Yes.

Yes.

Originally shared by Jonathan Tweet

You've probably seen this before: the lowest difficulty setting for life is "straight white male". For me, it's a shining example of how the left diminishes the importance of economics. The lowest difficulty setting should "wealthy straight while male'. I can think of three reasons that the left talks around economics this way.

First, sexual orientation, ancestry, and gender are about identity in a way that socio-economic status is not. There is no "Poor Lives Matter" movement, no movement of poor people trying to get wealthy people to own up to their wealth privilege. "Wealth" gets left out because it doesn't trigger emotions the way identities do.

Second, economics is about trade-offs, and morality prefers absolutes. We can agree that racism is absolutely wrong, but once you get into economic policy everything is messy.

Third, a wealthy straight white man can "atone" for his orientation, ancestry, and gender with emotional fervor, but he can only really atone for his wealth by sharing it. He can't change his orientation, ancestry, or gender, so it's sufficient to have a conversion experience and to become woke. But the wealthy man can change his wealth, if he wants to. He doesn't bring up wealth because he knows where that road leads.

I see the same thing in my Unitarian church where there's a campaign to really come to terms with white supremacy. There are sermons, processing circles, teach-ins, etc. A cynic might see the effort as an attempt to drum up so much fervor that everyone feels woke and engaged, without asking the congregation to actually fork over cash or to prioritize any action over our own plans for our congregation. In a multicultural workshop, we were told that the "magic sauce" for whites is to consistently remind ourselves of our unearned privilege. That formula works great for my congregation. We can all be aware without any challenge to our comfortable lifestyle.

MLK started a poor people's campaign before he was assassinated. Now Rev William Barber of N Carolina has picked it up again. So far, no one seems to have noticed.

Imagine that a poor black homosexual girl has just been born in America, and you can wave your magic wand to change one thing about her to give her the best shot at a comfortable life. Would you make her a poor black homosexual boy? A poor white homosexual girl? A poor black hetero girl? I'd make her a rich black homosexual girl.
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/