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In This Dimension's avatar

The legitimizing of race as a foundational way of seeing and acting on the world is the problem. If Blacks see race as does Loury:

“Bob and I argued, however, that it makes tactical sense to use race as one basis to spur collective action. Additionally, many people (including me!) still do draw meaning and sustenance from their racial identity.”

Then they cannot also complain about others doing the same - the root of their absurd & self-serving uber-racist CRT campaign of anti-whiteness.

I return again to Sidney Poitier speaking to his dad in “Guess who’s coming…”

“You see yourself as a Black man. I see myself as a man.”

We won’t get along until we are there. It’s certainly probable that we shouldn’t… until we reach that goal.

And this is ENTIRELY on Blacks. Every possible advantage has been provided. They have rejected each more with every passing year.

In the early 1990s, I was an IBM Systems Engineer assigned to LAUSD. I spent nearly all of one week on-site at Crenshaw HS, the middle of the inner city, debugging various LANs. Listened to kids every single day accuse any & every kid who took home books for homework of “acting white.” Listened to a history teacher tell kids they’d get extra credit for going to hear Louis Farrakhan speak.

These are not things anyone outside their community & culture can fix. And they never will be fixed as long as they hide behind race instead of standing out for humanity.

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BDavi's avatar

"Even if we desire a world in which race isn’t important, we don’t live in that world yet."

Why don't we?

Who or what or why or where or how is 'race STILL being made important' in this, our particular world...that we would otherwise choose (maybe??) to change?

Our laws are not race-centric; our organizations do not hire, fire, or promote on the basis of race (and let us ignore, yet again, affirmative action). There are no venues which admit or refuse admittance because of skin color. No schools which gauge entry by melanin. No institutions which determine policy per skin tone. No banks whose loans decisions are made by race. No neighborhoods in which home sales are a function of dark or light. These things aren't happening and haven't happened for generations.

And if, in some stagnant backwater, we do indeed discover such racist practices, our media highlights them; America deplores them; and the Justice System eliminates them. This truth has been demonstrated over and over again for decades (even to ridiculous extremes).

So what is it, exactly, and who is it, exactly who keeps insisting that 'race is important' ...so important, in fact, that their insistence actively prevents us from achieving the 'post-racial' world we supposedly desire?

The answer is .... Black Adults. That's who's insisting. (As Pogo might say, 'We have met the enemy and he is us!')

95% of all Black adults say race is important to how they see themselves." 54% say it is EXTREMELY important. Skin color, in other words, is critical to a sense of self if that 'self' is Black. None of the other colors really seem to care.

So what's this mean?

If...we truly desire a world in which skin color is unimportant....WHY do we keep behaving as though skin color is critically important? If the institutions, organizations, policies and practices of the world are explicitly set to ignore race, why does one Race continue to insist that race must be emphasized, even as they say they prefer a world in which it isn't?

At a fundamental level, skin color is simply a demographic marker -- no more, no less. Some of us are tall, some short. Some of us are fat; some thin. We are old; we are young; we have big feet & small feet, long hair and short, curly & straight...red hair, dark hair, blonde hair, no hair. We are Black, White, Tan, Brown, Sepia, etc.. These are all just simply demographic tags which have absolutely nothing to do with who we actually are as human beings. They have nothing to do with what we can achieve or whether or not we can build a good & decent life for ourselves and our families. Nothing, that is, unless we listen to that demonic voice whispering in our ear: "COLOR is what & who I am!"

The data from the Pew Survey is sad.

We are told that there is "little hope among Black adults that changes to racial inequality are likely". But what are those desired 'changes' for which there's little hope?

It's just outcome rebalancing. It's not behavior changing; it's not working harder; it's not better study habits, better graduation rates, better learning, better job performance, etc. It's not saying no to teenage sex and accidental pregnancies and astronomical, out-of-wedlock birthrates & single-parent households filled with lost children No...it's none of those things. Rather it's White People giving Black People dollars because Black. It's White People giving Black People dollars because of the incredibly perverse belief that White Babies in Newborn Nurseries are born holding a past-due bill to the Black Newborn who lies next to them.

This is insane. The White child is not born in debt; the Black child is not born with an account receivable.

Half of all Black adults surveyed tell us that they believe the World needs to be REBUILT ENTIRELY in order for them to be 'treated fairly'. They say that Reality itself must shift in order for them to be as successful as White People.

Should we stop measuring 100m. dash winners across a 100m distance with the same start and finish lines? Should we eliminate standard Board Scores because test results from Standard Tests yield racial imbalances? (Wait, we've already done that) Should we substitute an essay on 'me' for a GPA? Should we just draft people for Medical School and eliminate performance hurdles because it's more important to see MORE BIPOC Cardiologists than to graduate good ones who can pass tests? Again this is insane. (especially insane if it's my heart they're operating on!)

If 63% of Black Adults say racism is an 'extremely big problem'....shouldn't someone ask, "What Racism??" Shouldn't we able to see the racist law, the racist policy, the racist procedure, the racist behavior that actually proves this assertion and provides strong evidence for this belief? Absent that proof, outcome imbalance is simply outcome imbalance, and proves nothing. How many times must that be said? If you beat me 10/10 times in that 100m. dash, I'm betting it's because you're faster....not because the race is fixed.

If I find myself convinced that the World must change in order for me to be successful....if I come to believe that everyone else is wrong and I'm the only one who's right....then maybe it's me and not the world who needs to wake-up? Maybe it's me and not the world who needs to change? And maybe that change needs to begin by recognizing who I am as a human being has nothing to do with how I look and everything to do with what I do.

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