Stephen, I agree in the main with you -- and my message to which you reply. I do think the Old Glenn poses a challenge still valid in certain ways. That is, racism may no longer explain the culturally shaped dysfunction in many African American communities and the resulting disparities. However, perhaps it is important for the morale of these communities that they get all of us to acknowledge that the origin of these conditions does lie in historically long-sustained racist denigration. As a Jew growing up in America in the 1950s, I would never have been allowed to use anti-Semitism as an excuse for anything. My parents would have said "get upstairs and get to your homework." Yet you can be sure we also were made to know in detail how they'd picked on us, the Cossacks, the Nazis, you name it. And to never forget it. So, I can understand how a sense of outrage over past racism itself could be essential to generating the pride and determination needed to grasp one's own future instead of just a pretext for blame and reparations and guilt tripping.
Stephen, I agree in the main with you -- and my message to which you reply. I do think the Old Glenn poses a challenge still valid in certain ways. That is, racism may no longer explain the culturally shaped dysfunction in many African American communities and the resulting disparities. However, perhaps it is important for the morale of these communities that they get all of us to acknowledge that the origin of these conditions does lie in historically long-sustained racist denigration. As a Jew growing up in America in the 1950s, I would never have been allowed to use anti-Semitism as an excuse for anything. My parents would have said "get upstairs and get to your homework." Yet you can be sure we also were made to know in detail how they'd picked on us, the Cossacks, the Nazis, you name it. And to never forget it. So, I can understand how a sense of outrage over past racism itself could be essential to generating the pride and determination needed to grasp one's own future instead of just a pretext for blame and reparations and guilt tripping.