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Why is this war "different?" Is the Israel-Hamas conflict is the first time that many young progressives have been on the opposite side from "public" opinion? How will that loss of popular support impact culture wars forward, or will it all?
I remember the mantra of "silence is violence" during the BLM protests. "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." But there has been a lot of silence- probably because speaking up has led to job offers being revoked, although some of those who lost their offers are not backing down:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/nyu-student-criticized-lost-job-offer-israel-hamas/story?id=104235399
Reddit removed this post for violating community guidelines, but it was a plea to Black women to stay silent about the conflict and not get involved (the comments are still up for some context of reactions): https://old.reddit.com/r/BlackWomenDivest/s/8IU6rXCvle
Why was there so much pressure for everyone to rise up and speak out during other injustices (Ukraine, Uyghurs, BLM, etc) but for this one, the advice is to shut up, sit down, stay out of it? Why did the rhetoric around social justice and activism drastically change overnight? BLM (the organization, not the movement) has gotten in trouble for antisemitism and/or support for Palestine in the past - why is it suddenly going quiet now? Is this the first real consequence to some of the progressive left's views, the first line in the sand?
The sub appears to be connected to the "black women divestment" movement. I've seen references to this a couple of times, but the whole idea seems to generally be connected to the idea that black women should detach themselves from the general "black community" (ie. black men), start dating white guys and concentrate on self-improvement instead of social justice causes. ie. according to this Medium post that I found and that bashes the movement:
I would expect such a movement to have offbeat views on a great variety of things, and wouldn't certainly use it as a barometer for progressive thought.
This is fascinating. I wonder what the scope or reach of this movement is. I'd never heard of it.
Being blue collar I hear things that the median motteizean would not be told, and this kind of movement is utterly unsurprising. Black men and women do not like or trust each other at all and (to be clear, warranted in aggregate)complaints about black men’s poor behavior are far more relevant to the typical black woman than some nonsense about white oppression.
I have never heard of this movement but I would have predicted that something like it exists.
You're overstating this I think (I say this as a white man married to a BWD leaning black woman), it's still a minority position and "dating out" is still very much not the norm. So saying they don't like or trust each other at all is going way too far.
What is true is that there are fractures caused by (perceived?) double standards of black men dating white women being unhappy black women date white men, and of "dusty" black men who cheat/abandon their families, which is the core of the BWD complaints. And fractures the other way about black men who feel black women date white men for money or for racial reasons ("Black men keep telling me white men are keeping them down and making excuses, if so then why should I date the servant and not the master?")
I'm pretty much the only white guy at most family functions and most of the other guests are still dating/married within their race, so don't generalize too far I think. Having said that, some of my wifes friends have apparently changed their dating preferences to include white men after seeing the success of our relationship after initially having a lot of doubts about interracial dating so there is that.
I'm fairly sure black women generally score the lowest for interracial appeal in dating app data, which might be part of it.
Then again there's generally strong correlations between being a black woman and a bunch of things the dating market isn't a fan of such as Obesity, dependents etc. which might mean that the antipathy towards Black Women is overstated on account of the correlated factors.
Like I found in my personal dating I tended to end up pursuing more Asian girls than anything else, but that was more due to a preference for 'My partner ideally has graduated university, isn't overweight, hasn't got somebody else's kids etcetera' than necessary a strong preference in isolation.
I agree with everything you just said. But I also wonder, is there a genetic hotness/beauty component to the trend as well? I will admit that when I was in college, I actually kind of thought that there was not such a thing as an attractive black woman (or rather that they were exceedingly rare, like only Halle Berry and other movie stars). I since have come to know black women in everyday life that I think are legit attractive. But I do wonder where my previous belief came from and if there's any truth to it. Is it nature, nurture, or was I just completely wrong in my belief? Does the black female face structure more commonly have more masculine components to it? That's what I used to think. Or is it obesity like you say, or ghetto dress culture of wearing baggy ugly clothes, or even is it that our culture really just doesn't prefer African American features like frizzy hair?
Also, I think that another trend for low dating appeal is personality, as well. This is easier to believe as just being "nurture". You'll hear this from black men all the time, about how black women are unpleasant to be around for being nagging, abusive, and even violent. The causes for this could be many things, from just confirmation bias, to black women being bitchy because they've been told by intersectional progressives that they have the shortest end of the stick, to maybe even them actually having the shortest end of the stick, and getting a raw deal, stuck with the unwanted kids, etc.
Responding to @Forgotpassword as well here.
Speaking as a white gay man so your milage may vary. But as a gay top I am attracted to Asian and Latino men who are a bit smaller than me. It's difficult to top men who I perceive as bigger or stronger or more violent/aggressive than me so it's more difficult to top black or Middle Eastern men even though I often find them attractive in an abstract way. Even when I do "top" a man taller and hotter than me it leaves me feeling weird because I don't feel superior to him in any way so it feels like it shouldn't have happened. I suspect that straight men who are not black might find black women harder to "top" (excuse the weird gay metaphor applied to heterosexual intercourse) compared to white or Asian women. You have to be able to believe that you have a right to screw the person you're screwing and it's easier to believe it when you have a physical advantage over that person physically.
I don't know if it's necessarily "masculinity" that black women have more of but it's possibly some combination of aggression and strength and dominance that is off putting psychologically in a sexual context. Black men look stronger and more dominant so trying to top them as a white man is difficult and weird, compared with other more docile looking guys. I imagine it's the same with women, broadly speaking.
Interesting post, thank you for it -- but this part is where I'm pretty sure you went off the rails.
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