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Citation needed? I don’t even think you’re wrong that someone willing to make maximally-inflammatory statements about Hamas has probably said some racist nonsense. I am skeptical that it describes the average black progressive. Unless you’re playing with definitions, and saying that the Berniebros and tankies don’t count?
Anyway, the people who “talk about the progressive stack” are wrong. Not least because it’s only observed in the breach. There isn’t a defined hierarchy of privilege, at least not in a way that shields certain groups from criticism. That would defeat the purpose of an ever-shifting battlefield of social dynamics. Goodhart’s law is in full effect. Politics is a social game, and any ideology which doesn’t allow playing the game is no use at all.
I would argue that it’s much more practical to reverse the model: is the victim sympathetic? How diverse/marginalized/dispossessed is the subject of an attack? Can it be described as “punching down?”
Such a model explains the usual incidents of a privileged individual condemned for stomping on a marginalized one. But it also covers cases where the privilege isn’t clear, or “live by the sword” situations where the victim becomes the perpetrator. The difference is who played a better social game.
It explains why intersectionality gets so much attention, despite its anti-inductive nature; listing all the reasons why a group deserves sympathy is the first step in arguing importance. It explains the need for a monolithic model of systematic bias favoring whites, as otherwise, attacks on the solidly Red “basket of deplorables” would be far more risky.
In this case, Mx. Wickman’s statement came at the expense of one of the all-time classics of sympathetic victims: grieving mothers. Or at least that’s how it was portrayed, since I don’t expect many Israeli parents are reading a law school newsletter. The point is that they became a target not by upsetting a fixed stack, but because they looked like an ass for victim-blaming the one group who looked least blameworthy. Blood in the water.
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