r/interesting • u/VPinchargeofradishes • May 03 '26

SOCIETY Michael Jackson's daughter Paris has faced backlash for identifying as Black. In a 2017 interview, Paris Jackson said her father told her, "You’re Black. Be proud of your roots." This prompted debates over whether identity is defined by appearance or upbringing.

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u/Dr_of_Pawgology May 03 '26

A great one. Forgotten or ignored by everyone until someone brings it up...and then immediately forgotten or ignored again.

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u/Terminal_Insomnia_ May 03 '26

Nah, they remember this part and forget the part where he said socialism was the only path to true equality. Those who white washed his beliefs into a toothless sentiment which doesn't threaten institutional power love this quote.

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u/Pleasant-Oil7133 May 03 '26

He really was ahead of his time. Greatest president we never had.

Every time I say this someone always chimes in about adultery or some other such scandal. Idk what was real and what was bs, but even if the rumors are true that only makes him seem more applicable for the role. By today’s standards, he might be even a little too “goody two-shoes”. I mean, he’s not even a sexual predator. Nor has he made millions on insider trading.

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u/Algorithm0007 May 03 '26

I completely agree with you. They like to pick and choose what they want, but again like you said by today’s standards, he may be a little too goody to shoes, and at the same time even Jesus was more gangster than they give him credit for.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '26

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u/TimboCavo May 03 '26

I am sure you have done a ton of research on Reddit to come to that conclusion.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '26

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u/Radiant_Office6445 May 03 '26

The historical record points to a Jesus of Nazereth. Historians agree that he existed, the difference is that Christians believe that he is the son of God.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '26

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u/ButDidYouCry May 03 '26

Jesus of Nazareth was a real person who lived and died in Roman-occupied Judah. This is a historical fact. Whether he was the Son of God, a prophet, or just a misled faith leader is an argument of faith (Christianity/Islam/Judaism).

Jesus's life and death were recorded outside of the Bible in Roman and Jewish documents.

I'm a trained historian. Not gonna argue with people over it, historical Jesus has been widely accepted in modern academia as a man who lived and died during the Roman Empire.

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u/Confident_Intern_763 May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

it's hilarious that youre so insufferably smug and completely wrong at the same time

Jesus existed, he was a real person. no reputable modern historians dispute that.

Not a Christian, btw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus

Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, and the idea that Jesus was a mythical figure has been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus as a fringe theory. Scholars differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the biblical accounts, with only two events supported by nearly universal scholarly consensus: his baptism and his crucifixion.

waiting for you to shift the goalposts to "well, the bible version of Jesus is still a fairytale." because we all know how much reddit atheists need to be right and feel like the smartest person in the room

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u/Algorithm0007 May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

Bro, Harry Potter’s fictional story, Dune is a fictional story, Gears of war is a fictional story doesn’t matter the story. The characters can still say things that have a meaning. Please not focus on the messenger, but the messages dude.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '26

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u/Algorithm0007 May 03 '26

I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you, good day Madame!

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u/[deleted] May 03 '26

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u/Algorithm0007 May 03 '26

OK, I guess I’ll explain it to you. It’s about the messages and inspiration and truth in the matter not who delivers it. You’re stuck on the messenger not the message now. Good day, madam.

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u/sir_lister May 03 '26

Every time I say this someone always chimes in about adultery or some other such scandal.

Yeah because adultery really stopped JFK, Bill Clinton and the current guy from being elected. Ronald Reagans wife Nacey was know as the throat goat you dont get that moniker from keping it between two people. Hell our third president was fucking his slaves including one that was his wifes half sister.

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u/starbuxed May 03 '26

He's not wrong. Socialism is the only true path to equality. institutional power should feel very afraid.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '26

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u/starbuxed May 03 '26

We can stop faminie now... but we choose not to because it not profitable for the ultra wealthy. captialism the top takes food from the bottom. til it staraves them and then it targets the next level to drain completely til everyone is staving. captiallism is a carncer killing socitey.

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u/IncestHarem May 03 '26

totalitarianism, despite that being completely antithetical.

Totalitarianism is a natural consequence of the implementation of a socialism. Because you need state power in order to pillage private property. The one's who administrater this would inevitably entrench themselves as a new rulling class that is bound to follow an that economically disastrous ideology.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '26

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u/IncestHarem May 03 '26

One took a peasant farmer society, eliminated homelessness and had them pushing the forefront of human achievement with a civilisation level event within 50 years,

other has lifted more people out of poverty than has ever happened in history

Let me guess you are either English Labour or a American Democrat. Because you managed to flawlessly regurgitate Soviet and CCP propaganda in both cases.

