Black people I know experience racism and still succeed. There are studies that document discrimination and racism factor into adverse health outcomes. Do you disagree?
But what I was getting at here was the overall picture that some of us--too many of us in my opinion--often paint. As if the depths of racism in the US today are so overwhelming that we need therapy or something close to it.
I am a lot like John McWhorter on this. It's one thing to acknowledge racism. It's another thing to exaggerate its effects on the average Black person. We are not all experiencing the same hell. Some of us are doing great. Some of us experience less racism than I do.
The complaints about racism/racial bias that I see come from real problems. Black voters were intentionally underrepresented in AL, GA, LA, MS, etc. lawsuits were filed. Guidelines were set up by healthcare advocates who noted Black patients with identical illnesses and identical incomes were not receiving equal levels of treatment. I see activists addressing real problems.
I would argue that the two ideas are not mutually exclusive. Real racism is real racism. At the same time, it is possible to overstate racism with respect to the average African-American.
I think John and I were thinking about, not so much the serious activist type, but the often casual conversations that occur among many Black Americans.
I would argue that the real activists fighting real racism is where the focus needs to be.
Homicides are much lower than the number of homicides that occurred in the 1990s. No one would argue that we should not reduce the number of homicides happening today.
Racism is decreased, but that does not mean that we should not address racism today. A person born in 2000 should care that racism is less now than in the 1930s or the 1960s. They know things are not where they should be today. Similarly, a person would not want to hear that they should relax about crime because the 1990s were worse.
"Racism is deceased, but that does not mean that we should not address racism today."
To be clear, I have never said, hinted, or even thought anything else.
My only point here was that we as a people--again, too many of us in my view--overstate the gravity of racism on our day-to-day individual lives in 2023 America. This of course is a matter of perspective.
I think we both agree that our focus should be on the most critical problems. We obviously disagree about what those problems are.
We can spin our wheels arguing about what others are doing wrong, or we can address the real problems, I see education, voting and health care as issues to be addressed.
Black people I know experience racism and still succeed. There are studies that document discrimination and racism factor into adverse health outcomes. Do you disagree?
"Black people I know experience racism and still succeed."
Same here. Sometimes extraordinarily so.
"There are studies that document discrimination and racism factor into adverse health outcomes."
I am generally aware of that. This TikTok-er MD has an interesting channel that I started following some months back.
https://www.tiktok.com/@joelbervell
But what I was getting at here was the overall picture that some of us--too many of us in my opinion--often paint. As if the depths of racism in the US today are so overwhelming that we need therapy or something close to it.
I am a lot like John McWhorter on this. It's one thing to acknowledge racism. It's another thing to exaggerate its effects on the average Black person. We are not all experiencing the same hell. Some of us are doing great. Some of us experience less racism than I do.
The complaints about racism/racial bias that I see come from real problems. Black voters were intentionally underrepresented in AL, GA, LA, MS, etc. lawsuits were filed. Guidelines were set up by healthcare advocates who noted Black patients with identical illnesses and identical incomes were not receiving equal levels of treatment. I see activists addressing real problems.
I would argue that the two ideas are not mutually exclusive. Real racism is real racism. At the same time, it is possible to overstate racism with respect to the average African-American.
I think John and I were thinking about, not so much the serious activist type, but the often casual conversations that occur among many Black Americans.
I would argue that the real activists fighting real racism is where the focus needs to be.
Homicides are much lower than the number of homicides that occurred in the 1990s. No one would argue that we should not reduce the number of homicides happening today.
Racism is decreased, but that does not mean that we should not address racism today. A person born in 2000 should care that racism is less now than in the 1930s or the 1960s. They know things are not where they should be today. Similarly, a person would not want to hear that they should relax about crime because the 1990s were worse.
"Racism is deceased, but that does not mean that we should not address racism today."
To be clear, I have never said, hinted, or even thought anything else.
My only point here was that we as a people--again, too many of us in my view--overstate the gravity of racism on our day-to-day individual lives in 2023 America. This of course is a matter of perspective.
I think we both agree that our focus should be on the most critical problems. We obviously disagree about what those problems are.
We can spin our wheels arguing about what others are doing wrong, or we can address the real problems, I see education, voting and health care as issues to be addressed.