Excellent question and commentary all the way through. A question that comes to mind often is why are so many AA's tethered to the idea of systemic/structural racism as if somehow it prevents them from having a fulfilling life. It's as if they believe the blame game works for us void of infantilizing us in the eyes of rational thinkers. If the country and or whites are so oppressive, why would they depend on it to save them? I've had very reasonable and rational conversations with other blacks as to why it is counterproductive to continuously subscribe to victimhood thinking, some of which they are in agreement. However, they always revert back to "but..." and that saddens me.
"the idea of systemic/structural racism as if somehow it prevents them from having a fulfilling life"
I think that's an important point, and a point that applies to many things in addition to systemic racism. We humans love our scapegoats.
Another takeaway for me from your phrase is the part about "a fulfilling life." It seems that is never a consideration in our national debate, or if it is, it is always tied to some arbitrary group metric. As if no one can be happy unless they live in a penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side, and, additionally, that everyone living there has that fulfilling life. Maybe I'm naive, but I'll go to my grave thinking Charles Dickens had it right in "A Christmas Carol."
As I've stated on this site before, it's part of their identity to think that way. There are blacks who feel that blacks will never truly be free until racism completely disappears.
There is way too much history baked into the cake. So now black culture has become extremely subjective. Different groups of them have different definitions for different situations. Micro aggressions, the n-word, can blacks be racist, etc. You get the picture. It's all part of black identity.
I believe there is light at the end of the tunnel as there are certainly more people pushing back against the woke agenda than there were years ago. So grateful for Glenn and John.
Nonetheless, in the privacy of their own space, black people certainly know that racism is not the major culprit of all that ails us. However, as McWhorter would lament, it's performative theater. It's cultural and generational acting perpetuated by the likes of Sharpton, Joy Reid, and similar black (and white) intellectuals with 3 names (or less). Today, young black people have white friends and date interracially but the priests from the church of low self-esteem think it is their duty to convert them to woke religion as a reminder not to let whiteness off the hook. It is time for them to go silently into the night and leave us alone.
OMG!!! What a beautiful response!!! "priests from the church of low self-esteem"
Whoa! You must be a writer. That was brilliant. I've been making similar analogies in the last several years. You can think of Joy Reid and other black females like her as sisters of a convent trying to preach their own doctrine that is constantly rejected.
Excellent question and commentary all the way through. A question that comes to mind often is why are so many AA's tethered to the idea of systemic/structural racism as if somehow it prevents them from having a fulfilling life. It's as if they believe the blame game works for us void of infantilizing us in the eyes of rational thinkers. If the country and or whites are so oppressive, why would they depend on it to save them? I've had very reasonable and rational conversations with other blacks as to why it is counterproductive to continuously subscribe to victimhood thinking, some of which they are in agreement. However, they always revert back to "but..." and that saddens me.
"the idea of systemic/structural racism as if somehow it prevents them from having a fulfilling life"
I think that's an important point, and a point that applies to many things in addition to systemic racism. We humans love our scapegoats.
Another takeaway for me from your phrase is the part about "a fulfilling life." It seems that is never a consideration in our national debate, or if it is, it is always tied to some arbitrary group metric. As if no one can be happy unless they live in a penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side, and, additionally, that everyone living there has that fulfilling life. Maybe I'm naive, but I'll go to my grave thinking Charles Dickens had it right in "A Christmas Carol."
As I've stated on this site before, it's part of their identity to think that way. There are blacks who feel that blacks will never truly be free until racism completely disappears.
There is way too much history baked into the cake. So now black culture has become extremely subjective. Different groups of them have different definitions for different situations. Micro aggressions, the n-word, can blacks be racist, etc. You get the picture. It's all part of black identity.
I believe there is light at the end of the tunnel as there are certainly more people pushing back against the woke agenda than there were years ago. So grateful for Glenn and John.
Nonetheless, in the privacy of their own space, black people certainly know that racism is not the major culprit of all that ails us. However, as McWhorter would lament, it's performative theater. It's cultural and generational acting perpetuated by the likes of Sharpton, Joy Reid, and similar black (and white) intellectuals with 3 names (or less). Today, young black people have white friends and date interracially but the priests from the church of low self-esteem think it is their duty to convert them to woke religion as a reminder not to let whiteness off the hook. It is time for them to go silently into the night and leave us alone.
OMG!!! What a beautiful response!!! "priests from the church of low self-esteem"
Whoa! You must be a writer. That was brilliant. I've been making similar analogies in the last several years. You can think of Joy Reid and other black females like her as sisters of a convent trying to preach their own doctrine that is constantly rejected.
WELL DONE, Valencia!!!!