Thread regarding Ford layoffs

@133 The comment you replied to did not blame minorities. It is not personal whining or "blame-shifting". You projected your own hardships. It does not say you have it easier. It says the system overlooks them entirely. You turned a question of system design + recognition into a character debate. The subpar part is a personal dig, not a substantive argument. When you use a double bind presupposing that they are blaming minorities, a mischaracterization, you reframe the topic as personal inadequacy. Now, the goal-post has moved to defending competence and character. Instead of engaging in productive dialogue, you are intentionally trying to emotionally charge the dialogue for escalation rather than clarification. Someone can be skilled and still face systemic indifference, personal resilience and structure disadvantages are not mutually exclusive. You used your personal story as proof that systemic inequities don't matter, but that's anecdotal. You didn't rebut the comments claim that Michigan's institutions distribute recognition depending on visibility.

What you said is paradoxical because the comment was describing themselves as part of a smaller, less visible minority. Their group is so small, it doesn't show up in Michigan's political calculus. Black or Latinx groups have more visible pathways for support because their minority numbers translate into voting power. Smaller minorities are actually more invisible because they don't have enough scale to register politically, which means no public policy attention. The comment doesn't say that other minority groups get handouts, it says being "more of a minority" means fewer resources.

This invisibility makes mistreatment less risky for employers, institutions, or officials because there is no strong constituency to call it out. As a result, this can make groups or individuals susceptible to harsher or unchecked treatment because no one fears consequences for mistreating those who are politically invisible.

Systems in Michigan aren't designed to reward persistence from invisible groups. If you're not seen as a politically valuable constituency, your persistence often creates friction rather than incentive for the system to respond. I call this the exhaustion strategy. Instead of being rewarded for persistence, these individuals can be easily labeled as "troublemakers" or "disgruntled", because the system has no cost to their reputation for ignoring them when valid.

As mentioned earlier, in the @pn comment, this is a double bind:

1. If you give up, you lose.
2. If you persist, you may still lose... but now the system has reason to make it harder for you, because you've proven you won't quietly disappear. If the system wins, it sends an example to other alienated invisible minorities. Sometimes, persistence leads to recognition (especially if allies or external institutions get involved), which promotes change. Making change isn't crying.

Your point is that others had it worse (comparative suffering) and didn't whine. To reinforce your point, you imply three hundred thousand black women endured job loss without public complaint or blaming systems. Raising systemic concerns is not weakness and silence is not resilience, you are trying to moralize the inverse assumption as proof of stoicism.

Three hundred thousand is a huge number. If accurate, that means the impact wasn't invisible at all for black women under Trump's presidency. If you say these women really lost jobs because of Trump, you've already admitted a systemic or political force exists. You can't then turn around and say they don't matter based on your personal anecdote of survival. I'm not confirming the validity of the statistic, but assuming that it was true, this underlines the original point in @cp: larger minorities, when impacted in big numbers, get attention. True or not, you still acknowledged the struggle of black women losing jobs, yet dismissed the comment you're addressing as crying. That in itself proves visibility matters.

“300k Black women lost jobs under Trump, therefore Trump caused it” is a blanket attribution that doesn't make sense because employment trends are weaved through a profusion of different threads. The comment you challenged is asserting, "Ford has disproportionate influence in Michigan, and because invisible minorities lack political visibility, Ford can mistreat them with little consequence”. This is how power and accountability operate with unchecked and long-term institutional behavior, which is why certain groups face more risk of exploitation. You're talking about losing a job when the original argument was tying the influence Ford has as a ripple effect when an invisible individual is wronged by them, which was tied back to unemployment in Michigan--for example, a brain drain to a place with more protection for talent without a voice. That's very different from pinning a big round number on a president.

It was not a claim about losing a job because of race, it was saying "I was wronged and invisible in the system". You argued against something that was never said, which makes this your reaction a straw-man argument. You took the comment out of context, replaced it with a weaker claim (“you’re whining about job loss / blaming minorities”) and then attacked that instead. Even then, if losing your job equates to being subpar, then the logic should apply across the board, otherwise you are deploying selective empathy, as I briefly mentioned in the last paragraph.

To reaffirm, the point was that when an individual with political invisibility tries to fight back against Ford, the offenders can easily rely on the same social reflex you just had, where you chose to exclusively label. Fighting back is not whining or weak, it is courage that can lead to solving real systemic issues, sometimes at a great personal sacrifice. Unfortunately, you and others force those trying to reason into spending a lot of time unpacking the logic of the mischaracterization, which mainly makes others less incentivized in contesting you, often leaving your assertion unchecked...just like an invisible minority trying to be objective while being exhausted by indifferent actors backed behind structural inertia. Unfortunately, this buries the original main point you ignored under this meta-rebut about your framing, forcing readers to wade through layers of logic which ultimately makes it more likely to not be read thoroughly.

Ford's dominance creates a monoculture under "loyal manufacturing pride" (auto-first pipelines, taxpayer allocations, workforce policy), where invisible minorities can be exploited without recourse, and where Michigan loses out on the innovation those same people could have built if the system had given them equal footing. Instead, by being mistreated and silenced, they're left "holding the bag" and mischaracterized by people like you. When reputations are damaged and careers are stalled, less jobs are generated for the state's bottom line. Their influence can gatekeep advancement, dismiss complaints as 'disgruntled' without any cost to an offenders' reputation, and rely on he-said-she-said dynamics instead of evidence. Ford (and also the Big Three) shape institutions, policies and talent pipelines in Michigan. That reach means they can greatly influence which groups get pathways and visibility during "come-ups".

