Having seen this movie before, how can anyone think that racializing every part of society once more will work out better? Race will never go away so long as it can be exploited for personal profit or political gain, and perhaps both. We enter Black History Month with theme of resistance. Resistance against what exactly? Civil rights have largely been achieved. That doesn't mean society is perfect but if perfection is the standard, then everyone will be perpetually disappointed.
What avenues of life are blacks excluded from these days? There is no field or industry that actively shuts them out. On the contrary, one company after another falls all over itself to hire or promote blacks, often irrespective of their ability or the results. Universities have watered down standards to increasing minority admissions, which should be seen as patently insulting and a case of setting people up for failure, but instead its hailed as a step forward. Everything from math to campus honor codes to punctuality has been characterized as evidence of white supremacy, again insulting the large numbers of black people who find none of those things especially vexing.
In reading Clifton's numbers, it reflects the "bias narrative" he cites. People have been conditioned to believe that every negative outcome that a black person experiences is solely due to race. How convenient. What excuse do people in other racial groups have when things do not go their way? This is 2023, not 1923. Police brutality? If anything, police have been castrated to the detriment of the law-abiding minority residents of those neighborhoods and cities. When you ask someone how many civilians of all races are killed by law enforcement annually, the gap between the response and the facts is enormous. THAT is a narrative in play, creating an illusion of reality. I daresay this is where the argument to de-emphasize race comes from - when it become a catch-all, then it sounds more like an excuse than an explanation.
In any society populated by heterogeneous groups, some disparities are likely. They exist in homogeneous societies, too, but no one there has the luxury of substituting an immutable characteristic for agency. As Glenn has repeatedly said, American blacks are the wealthiest, most powerful, and freest people of African descent anywhere on the planet. Far from saying good-bye to race, we have plunged headlong in the opposite direction, treating it as the only thing, which is not helping anyone. We have the DIE industry, which actively participates in racial and gender discrimination, but of the sort that is deemed acceptable. No; that's not how it works. Such discrimination is wrong on its face; it does not become okay because of who the targets are.
To the preceding three writers: at a time in the 20th Century when the various national "Communist" parties were becoming notorious for failures and atrocities, the CPUSA impressed the world with its justifiable denunciation of Jim Crow America. Now they are trying to cash in on last-century glory with all this absurd counting of blood drops and white-people-bashing.
Thanks to all three of you for directing attention to the absurdity.
Well said Alex. I always find it strange that people blame "Structural Racism" for the ills of communities that are currently largely staffed by Black Administrators and Police chiefs. How does this happen? And yet, we see many of these same problems in poor White Appalachian residents.
Having seen this movie before, how can anyone think that racializing every part of society once more will work out better? Race will never go away so long as it can be exploited for personal profit or political gain, and perhaps both. We enter Black History Month with theme of resistance. Resistance against what exactly? Civil rights have largely been achieved. That doesn't mean society is perfect but if perfection is the standard, then everyone will be perpetually disappointed.
What avenues of life are blacks excluded from these days? There is no field or industry that actively shuts them out. On the contrary, one company after another falls all over itself to hire or promote blacks, often irrespective of their ability or the results. Universities have watered down standards to increasing minority admissions, which should be seen as patently insulting and a case of setting people up for failure, but instead its hailed as a step forward. Everything from math to campus honor codes to punctuality has been characterized as evidence of white supremacy, again insulting the large numbers of black people who find none of those things especially vexing.
In reading Clifton's numbers, it reflects the "bias narrative" he cites. People have been conditioned to believe that every negative outcome that a black person experiences is solely due to race. How convenient. What excuse do people in other racial groups have when things do not go their way? This is 2023, not 1923. Police brutality? If anything, police have been castrated to the detriment of the law-abiding minority residents of those neighborhoods and cities. When you ask someone how many civilians of all races are killed by law enforcement annually, the gap between the response and the facts is enormous. THAT is a narrative in play, creating an illusion of reality. I daresay this is where the argument to de-emphasize race comes from - when it become a catch-all, then it sounds more like an excuse than an explanation.
In any society populated by heterogeneous groups, some disparities are likely. They exist in homogeneous societies, too, but no one there has the luxury of substituting an immutable characteristic for agency. As Glenn has repeatedly said, American blacks are the wealthiest, most powerful, and freest people of African descent anywhere on the planet. Far from saying good-bye to race, we have plunged headlong in the opposite direction, treating it as the only thing, which is not helping anyone. We have the DIE industry, which actively participates in racial and gender discrimination, but of the sort that is deemed acceptable. No; that's not how it works. Such discrimination is wrong on its face; it does not become okay because of who the targets are.
To the preceding three writers: at a time in the 20th Century when the various national "Communist" parties were becoming notorious for failures and atrocities, the CPUSA impressed the world with its justifiable denunciation of Jim Crow America. Now they are trying to cash in on last-century glory with all this absurd counting of blood drops and white-people-bashing.
Thanks to all three of you for directing attention to the absurdity.
Well said Alex. I always find it strange that people blame "Structural Racism" for the ills of communities that are currently largely staffed by Black Administrators and Police chiefs. How does this happen? And yet, we see many of these same problems in poor White Appalachian residents.