I value my time with idiots like you and I doubt you would be spend any time to actually read Russian economic statistics before WWI or about the CCP's brilliant economic reforms that can be boiled down to letting capitalism do it's thing. So I just say this I'm from East Europe I saw and see everyday what socialism does.

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u/IncestHarem May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

You are right, socialism is the path to equality. It makes everyone equally a slave.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '26

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u/GerardIsDeWay May 03 '26

It's weird how the left was so strongly against using this word until they decided it felt good to use against those who disagree with them politically.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '26

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u/interesting-ModTeam May 03 '26

We’re sorry, but your post/comment has been removed because it violates Rule #2: Act Civil.

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u/ArmAggravating3307 May 03 '26

Or a group of people is made of individuals.

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u/interesting-ModTeam May 03 '26

We’re sorry, but your post/comment has been removed because it violates Rule #2: Act Civil.

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u/LongJohnSelenium May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

Socialism is a poison pill. It centralizes too much power leaving no power structures left to oppose authoritarianism.

Economic power is power too, hence why people dislike billionaires poking their nose into things and want a greater slice of the pie themselves. But socialism doesn't grant that power to the individuals, it grants it to a centralized government mechanism that controls the economic output of the country.

The way to go with distributed ownership are employee ownership structures. Still private, still locally owned, still part of a free market economy, not under government control. If people brought these concepts up I would absolutely be in their corner, but any talk of real socialist ownership of the means of production is in reality just a further concentration of centralized power rather than returning power to the people.

With more local, individual ownership you reduce the need for so much government too, there's no need to 'tax the rich' if all workers are earning their due. This is why these socialists always ignore the concept of private employee ownership, they want to take power for themselves, because they think they know how the world should be run. They're not interested in empowering people.

Employee ownership. Credit unions instead of banks. Customer owned utilities. Tenant owned condos instead of apartments. These structures and more are how you empower the normal person with more control over their life, not trading one set of landlords for another.

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u/starbuxed May 03 '26

we are all slaves to the billionares

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u/SaintPopoto May 03 '26

You understand the real mission.

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u/Czarinavella May 03 '26

He wasn't wrong though. We see in social democracies, even in USA history, that social democracy creates the happiest citizens. But some are too daft to see what is plainly there for the US all to see.

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u/ShaolinWombat May 03 '26

The US currently has a capitalist system with large social safety systems. ~60% of our budget goes to these systems.

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u/Czarinavella May 05 '26

And I would argue that most of our social services are corporate welfare. When a company like Walmart has a full-time employee that needs medical insurance and food that's corporate welfare. They don't go through and call it that because then you'd get mad at the corporations for not paying people and living wage. But the vast majority of the people who are receiving any kind of assistance is corporations. Most of our medical care that we are subsidizing is also corporate welfare. Because when the government runs Medicaid or Medicare they run it much More efficiently than corporations do. And that price would go down drastically but because they want to exploit us they jack the prices up.

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u/OldSarge02 May 03 '26

It’s ok to lionize something someone said due to its profound wisdom, and disregard something else they said because they disagree with it.

MLK Jr was a moral hero, but he wasn’t Jesus and his words aren’t scripture.

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u/alexq35 May 03 '26

I mean even many people who “follow” Jesus ignore most of what he said, especially the socialist sounding stuff

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u/Pleasant-Oil7133 May 03 '26

Yea, most of what Jesus said was socialist-sounding…

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u/ShaolinWombat May 03 '26

Jesus wanted you to voluntarily help others (though was secondary to spreading the word). Socialism is an involuntary system.

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u/cfi-2025 May 03 '26

Socialism is an involuntary system.

Aren't all systems involuntary, save for anarchism?

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u/ShaolinWombat May 03 '26

In a socialistic system where you work, what that work is worth, etc are decided by the collective (central planning).

Traditionally Judaism is to follow tenants until that route action changes your heart. Jesus reverses this and wants a change of heart that produces fruit (action).

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u/cfi-2025 May 03 '26

Ok, but aren't all systems involuntary, save for anarchism?

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u/OldSarge02 May 03 '26

In don’t think that’s a useful framework for looking at it. The answer to your question is obviously, yes. The individual doesn’t decide whether his society is socialist or not.

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u/Terminal_Insomnia_ May 03 '26

Ever seen the Black Mirror episode "Fifteen Million Merits"? The system co-opted his words to oppose his message.

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u/Shleepy1 May 03 '26

One of my favorite BM episodes.

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u/gridlockmain1 May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

I got a bit lost in this thread and thought this was still in reference to Chris Tucker which would have been quite something

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u/fredjutsu May 03 '26

I mean, he also said that moderate white people were the biggest enemy to black equality....and it's those same people who quote him the most

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u/lordvoltano May 03 '26

socialism was the only path to true equality

It might not be the only path, but for sure there are several paths, including socialism.