Because invisible minorities aren’t heard, they become easier targets. While it may seem that a company like Ford or similar local giants in Michigan aren't set out to exploit invisible groups deliberately, their structural indifference enables bad actors to repeat harm without consequence. Indifference isn’t neutral; it creates space for abuse. Others know they can be pushed from system to system without accountability, which only adds to their humiliation. Without visible warnings, new invisible people get lured in and endorsed by the same institutions, unaware of the risks. When systems don’t protect, individuals are left in political limbo. That doesn’t just harm them personally, it drains Michigan's talent pool and weakens the bottom line. What looks like “just one case” scales up into a structural economic weakness. This isn’t just a personal tragedy. Michigan loses innovative capacity and future jobs when mistreated individuals leave or disengage. We think individuals don't matter, but the macro cost is collective.

An example would be this site allowing smear campaigns and then blocking the victim from commenting on here to clear things up. Not talking about this thread, but on another where someone dropped PII to pedal negative rumors. Only one is allowed a voice here. Other has friction, which further exacerbates its optics. Even if you're defending yourself.

You don’t have to look far to see what I'm talking about.

@cp this is the most ridiculous and asinine thing I have ever read. Just admit you are subpar instead of blaming minorities. I grew up in detroit with dr-g addicted, schizophrenic parents. I'm the first person to graduate in my family with any degree let alone technical. NOBODY ever handed me a damn thing. I was laid off a couple of years ago. And yet I still survive without rightly blaming a system that has failed me at every start. People like you make me sick. Since Trump has been in office 300k black women have lost their jobs, but who are the ones crying like babies left on a deserted island. Grow some.

Then why do we need so many H-1Bs?
Why are auto companies always laying people off?
How many people who grew up in Michigan were forced to leave because of H-1Bs and layoffs?

The problem is Michigan never tried to diversify its economy away from the big three auto dinosaurs which would have gone out of business without government help in one form or another. Democrat politicians made it so much worse. Blue policies are costly.

@q3 Whitler would be a great dom 😫😮‍💨

@cp This just puts a target on your back because others go in knowing that you cannot defend yourself. From system to system, there is less incentive to be fair. Lack of accountability. It is a double bind. You defend yourself, more complications will come up. If you let it continue, you continue to be mistreated. It's not even t-t for tat, it's literally just one person taking advantage round after round and when you stand up, you are the one that gets compounded suffering. Wild. A perfect victim

There is no future in Michigan, it is an old grandpa still taking a breathalyzer. The population decline is consistent over decades.

Ford like companies ban employees after layoffs so soon you will have to leave Michigan if you want to feed your family

Our leaders need to stop virtue signaling on social media. They are afraid to step on toes and protect people for the sake of older establishments that take advantage of them thanks to their silence. Our leaderships own silence is deafening. They say they want business, but they're too close and personal with businesses like Ford that gate-keep while lying to them about jobs. How can there be innovation, nonetheless more jobs, in a state where younger under-represented innovators are squashed. If this is capitalism, then I'm confused by the unjust crushing of young talent without protection. How can we compete and innovate here when we are focused on our dignity.

forcing us to chase respect instead of innovation

@cp Don’t blame me, blame indifference

@ce If I were part of a more visible group—Black or Latinx, for example--there would at least be pathways to support. But being part of the 1% (and I don’t mean financially), I’m not even on the radar in Michigan. When someone wrongs you, the system doesn’t just fail to protect you--it doesn’t even acknowledge your struggle. It doesn’t help, it doesn’t listen, and it certainly doesn’t restore your dignity. That’s just based on race.

Now imagine being the first person born here on both sides of your family on top of that--starting completely from scratch. It’s not about merit; I have the skills. The real issue is how support gets allocated, justified by the size of other voting groups. I’m invisible to the systems that decide who gets a voice. In fact, my background creates a higher barrier to entry and works against me when it is ever counted.

It’s hard to build a business when you have to rely on a government that doesn’t see you when you need help--not talking financially. I’m talking about the unfinished business--when you look to them to intervene after you’ve been wronged. That lack of support holds me back from focusing fully on my own business. Their indifference is the squandering of a positive ripple effect that once was.

The governor will not attract any significant businesses to Michigan. She has enacted many union friendly policies, and she has been exposed many times for hypocrisy and shady dealings. Her “successes “ are weed and abortions on almost every corner.

Michigan was a revised zombi city already... Sorry to say. All rotten , old and beat up.

Look at the company's attitude and how they treat others with less influence. Just because they can get away with certain behaviors, does not give them the right to destroy everything in their path and not look back to what they do

After witnessing the impact of established companies like Ford in Michigan, a lot. Their influence is consequential and wide-ranging. They have their hands in every part of our ecosystem.

I would say that each action they make has a ripple effect. This is why giants should watch where they walk. With great power comes great responsibility. If you wield that power unjustly, you may have a consequential ripple effect.

Ripple effects aren't always bad. Ford may get in the way of another's ripple effect.