Upper Middle Class White Peoples’ Burden
By Mitch Berg
As we noted earlier this morning, the mayor of Seattle is expanding his “soda tax” to cover diet pop1 because apparently minorities drink more sugar-sweetened pop than honkey does.
And the tax – which was ostensibly about taxing people into health – became a matter of crushing white privilege.
As commenter Mammathus Primigenius noted in the comment section, the idea that upper middle class honkeys drink diet pop is sooooo 1986.
If the Mayor of Seattle (and let’s be honest, Minneapolis will want to keep up with the social justice joneses; it’s the city’s one productive industry) wants to stick it to honkey, I think we need to create a list of things that are genuinely associated with his and Betsy Hodges’ main voting bloc upper-middle-class urban “white privilege”.
I’ll start things out. You feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments. I’ll send them to the Mayor when we’re done:
- Kombucha
- Coconut Oil
- Raw Denim
- Beard-care products
- Any coffee or tea beverage that includes more than coffee or tea
- Riding bicycle paths
- Skateboarding
- Art crawls
- Skiing and snowboarding
- Yoga classes and accessories
- Four year private colleges
- Membership fees in “gun safety”, environmental and animal rights groups and the ACLU.
- Subarus
- Whole Foods goods of any and all types
- Doulas
- Anything purchased from Etsy
Carry on!
May 9th, 2017 at 11:19 am
I only buy one bottle of kombucha every year or two.
It takes that long for the scoby to die.
https://www.instructables.com/id/Making-Kombucha-the-easy-way/
May 9th, 2017 at 11:25 am
Hemp clothing! Hemp leaves processed into consumable and smokable form!
Birkenstocks, maybe?
May 9th, 2017 at 11:45 am
Definitely tax the hell out of art crawls. I am for this.
May 9th, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Instagram posts
May 9th, 2017 at 12:43 pm
Doc Martens
May 9th, 2017 at 12:44 pm
Patchouli oil
May 9th, 2017 at 12:44 pm
How about Tweets?
May 9th, 2017 at 1:10 pm
“How about Tweets?”
Brilliant.
May 9th, 2017 at 1:15 pm
On a serious note, blacks get mega-screwed on Social Security.
Having actuarial systems not run on actual actuarial principles always screws someone, somehow.
May 9th, 2017 at 1:47 pm
All work boots, sandals, etc. that are styled to look like wing tip shoes.
Second hand manual typewriters
Steampunk anything
Subscriptions to The New Yorker
20% surtax of all receipts at Restoration Hardware
I would like an exemption on tea beverages containing something other than tea for Arnie Palmers, however, because they are delicious.
May 9th, 2017 at 1:49 pm
A nominal tax on Mitch’s oversensitive moderation filter might also be in order. Can’t understand why my last comment landed there.
May 9th, 2017 at 2:52 pm
Various forms of fusion cuisine. Urban lofts.
Maybe just get “Stuff White People Like” and tax the heck out of it?
May 9th, 2017 at 3:36 pm
Subarus
And Volvos.
Urban livestock (usually chickens)
Neighborhood gardening
Those free “little libraries”
Those “All Are Welcome Here” rainbow/heart yard signs
May 9th, 2017 at 3:44 pm
Hair products: gel, dye, wax
Martinis
Sushi
Pho
Bicycles
May 9th, 2017 at 3:56 pm
Tiny Homes! Vespa scooters!
May 9th, 2017 at 4:36 pm
LOL I love this.
attn: MPR THIS IS NEWS lol
May 9th, 2017 at 5:30 pm
“Tiny Homes”
https://theestablishment.co/the-troubling-trendiness-of-poverty-appropriation-4d3681406320
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/04/26/now-moving-into-one-of-those-tiny-houses-is-offensive-and-has-a-name-poverty-appropriation/
May 9th, 2017 at 5:36 pm
Composting toilets! (ewww…..)
Come to think of it, heavy punitive taxes for composting toilets just might have a serious health benefit, unlike the tax on soda. On the flip side, Swiftee might point out that this will have the “bad” effect of reducing death rates of leftist hippies. :^)
May 9th, 2017 at 6:00 pm
MPR
PBS/TPT/CPB
May 9th, 2017 at 8:02 pm
anything from Trader Joe’s
May 9th, 2017 at 8:39 pm
“Tiny homes” are also known as “trailers.” If you buy a “tiny home,” and you need to put it on a rented piece of land with road access, water, gas, and septic tank hookups, maybe with a nearby laundromat, that piece of land will not be in a place called a “tiny home” park.
May 10th, 2017 at 1:44 am
Mayor of Seattle drops his bid for reelection and announces the end of his political career amid allegations he sexually abused four teenage boys
Ed Murray announced on Tuesday morning he will step down on December 31
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4489728/Mayor-Seattle-drops-bid-reelection-amid-scandal.html#ixzz4geiZyPmz
People shouldn’t eat sugar. It’s not good for them.
May 10th, 2017 at 6:28 am
From MP’s link:
“Murray, a Democrat who became Seattle’s first openly gay mayor when he was elected in 2013, vehemently denied the claims and said they ‘paint me in the worst possible historic portraits of a gay man.’ ”
I dunno bout that. Isnt raping boys a pre-requisite for white men who want the Democrat endorsement?
In any case, he’s in the running for HRC’s Terry Bean founders award.
May 10th, 2017 at 9:25 am
MP, point well taken, but of course the ones I’m thinking about have cedar paneling not held together with formaldehyde. Along these lines, all that wood paneling instead of sheetrock probably makes them something of a firetrap. (my sauna just burned, and guess what covered the parts that mostly survived?)
So taxing them, again, might have the beneficial/detrimental effect of keeping more hippies alive.
May 10th, 2017 at 9:56 pm
bikebubba on May 10, 2017 at 9:25 am said:
MP, point well taken, but of course the ones I’m thinking about have cedar paneling not held together with formaldehyde. Along these lines, all that wood paneling instead of sheetrock probably makes them something of a firetrap.
But that’s part of the attraction. The building codes are often looser for “foundationless houses.” That is, I believe, the technical term used to refer to both trailers and tiny homes in most jurisdictions. In my state foundationless houses can’t get an occupancy permit. No occupancy permit, no mortgage.
No homeowners insurance, not mortgage.
I like the idea of a small house, with permanent water, power, and sewage hookups. But most “small houses” are in the same class as trailers.