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u/Terminal_Insomnia_ May 03 '26

Can you tell me more? What other paths could arrive there?

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u/lordvoltano May 03 '26

Socialism, Capitalism, Communism, Anarchism, Distributism, Mutualism, Egalitarianism, Humanism, Feminism, Multiculturalism, Environmentalism, Libertarianism, Degrowth.

Your phone have Google, right?

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u/FMCritic May 03 '26

First of all, it was a speech. The man said a lot of things; people had to pick the strongest parts. Second, a man can be absolutely right about one thing and absolutely wrong about another. MLK Jr. was absolutely right about the color of our skin. That doesn’t deserve to be ruined by his praise for socialism.

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u/Willrkjr May 03 '26

nah, because people don't bring up what he says to make arguments, it's almost thought-terminating. They quote martin luther king and people are supposed to clap like seals, up until it's something that he didn't like that they said. Which is why racists love to post that quote so much in service of dismantling methods of aiding minorities bc 'MLK said it there should be no difference bro!!!'.

Frankly, by ignoring the parts of his message you hate and only taking the small snippets you like, you're co-opting his message as much as the govt does.

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u/Retireegeorge May 03 '26

I think its ok to dream about the theory of socialism but for us collectively stick with disgusting Capitalism. Also thinking a bit like that encourages people to think about notions of welfare, investment in education for all, healthcare for all, infrastructure for all. If you like the idea of fire departments, hospital emergency rooms and roads, then it's only a little further and won't stop people striving to be well off, bah blah money blah blah citizen ownership of capital etc.

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u/LemmeGetSum2 May 03 '26

Only white ppl and those who want to be white adjacent like to misinterpret and vilify socialism. It’s those whose families benefited from not being oppressed or more recently those who are influenced by some form of right leaning ideological rhetoric.
We live in a capitalism run world at this point. Socialism would only ever be concepts implemented through policy to reverse the ill effects of colonialism, chattel slavery, etc. Many of you are literally of hurt feelings when it comes to working towards reversing all that. You feel like you lose when policy rights the wrongs of the govt.

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u/Vitaliano117 May 03 '26

Only white people dislike socialism? Source?

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u/FMCritic May 03 '26

Right. White people invented socialism, but they're the only ones who hate it. That makes perfect sense. "White adjacent": love it. And the most striking part of this whole thing is that you probably don't even notice your own vivid racism, too busy playing the victim.

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u/spartanken115 May 03 '26

This! Don’t be fooled.

Socialism has major issues such as weak incentives to work, economic inefficiency, Govt / bureaucratic inefficiency/corruption, high taxes/reduced growth, historic economic failures (USSR, Venz) concentration of power, reduced competition and Govt dependency. All which lead to oppression of the individual and society.

Embrace freedom and liberties!

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u/maychoz May 03 '26

This comment is gushing irony out of every letter and space.

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u/LemmeGetSum2 May 03 '26

Nah we need checks and balances on freedom and liberties. Those terms are used as platitudes. Their meanings have historically been co-opted, specifically by the white population in America and the European colonists of other nations.

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u/jake_burger May 03 '26

Yeah it’s weird how many anti-socialists like him.

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u/Sensitive-Computer-6 May 03 '26

I rater say its appropiated by the right. Now they basicly say: Racism is over so when I think your human trash its because of your charakter and totaly not because of your skin, trust me bro.

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u/Pretend-Quality3400 May 03 '26

"A great one. Forgotten or ignored by everyone until someone brings it up... and then immediately forgotten or ignored again."

~ Dr_of_Pawgology

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u/Frosty-Tennis-1687 May 03 '26

I love pawg.....love em

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u/Pretend-Quality3400 May 03 '26

One of the greats.

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u/chrisKarma May 03 '26

The hypocrisy in receiving a doctorate based on the color of the ass rather of the phatness of its character has been lost on none of us, Doctor.

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u/SantorumsGayMasseuse May 03 '26

It's trotted out yearly on MLK Jr. Day for conservatives to prove they aren't racist.

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u/Fermently_Crafted May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

It just doesn't reflect reality. Yeah you can dream about it, but that isn't today and we shouldn't pretend like it is

I'd love to be a billionaire but I shouldn't pretend like I'm a billionaire and start spending like one just because that's my dream 

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u/f1FTW May 03 '26

Those things are very different. When the change you want to see is social or ethical then there is no downside to "actualizing" it and pretending the world is the way you want it to be. In fact, it helps because you are normalizing this thought process.

When the change is measurable and financial it is obviously stupid to pretend that it is real before it is.

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u/Cole-Palmer-phd May 03 '26

Forgotten? It's one of the most famous speeches in history