Yes, because as I've already said to you, it's intersectional. You can have both privilege and oppression, and those who are poor and marginalized in other ways have it worse. I've agreed about that at least three times, but that doesn't take away from the fact that poor whites do not face a lot of the oppression that middle class or even rich Blacks do. Poor white men have a lot to deal with but they still do not face the kind of on-going marginalization and discrimination that all women face. You just can't seem to understand that this is not a contest - it's a multifaceted social dynamic that has many elements to it. And a mere 60 years ago there were all sorts of laws that enshrined white men as the only true citizens of this country, which is how it's been since the founding. The fact that those laws are now defunct does not mean that their impact is gone, particularly since the dominance hierarchy pyramid at the root of that is still well in effect. Our social system is designed to have an underclass that barely scrapes by on pitiful wages in order to give us fresh lettuce, etc. We absolutely need to understand that and come to terms with it, but that alone is not going to rectify the rest of the social ills that are firmly based in a culture of violent dominantion.
Racism is a way to keep people who are historically considered inferior "in their place." Sexual harassment and other forms of misogyny are intended to remind women they don't belong "in a man's world" and are only there as ornaments and for male pleasure. Abelism reinforces the dominance-based notion that it's a dog-eat-dog world and if you aren't strong enough to eat someone else, you are the one who is going to get eaten, so you aren't worth much. Homophobia points out that gay people don't fit into the gender binary that is part and parcel of a patriarchal dominance hierarchy. You have to address that aspect as well, not just the economic aspects, because although they are related, they are not one and the same.
Our social system revolves around clawing your way to as high in the pecking order as you can get, by any means necessary, including violently holding other people down or erecting barriers to them being able to compete — all the while telling yourself that you’ve earned your place fair and square. This is how a dominance-based hierarchy functions and it dovetails nicely with the rather brutal brand of capitalism that is practiced here in the US.
In a patriarchal dominance hierarchy, rankings and status are often artificial, based on immutable traits like gender, race, and sexuality, or in life situations that confer inherent disadvantages right from the start, such as being born into poverty. It’s also maintained through a kind of might makes right ethos that justifies and even approves of ruthlessness in order to rise in the pecking order.
In the face of that, racial, gender, sexual, or other kinds of equality can never be achieved, because that is so deeply incompatible with the framework that our society is built on — one of violent domination of others in order to achieve power and position. This is something that our nation knows well, and believes in at its core. Manifest Destiny, the 19th-century cultural belief that America had not only a right but a duty to settle, annex, and claim all the land in the West (no matter who else was already on it) was a reflection of this sort of mindset."
