> The Blue Tribe is most classically typified by liberal political beliefs, vague agnosticism, supporting gay rights, thinking guns are barbaric, eating arugula, drinking fancy bottled water, driving Priuses, [etc. etc etc.]
I'm so confused as to where poorer people of color fit into all of this. This seems to highlight Scott's small social circle if all the members of the "non-Red Tribe" are white yuppie coastal elites.
My experience is that rural Southern Black people are similar to stereotypical white "Red tribe" people except on the question of race.
Also, there is a lot more mingling between white and Black poor people than a typical "coastal elite" would expect who never spent time in the South.
I grew up around racist people who all had friends of the other race. They just consider their friends an exception to their general dislike of the other race.
The thing I heard all the time growing up was "I don't hate black people, I just hate N-words." The idea is that it's not the race that a racist person has a problem with, just the cultural practices (laziness, lack of class, etc.) they associate with people of that race. A member of that race who rises above those associations is welcomed with open arms. Of course, they are oblivious to the idea that associating those cultural practices with a race is the racist part. But it makes it very easy for them to be racist and have friends of the other race without feeling any dissonance.
It cuts both ways too. I also had Black friends growing up that had no problem being friends with me or other white kids but wouldn't hesitate to disparage "crackers" as a whole if they were in a safe enough space to do so without being harmed.
I don't know what groups poor urban people of color end up feeling affinity to.
> Also, there is a lot more mingling between white and Black poor people than a typical "coastal elite" would expect who never spent time in the South.
I was floored by how racially segregated Southern California is when when I moved here in the '00s. I grew up in the Midwest and spent a few years in central Georgia.
> The thing I heard all the time growing up was "I don't hate black people, I just hate N-words." The idea is that it's not the race that a racist person has a problem with, just the cultural practices (laziness, lack of class, etc.) they associate with people of that race.
I saw similar attitudes in all 3 places, but in the Midwest and the South it was whites (and even some blacks) who had these attitudes. In SoCal, I mostly see it from hispanics and asians.
Chris Rock used that phrase in one of his stand-up shows as well. It's probably easy to find on Youtube.
Also, I disagree with the logic that the statement is inherently racist. I understand that everyone in the USA is hypersensitive about race and has been conditioned to automatically scream "racist" at the mere mention of that word, but analyzing the position behind the statement logically: in this context it is being used as a class signal, not a race signal.
> they are oblivious to the idea that associating those cultural practices with a race is the racist part
Is the issue here that English doesn't have a word/concept like "culturism"? If there was such a word, would it be fair to call those people racist when they specifically are saying they don't care about race but cultural practices instead?
Quite honestly, probably another tribe. One that is more closely aligned with red and gray on distrust of government. And likely even more than one tribe.
Although the tribes have pretty diverse subtribes. Red has a very poor temporarily embarrassed millionaire quite separate from the actual owners. They still align with some of the same tribal calls and signaling.
Scott's political ontology seems intrinsically limited to white middle class. It doesn't really make sense in poorer parts of America and really falls apart once you start trying to correlate belief systems in non-white communities.
The article is discussing, at length, the author's view what constitutes the "blue tribe's" outgroup. Poor people of colour wouldn't, pretty much by his definition. be part of that outgroup.
> This seems to highlight Scott's small social circle if all the members of the "non-Red Tribe" are white yuppie coastal elites.
This is an uncharitable reading of text. I mean, you may be correct, but it isn't supported by the goal of the essay.
Having grown up a poor POC, a different tribe. Each POC group also will have its own set of social and political mores. For example, many POC who fled from Communist countries will vote for anti-Communist rhetoric. Many poorer POCs also tend to be more okay with anti-feminist or anti-LGBT stances. On the other hand, recent immigrant POCs often dislike groups that stereotype them or are anti-immigration as they obviously feel solidarity towards recent immigrants.
The main condition that you're talking about is having a high population. Chicago has a lot of murders because it has a lot of people. The murder rate per capita is a little above 2x the national average, but not an outlier by any means.
I guess I got caught in the narrative. I still remember Spike Lee's movie Chiraq.
from 2003-2012. During that nine-year period, 4,265 citizens were killed in Chicago, which is nearly the number of U.S. soldiers who were killed in Iraq.
The idea you have as much risk being shot as an American citizen in the war zone of Iraq as you would walking the streets of the south side of Chicago.
The risk of a man 18 to 29 years old dying in a shooting in the most violent ZIP code in Chicago — 60624, a swath of the West Side that includes Garfield Park — was higher than the death rate for U.S. soldiers in the Afghanistan war or for soldiers in an Army combat brigade that fought in Iraq, according to a study in the medical journal JAMA Network Open. Among men 18 to 29, the annual rate of firearm homicides in that ZIP code was 1,277 per 100,000 people in 2021 and 2022, the study found, compared with an annual death rate for U.S. troops in a heavily engaged combat brigade in Iraq of 675 per 100,000. The most violent ZIP codes in Philadelphia surpassed the risk of combat death by military service members, too, but the death rate there was lower than in Chicago, the study found. New York and Los Angeles didn’t have any areas that were so deadly.
Soldiers in Iraq wear armor, travel in armored vehicles, have trained medical first responders seconds away, and can call in a helicopter medivac in minutes. They are disproportionately likely to survive a shootout versus a random civilian.
That may be true for some definition of Chicago, but no other city I know of has websites dedicated to the murders of its inhabitants. https://heyjackass.com
And even that shows there's lots of "barely murdering at all" parts of the city that bring the averages down into line.
It is always Chicago, because of right-wing echo chamber. One would think an honest economic study would try to control a bit for being mere miles from Indiana. And yet it is always Chicago.
I'm not so sure, it's well covered that trust of police is low because of corruption like Burke's history of sponsoring unconstitutional black sites for torturing suspects. And I think the history of redlining and corruption when it comes to investment in education and infrastructure is well known... what would be controversial to say?
Isn't this a caricature too? In what way are socialist beliefs, which generally push for more unions and worker power, "viciously classist"? "Eat the rich" is a "blue" meme, not a "red" one.
I have never heard "eat the rich" or any of the associated rhetoric from anybody lower class. It's classic struggling upper class making 100k in a super HCOL and living paycheck to paycheck with student loans. Core blue demographic. There's a reason why Democrats want to bail out student loans borrowers, but not actual poor people in debt.
I'm so confused as to where poorer people of color fit into all of this. This seems to highlight Scott's small social circle if all the members of the "non-Red Tribe" are white yuppie coastal elites.