I split my response into two posts because I wanted to give the second half some more thought but thought you deserved the initial response to the first half before it had been too long in the oven.
I agree that America is very polarized and split up. I’d argue that’s because of the range and disconnection of the badness inherent in American culture.
Bigotry is bad.
A lot of current black and Hispanic culture is very sexist and homophobic.
White Gays think they can be racist because “we’re a minority too!”
Literal fascists walk the streets with torches, crash cars into protestors, organize massive harassment campaigns of anyone who opposes them.
Feminists that hate some women because a doctor called them something else at birth exist.
A whole movement of men that believe women owe them sex and are inherently inferior and unsuited to any other purpose exists.
People born with functional disabilities are told to suck it up and stop leeching off the system, put in police vans, sent to prison for the crime of not being physically able to drag themselves out of the room.
Journalists are literally body-slammed into tables by sitting politicians for asking questions about these things.
Police shoot unarmed civilians for the crime of being differently colored.
Trans people tell other trans people they aren’t really trans because they don’t suffer enough extra bullshit on top of the social suffering they already go through.
And disabled, queer people of color die at a higher rate than any other group, no matter how finely divided. They have a higher rate of homelessness than any other group. Their lives are shit, by any definition.
No one is not guilty of some bullshit unless they’re the most victimized people possible to find. That’s going to cause some fucking polarization.
The only case of divide in recent popular opinion has been about this actress, Yalitza Aparicio, who played a housemaid in the movie "Roma"... mostly about how shes a "pinche india" that is all over important magazines covers, starring in shampoo commercials and nominated for important awards... which is a mix between proffessional envy of her success and outright racist hatred.
The thing is, the opinions that defend her, and the opinions that are against her are of zero absolute consequences... its like literally the importance of a youtube video comments feud. There are no jobs lost, no boycotting, no breaking of friendships over it... its like picking a sports team and supporting it, and opposing the other teams.
Theres other cultural differences overall... here media isnt something you participate in, youre merely a consumer, and you either like it or shut up about it, theres no discussion... not because its prohibited but because entertainment is just what it is, entertainment and it doesnt bleed over to politics nor the other way around.
And im not even saying this is a good or a bad thing it just is, but considering the list you offered:
-The only real ethnic divide we have is "urban mexican" and "indigena"... which in fact ontologically is just a matter of degree, since all mexicans are of mixed race, were mostly a mix between spaniard and native, or euro and native... so even if some of us hate the more pure-blood natives it would seem more an economic discrimination than based on race.
-Which brings me to the next point... were so capitalistic that as long as youre middle class and above you wont suffer discrimination for your race or sexual orientation or beliefs... were cosmopolitan and predatory like that, only the poor and the vulnerable dont get to deviate.
Who knows? Maybe all the petty public squabbling is a sign of a healthy democratic and politically involved citizenry... or at least healthier than the apathetic silence we have here... for one, we spent so much time under a single party that commited electoral fraud for so long that discussion seemed pointless... journalists here dont get bodyslammed, they just get killed and buried at unmarked fosas... so maybe dissidents here are accustomed to either be ignored or killed.
Maybe this public rallying is some sort of a "revenge of the opressed" sort of thing?
I think you make some useful contrasts here. It is definitely true that for the most part, Mexico has it worse if you’re in the outgroups, for instance. Journalists don’t get killed in the USA all that often that I know of. The political process is infamously corrupt (although I believe that is changing now?) and there is rarely much that resembles hope if you’re one of the downtrodden. Not just Mexico either — my Filipino friends have a similar description, and I know Indonesia and a lot of South America is looking pretty bad from the outside.
I think you’re kind of right about it being a revenge of the oppressed, and that you are onto something about it being a healthy sign. But I don’t think it’s fully healthy, exactly. I think instead it’s a sign of a working cultural immune system: these people being beaten down feel empowered enough to fight back, they aren’t tied to the ground by despair. The immune system is finding these bad memes tangled in the core values of America as interpreted by the oppressed, and eliminating them (or at least dragging them, gruesome and malformed, into the light of day).
That hopefulness is a big thing, when I was first coming to terms with being trans I didn’t even pretend there would be a day when not going stealth would be an option for me. I lived in the assumption I’d need to hide myself from everyone forever. Now, I don’t know if I’ll see that day where I’m free to be me openly, but I know it’s /possible/ it can come to pass, and that /I personally/ am empowered to in some small way /force/ that future to happen.
(I need to give specific thanks again to QGP here: she was the one who finally snapped me out of that sort of learned helplessness, by showing me change in action.)
So you’re seeing people surrounded by badness, but actually /seeing the end of the tunnel/, not just a light, there’s fucking trees and squirrels and shit out there! We’re nearly there! We just need to push on a bit further!
And when other people, gross slimy gremlins, start trying to drag them away from that into the maintenance tunnels on the sides of the track, of course they’ll fight back. Maybe they’ll throw punches at each other in the process, someone got a bit too much crud on them and smells like the rotten things surrounding them or maybe their bite is contagious, pick the metaphor however you see fit! But we see that bright future and by fucking god we want it, we’ve earned it, we’ll inch our bones across that threshold even if we have to leave the rest of our bodies behind.
Very insightful points, thanks for that.
