Why Does African American Disadvantage Persist?
A debate with Joshua Cohen
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A couple weeks ago, I traveled to Stanford to participate in a debate with my old friend Josh Cohen, philosopher and co-editor of the Boston Review. The occasion was a session of the class “Democracy and Disagreement,” which seeks “to model active listening and respectful critical discourse” for students. The question presented to us was “Have the post-George Floyd racial reckoning and Black Lives Matter activism advanced the cause of racial justice in America?” If you know me at all, you’ll know I took up the negative position in the debate.
As I say in my opening statement, I don’t believe justice is a racial matter. I don’t think the equal valuation of human lives in our society is a racial question. I think it’s a human question. Joshua believes the phrase “Black Lives Matter” captures a justifiable concern over inequitable treatment, while I think the verboten phrase “All Lives Matter” subsumes the racialized version of the statement. That is not to say that African Americans don’t face challenges specific to their (our) social location, only that we cannot overcome those challenges via special rules and carve-outs that apply uniquely to us.
At the debate’s outset, a poll of the students revealed that 65% answered the debate question in the affirmative and 35% answered in the negative. At the end, it was about 55% affirmative and 45% negative. Perhaps I can’t call that a clean win, but it’s progress, and perhaps a demonstration that Americans aren’t quite as dug into our positions as we might fear. But I’ll put the same question to you that the course’s organizers put to the students. Anyone reading this—not only full subscribers—can vote. Let’s find out where we stand.
A quote from Robert Woodson, born in 1937, a civil rights activist and community development leader, founder of the Woodson Center:
“The white elitist left has appropriate the wounds and suffering of black Americans and weaponized it against the values of this nation.”
This happened on steroids at the George Floyd moment and after.
I think it did tremendous damage to
American civil relations into blacks, especially putting them in the perpetual victim position.
Back again.........read Tom Sowell's analysis of how the Black family was destroyed. He has the numbers to prove it. Read "My 5 Black Fathers", this fellow was fortunate that 5 other Black men took an interest him. not his biological "father". The Civil Rights laws, made with good intentions, destroyed the financial incentive for the real "father" to stay around. A boy (Black, White, others) needs a father figure around, the mom can't do everything.....although some do rise to that need! The "so-called" Black leaders of today (exclude MLK) are conn jobs who have "tasted the white man's cool aid (money/power) and sacrificed their "brothers".