J.D. Moyer

sci-fi author, beatmaker

Category: Politics Page 2 of 5

How to Deal with Your Whiteness

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On November 10

In Culture Rants/Shares, Politics

Trump was elected because of whites. He was almost reelected because of whites.

“Rural” voters supported Trump, as did “working class” voters. But those are codes for white rural voters and white working class voters. African-American rural and working class voters didn’t support Trump. Asian-American rural and working class voters didn’t support the “kung-flu” president either.

Trump ran on whiteness and was nearly reelected on whiteness. His language regarding the “greatness” of America was code for a white-dominated America protecting itself against non-white foreigners. Given multiple opportunities, he consistently refused to denounce white supremacy.

Despite his utter incompetence, open racism, misogyny, and catastrophic mishandling of the pandemic, Trump won the majority of the white vote. Again. Whites, as a group, failed to denounce Trump and all that he stands for.

White people, including white liberals such as myself who didn’t vote for Trump and spoke out against for him for four years, have a problem. And that problem is whiteness itself, and our stubborn, overly sensitive refusal to acknowledge and deal with it.

Triggered

Are you triggered, being referred to as part of the white voting bloc? I know I am. I want to be seen as an individual. I don’t want to take responsibility for the collective actions of my broad cultural category. Why should I? I didn’t vote for Trump. I hate the guy and everything he stands for.

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2019: Fun Times and Existential Dread

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On December 27

In Culture Rants/Shares, Politics, Problem Solving

2019, for me, was a combination of fun times and existential dread. I love my family and friends and the time I spend with them. I released my second novel, completed the first draft of a third, and started on my fourth. I had plenty of consulting work and money in the bank. I had great times playing Dungeons & Dragons, Pokemon GO, poker, and a bunch of other games.

At the same time, I worried for my daughter’s future. Climate change is an existential threat, guns in schools are a constant worry, and every major city in California has tent cities filled with homeless people, many who are drug addicts and/or mentally ill. And our leader? We have a racist, short-sighted, vindictive president backed by at least 40% of the country.

I worry for myself as well. Will I stay healthy? Will I continue to have enough work as a freelancer? Will enough people buy and review my novels that publishers stay interested? But in my wiser moments I can see that these worries are just manifestations of my desires (longevity, wealth, fame in my profession) and are self-inflicted; being grateful for what I have in the moment is usually the remedy.

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How Do We Reduce Young White Male Entitlement?

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On September 29

In Culture Rants/Shares, Politics

Recently I listened to an episode of This American Life entitled “White Haze” about various Alt-Right and Alt-Lite movements, and the Venn diagrams of belief systems that may or may not include men’s rights, reclaiming traditional masculinity, abstaining from masturbation, anti-PC/SJW, keeping women out of the workforce, opposing non-white immigration, drinking beer together, anti-Semitism, white nationalism, casual racism, and full-blown white supremacy.

My impression was that for many members of these white male conservative groups, the main emotional issue was a sense of entitlement, manifesting as resentment and finger-pointing if such things as girlfriend, job, wealth, and status didn’t easily materialize. That, and an imagined sense of cultural oppression by liberals and feminists (though specific examples of how exactly white men are oppressed are elusive).

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Eyes On The Prize: My Current Vision for a Messy Utopia

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On August 26

In Alternative Economics, Culture Rants/Shares, Politics, Problem Solving, Utopian Speculations

These days, reading the national news is like watching a whirlwind of shit in high definition.

Emboldened white supremacists, the orange racist-in-chief, plans for an expensive useless wall, a government actively working to roll back environmental protections of every kind. Not to mention the very real possibility of nuclear war.

So I’m writing this post to remind myself what kind of world I’d like to live in. What kind of policies I’d like to see in place, in a more sane world.

I don’t believe in the pursuit of perfect utopias. Reaching that high is like flying too close to the sun. You have to start with a clean slate to build a perfect society, which means destroying everyone and everything and starting over. Which has been tried, several times in history, and generally ends in mass starvation and/or genocide. So no thanks.

The alternative is a messy utopia, one that builds on pretty good systems that already exists, one that takes a more-or-less empirical approach to solving problems, and one that doesn’t require perfect moral behavior on the part of its citizens. I’ve written in more detail about this idea here.

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How To Be Less Racist

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On December 18

In Culture Rants/Shares, Metaprogramming, Oakland, Politics


In the United States and Europe, racists are coming out of the woodwork, freely expressing views that were considered taboo only a year ago. Concerns about terrorism and economic security (some valid, some exaggerated) are amplified and directed broadly at people of color, most of whom have nothing to do with terrorism or the availability of jobs. This racism was always there, but it’s more dangerous now that it’s moving into the mainstream (including aspects of our federal government). Some of the dangers, specifically, are harassment and violence against non-whites (including police violence), voter disenfranchisement, and deportation of immigrants (some legal, some undocumented, many if not most vital to our national economy).

Other problems with open racism include social discord and a divisive sense of “us vs. them” pervading our national consciousness. More severe, dystopian outcomes of open racism might include internment camps for Muslims, reversals of civil rights protections, harassment or murder of civil rights activists (including journalists), use of lethal force against peaceful protestors, or even “ethnic cleansing” scenarios (genocide). Big problems, in other words.

I guess one potential benefit of racist attitudes being openly expressed is that it opens the door to conversation, debate, and the potential for attitudes to shift. That’s the purpose of this post: to influence those who might feel racist but are open to non-racist perspectives.

I’ve been reading some Alt-Right blogs and trying to better understand where this racism comes from (I won’t say which ones, because attention and web traffic fuels these hate blogs). From what I’ve read so far, the Alt-Right openly-racist/white-supremacist perspective looks something like this:

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