Mediaboss Marketing

There is research which clearly shows that if you examine the dynamics of family, wealth and income among the white working class and poor it looks very similar to what we've been saying about black and brown folks in the same cohort. But white folks are not pathologized in the same way.

There is a clear double standard in the way that we talk about the pathological behavior of drug addiction and dysfunction when it's white folks, as opposed to black and brown folks.

Like that blubbering Chris Christie crying about his friend who was addicted to drugs. When I saw that last year, I laughed and said to myself, "Where was his sympathy for black folks and Latinos and First Nations people?"

One of the most highly correlated factors with Trump support, on a county-by-county basis, is the level of opiate addiction.

In a sense, Trump is the perfect candidate. Here is a guy who comes along and essentially is a walking, talking opioid. He's somebody who comes along and says, just like heroin does, just like OxyContin does, just like all these opiates do, he says, "I can take away your pain." Not only can I take it away, I can tell you what the source is and you just take me or in the case of an election, you vote for me and you won't have to be in pain anymore. But just like an opiate, he doesn't really solve the problem of these individuals.

There's a real discussion that needs to happen about this moment in American history where white folks more broadly are in a desperate search to be numb numb to other people's pain, numb to their own suffering, seeking out scapegoats for their problems. Which of course is what addicts often do as well. To some extent if you become addicted to privilege, even if it's not great wealth, you've just become addicted to the privilege of being considered what a "real" American is.

See the original post:
Anti-racist author Tim Wise: White America desperately wants to ... - Salon