309 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
In America and most of the west there has been dignity afforded to white lower class men in the form of not being treated like the second class citizens, who were POCs and women. It doesn’t look so much like that anymore, but many of those men do not realize that their lack of dignity was assigned because of economic class by the powers that be and not stolen from under them by people who used to have less rights.
Comment by Desperate_Object_677 at 20/01/2025 at 21:21 UTC
96 upvotes, 5 direct replies
the dignity of being mangled in industrial accidents and being poisoned by companies who’ve bought off their politicians. the dignity of drinking yourself to death. being able to beat and insult women and POCs isn’t anything. it’s nothing. time was a person’s salary was enough to buy a home and a car: but mistaking buying power for dignity shows that the men who yearn for it have rocks for brains.
the only dignity afforded to the regular men was in joining a union: the dignity of solidarity. the dignity of knowing that your buying power came from the fight that you and your coworkers were winning for each other.
it’s a dignity that lifted a lot of boats, and we lost it in the 80s. it’s a dignity that has as much room for people of colour and women as it does for white men.