Noëlle the 8-Bit🏳️🌈🎄
TIL about the Cagots, a group of people in France and Spain who experienced systemic hatred and discrimination because... they were Cagots.
They weren't any different from the other people living near them - same skin and hair color, same language, same religion, etc. - but if you were born to a Cagot family, you were a Cagot, and the rest of the people hated and shunned you. And nobody nowadays knows why; the origins of the discrimination have been lost to time.
metapol (non-US) Show more
@woozle @noelle I don’t think it needs to be a threat, even. One of the explanations for the stability of cultures with minimal social mobility (caste systems, strong class systems) is that they forestall resource-use that would otherwise go into competition and can therefore keep more people alive. (So attempts to change kill a lot of people during the transient chaos and change gets a justly bad reputation.)
metapol: mechanics of bigotry Show more
@clew @noelle
I didn't mean they represent a *real* threat but that they can be *presented* as one -- a scapegoat -- often using competition for scarce resources as an excuse... in much the same way the Right currently uses immigrants.