What were you (what are you) proposing as "work" toward improving life? Specifics matter. What specifically do think white folk should do and why? Will white efforts be accepted or rejected by BIPOC? Should "changes" be imposed from the top down? How would people react, assuming it would be difficult, if not impossible, to reach consensus about what should be done?
I’m also Glenn’s age. Personally, 95% of any hope that I had for a better future has vanished. Consider the cultural impacts of Rap; BLM; Joy Reid, communist Pan-Africanist spirit of CLR James/FFanon by Quintez Brown and the challenge of agency. I fail to see how the history of black-on-black crime/murder rates will decline in the future. Though a few individual bi-racial relationships will stand as small examples of progress, I don’t think social peace among the races will ever arise in the US. Race and racial identity will remain intractable dividing lines for decades, until/unless the philosophy of Joy Reid, Quintez Brown, and Snoop Dog are rejected, in-toto. Or, until the white folks become the psychological lapdogs to hip-hop and denigration of academic standards and rigor. At what point in the future can anyone believe that when a black is fired for objective cause, there will not be a Federal investigation for allegations of bias and white racism?
Racial harmony? Racial peace and equality? Perhaps among a few academic departments at Yale and Harvard, but nowhere else. Populist winds of hip-hop/Rap among the masses clearly show that the future will be anti-intellectual, rigor-less, and characterized by a new totalitarian intolerance.
Understood. It has been said many times that Germany was in fact quite the opposite of what it became during WWII. That said, too often I think we lack perspective on this stuff.
As a Black man, age 56, I haven't seen anything this century--in terms of race tensions in America--that compares to what I witnessed in the 80s & 90s. (I am mostly talking about genuine friendships and relationships between Blacks & Whites.) It used to be a lot worse in my opinion. And of course my memories of "the bad ol' days" don't amount to a hill of beans compared to my parents.
The tensions we are seeing today, I believe, are a confluence of a number of real issues--income insecurity, the splintering/cocooning effects of social media, misinformation & partial truths spreading every which-way, distrust of critical institutions, and so much more--which people *oversimplify* as issues of "race".
Granted, *much* of the rhetoric we hear at the top suggests that we are at some kind of racial crossroads. But are we really?
Don't get me wrong. Race issues exist. But do they represent the core of America's deepest, most consequential problems? If we insist, I suppose they could be. But in reality? I say no.
We are a long, long ways from a pure "Black" versus "White" or "White" versus "Brown" depiction of life in this country. Police misconduct might seem like a Black issue, but it isn't. And neither is violent crime, if we think seriously about it.
And perhaps this is where I (inadvertently) concede to your point to some degree, Cet. Too many of us are not seriously thinking about any of this stuff. Emotionalism is too often the order of the day and it prevails throughout our political spectrum.
As a mere listener, I limit my comments:
What were you (what are you) proposing as "work" toward improving life? Specifics matter. What specifically do think white folk should do and why? Will white efforts be accepted or rejected by BIPOC? Should "changes" be imposed from the top down? How would people react, assuming it would be difficult, if not impossible, to reach consensus about what should be done?
I’m also Glenn’s age. Personally, 95% of any hope that I had for a better future has vanished. Consider the cultural impacts of Rap; BLM; Joy Reid, communist Pan-Africanist spirit of CLR James/FFanon by Quintez Brown and the challenge of agency. I fail to see how the history of black-on-black crime/murder rates will decline in the future. Though a few individual bi-racial relationships will stand as small examples of progress, I don’t think social peace among the races will ever arise in the US. Race and racial identity will remain intractable dividing lines for decades, until/unless the philosophy of Joy Reid, Quintez Brown, and Snoop Dog are rejected, in-toto. Or, until the white folks become the psychological lapdogs to hip-hop and denigration of academic standards and rigor. At what point in the future can anyone believe that when a black is fired for objective cause, there will not be a Federal investigation for allegations of bias and white racism?
Racial harmony? Racial peace and equality? Perhaps among a few academic departments at Yale and Harvard, but nowhere else. Populist winds of hip-hop/Rap among the masses clearly show that the future will be anti-intellectual, rigor-less, and characterized by a new totalitarian intolerance.
On the ground, there's far more racial harmony than discord in America 2022.
Not to be a downer, but that could change, really fast. Sometimes intellectual movements really do lead public opinion.
Understood. It has been said many times that Germany was in fact quite the opposite of what it became during WWII. That said, too often I think we lack perspective on this stuff.
As a Black man, age 56, I haven't seen anything this century--in terms of race tensions in America--that compares to what I witnessed in the 80s & 90s. (I am mostly talking about genuine friendships and relationships between Blacks & Whites.) It used to be a lot worse in my opinion. And of course my memories of "the bad ol' days" don't amount to a hill of beans compared to my parents.
The tensions we are seeing today, I believe, are a confluence of a number of real issues--income insecurity, the splintering/cocooning effects of social media, misinformation & partial truths spreading every which-way, distrust of critical institutions, and so much more--which people *oversimplify* as issues of "race".
Granted, *much* of the rhetoric we hear at the top suggests that we are at some kind of racial crossroads. But are we really?
Don't get me wrong. Race issues exist. But do they represent the core of America's deepest, most consequential problems? If we insist, I suppose they could be. But in reality? I say no.
We are a long, long ways from a pure "Black" versus "White" or "White" versus "Brown" depiction of life in this country. Police misconduct might seem like a Black issue, but it isn't. And neither is violent crime, if we think seriously about it.
And perhaps this is where I (inadvertently) concede to your point to some degree, Cet. Too many of us are not seriously thinking about any of this stuff. Emotionalism is too often the order of the day and it prevails throughout our political spectrum.
Ergo, maybe we *are* doomed.
Agreed . The conversation about race belies the reality in the US