In News You Already Knew

White Men Are Not Very Progressive.

And I'll venture the guess that among white men who are progressive, you'll find an awful lot of GBTQIA men and atheist men, which I note as a preface to the reiteration of my oft-cited suggestion that progressive leadership treating reproductive rights and LGBTQIA rights as bargaining chips, and remaining hostile to non-religious constituents, is probably a bad idea.

Matt notes: "Progressive politics is badly disadvantaged by a situation in which the overwhelming majorities of political leaders and prominent media figures are white men. There are plenty of white men with progressive views, but in general the majority of white men are not progressive and the majority of progressives are not white men. Drawing from the relatively small pool of white male progressives means drawing from a shallow talent pool."

Mostly, I agree with that. Although I'll be a pedant, in my usual way, and note there are, in fact, not plenty of white men with progressive views, but plenty of white men with some progressive views, and vanishingly few who regard, with the same fervor they do healthcare reform or protecting social security, the importance of social justice, and the attendant need to challenge institutional marginalization.

Which might not seem like a key tenet of progressivism to a straight white cis man, but is sure as hell does to the rest of us.

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