don't really have any goal of "dismantiling whiteness" so I can't speak to that. I read slightly into the Smithsonian thing but not enough to have an opinion. 

I am solely arguing that certain groups have been historically fucked and that doing that for centuries, getting rid of those policies, but doing nothing to counteract their effects is not a true equality of opportunity. It's like when I talk to a libertarian (you should look into that btw, seems like you'd like it) about access to healthcare and they say that everyone in America currently has access to healthcare because they can buy it if they have the money. I'm talking about access to actually getting healthcare while they are talking about access to the billing department that can turn you away if you don't have the money or insurance. 

Thoughts on the chart, regardless? lol

-Affirmative Action - Access to higher education helps to break the cycle of poverty, and it helps provide the benefit of perspectives from different communities in the area which the affirmative action is employed. It also helps counter racism that still exists in selection processes, like the tendency of employers to value individuals with a white sounding name over individuals with a non-white sounding name. This is a sort of stop-gap measure in my opinion. We should dump a metric ton of funding into our schools to ensure that every school is providing a top level education, however, until that occurs, this is a fairly obvious solution with fairly obvious benefits. 

-Demonizing White People - As far as mainstream democratic policy, I don't believe this is really something that needs to be worried about.

-Defund the police - Defunding the police is and has always been about expanding the crime prevention ecosystem to create a system of proactive instead of reactive crime fighting. It is about asking "Why is there crime" and not just "Where is there crime". If we were to know that improving schooling reduces crime, then "Defund the Police" would be asking "Instead of spending money arresting people, spend money on schools so those people don't need to be arrested at all". Policing serves an important purpose, but even police acknowledge that it is overburdened with the task of addressing every societal ill. That burden should be distributed to those who are best able to handle the job. Not every problem is a nail, so we need to stop acting like a hammer is the solution to everything.

Unfortunately, my time is running short and I've got things to do, so I can't keep the conversation going more at the moment. But I will close by saying that there is plenty of evidence to show that affirmative action isn't having the intended effect, but rather the opposite.

I'm glad we were able to find SOME common ground though. It was refreshing after many heated moments in this thread. So cheers. I'll check back here later today or tomorrow.

The conservative response to the coronavirus including the pushback against masks which Gina participated in very much affects my life and the lives of everybody else in this country. It is kind of hard to say that they're just words when you see that the impact of these words is literally killing people. Personally, I'd love to be out living my life, but unfortunately we are in the middle of a pandemic which is exacerbated by conservative rhetoric.

Yes, identity politics does lead to death and destruction. Glad we agree on that. As for your second premise, there's a difference between being proud of your country and/or culture and thinking that all other countries/cultures are inferior to your own, though there is obviously some overlap between the two. Unchecked nationalism to the point of vilifying and identifying the "others" as your enemies does indeed lead to genocide, yes. It's just another form of identity politics. Identity politics are not exclusively used by the left - the right has and does use them as well, though the left uses them far more at the moment.

As soon as I see identity politics become a major component of the modern right in the Western world, I will happily take a stand against that too. And it will happen. If you think the dominant populace (the benefactors of so called "white-privilege") are going to stand for being vilified and demonized forever simply for being white and/or conservative, you're very mistaken. The shit show you saw at the capitol on January 6th was just an appetizer of what's to come. And it's a real shame, because it's totally unnecessary. Everyone should be moving toward the centre and finding some common ground, yet every day both sides drift further apart. As I said earlier in this thread - I wish it didn't have to be this way, as any non-sociopathic person would. Sadly, no one is taking the warnings seriously.

Even as misinformed Canadian I'm pretty sure you know about the might and size of the US military there aren't enough irate right wingers in the US that have enough firepower to mess with the US military.  So nope what happened on January 6th isn't an appetizers of what is to come unless a bunch of right wingers have a serious death wish.  The US military isn't going to be reduced in size enough in my or your lifetime that it isn't big enough to squash any uprising in no time.  The only think radical that could happen in the US is a military coup and the country could turn into a military dictatorship.