Do any of you think these guys have a goal? If so, what is it? Does anyone in here have a goal as to why you are here? Because here's the deal: If you've got a goal, on what basis do you measure progress? Asking "is any of this working?" would be a damn good place to start. Consider this response I received a couple years ago:
"I actually disagree with your take. I think all 3 (1619, Kaepernick, and BLM) were extremely successful as far as attention being brought to what so many Black Americans have on their collective mind." To which I replied, 7 years of Black Lives Matter and the increasing level of attention is the first thing that comes to mind as a measure of success?
"Never mistake activity for achievement" -- as John Wooden perfectly put it. That's the mistake that guy was making -- which is same mistake that all of America makes on a daily basis. Consider this example regarding a popular book: "Building on his enormously successful first edition. Tom Nichols confirms his thesis and proves that the assault on expertise has only intensified."
So, outside of selling books and building a following, you didn’t succeed — at all. But who cares about the efficacy of your efforts when failure is a pretty profitable enterprise these days. When a deservingly popular book didn’t make a dent in 7 years (and everything’s gotten worse to boot): I fail to understand the excitement for an expanded edition doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of making a dent either.
"We stood there in the summer of 1984. . . . Two decades had passed since the heyday of the civil rights achievements of the 1960s. It was time to take stock. Where have we blacks gotten ourselves to? I asked . . . High up in the speech throwing down the gauntlet came my signature declaration, the Civil Rights Movement is over, I asserted. I claimed that the problems of the lower classes of African American society plagued by poverty and joblessness were, at the end of the day, not remediable by the means which had been so effective in the 1960s of protest and petitioning for fair treatment.
What we now faced, I suggested, was a new American dilemma. The formulation I ultimately settled on contrasted an enemy without, that would be white racism, with an enemy within — black society."
“The Civil Rights Movement is over” — in 1984! That — took guts. I don't see anything like that in Loury today. And since I've dealt with him one-on-one and you probably haven't -- maybe I know something about him that you don't. "It was time to take stock." Ya know, like "Is any of this working?" We could change all that -- and you could be part of making a real impact with measurable progress. But you're busy -- endlessly rehashing the same old problems in the same old ways.
Do any of you think these guys have a goal? If so, what is it? Does anyone in here have a goal as to why you are here? Because here's the deal: If you've got a goal, on what basis do you measure progress? Asking "is any of this working?" would be a damn good place to start. Consider this response I received a couple years ago:
"I actually disagree with your take. I think all 3 (1619, Kaepernick, and BLM) were extremely successful as far as attention being brought to what so many Black Americans have on their collective mind." To which I replied, 7 years of Black Lives Matter and the increasing level of attention is the first thing that comes to mind as a measure of success?
"Never mistake activity for achievement" -- as John Wooden perfectly put it. That's the mistake that guy was making -- which is same mistake that all of America makes on a daily basis. Consider this example regarding a popular book: "Building on his enormously successful first edition. Tom Nichols confirms his thesis and proves that the assault on expertise has only intensified."
So, outside of selling books and building a following, you didn’t succeed — at all. But who cares about the efficacy of your efforts when failure is a pretty profitable enterprise these days. When a deservingly popular book didn’t make a dent in 7 years (and everything’s gotten worse to boot): I fail to understand the excitement for an expanded edition doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of making a dent either.
In this speech https://youtu.be/8IEsCnsSnxg, Loury said the following:
"We stood there in the summer of 1984. . . . Two decades had passed since the heyday of the civil rights achievements of the 1960s. It was time to take stock. Where have we blacks gotten ourselves to? I asked . . . High up in the speech throwing down the gauntlet came my signature declaration, the Civil Rights Movement is over, I asserted. I claimed that the problems of the lower classes of African American society plagued by poverty and joblessness were, at the end of the day, not remediable by the means which had been so effective in the 1960s of protest and petitioning for fair treatment.
What we now faced, I suggested, was a new American dilemma. The formulation I ultimately settled on contrasted an enemy without, that would be white racism, with an enemy within — black society."
“The Civil Rights Movement is over” — in 1984! That — took guts. I don't see anything like that in Loury today. And since I've dealt with him one-on-one and you probably haven't -- maybe I know something about him that you don't. "It was time to take stock." Ya know, like "Is any of this working?" We could change all that -- and you could be part of making a real impact with measurable progress. But you're busy -- endlessly rehashing the same old problems in the same old ways.
“To Call Each Thing by Its Right Name”: Part 1
https://onevoicebecametwo.life/2024/06/11/to-call-each-thing-by-its-right-name-part-1/