no, i’m not talking about gradual change.
I mean people have to be smart about how they vote and for whom.
The only words of caution that I would offer Mr. Coates, in this instance, is that his oratory was way above the people that he was addressing. I am certain that the historical references that he made, for the most, part fell on deaf ears. Mitch McConnell is the worst of the whole band of racial inequity deniers. Unless of course you consider the recent written words of Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas.
For the like millionth time in this thread, no one suggests that reparations are the only thing we should do to deal with our social problems. No one. You’re making that up in your head. Most of us here support a host a legislation that would deal with poverty. But racism is a real social problem that must be dealt with.
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I understand that no one is saying that there should only reparations. I get that. I am looking not at how good the idea by itself. I am looking at the system which would change it from that good idea into the wrong choice.
Do we all agree that our current political economy is extremely corrupt and is more so everyday? That the people actually running this society are doing so for their own interest? That they are using all the nasty, often illegal, tactics that they can and that it’s likely that political assassinations, blackmail, framing, and violence in general will return?
That there is a well functioning system for co-opting social movements and for extracting as much as can be taken from any organization or individual that they can? On all sides? Liberal and conservative? Just what happened to the Tea Party. It was co-opted and neutered by the Republicans. The Democratic Party very first action was doing the same with BLM. When they cannot do that they destroy it like with OWS. I could expand it to cover most of our society like the Red Cross or even the NRA. Organizations that are mainly, although not entirely, grifts today.
So here is this wonderful idea of reparations. Implicitly targeted just at one group. Without a concurrent effort for all the other lost souls? In a political economy that makes Tammany Hall look like amateurs?
I know that it will pork barrel time with the resources used by our corrupt system to break up alliances, to split apart our nation into squabbling factions. Black against White, the poor against the working class against the middle class. Us against them.
No. I am all for beating the ignorance about our past, including racism, out of the thick heads of our fellow Americans. However, any aid, any help must be broadly based, using only current need, not race. And only as part of the campaign of reforms needed for our society survival. If we do not, the powers that be will use targeted anything as a lever, a club, a tool to beat us all down and to keep their own privileged place in society. This has happened before in America and it could happen again so easily.
And legislation aimed at addressing racism complements, rather than distracts from, legislation meant to reduce inequality and poverty.
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Was Brown V. Board the “wrong choice” because many whites disliked it and rallied against it?
Yes. Doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t deal with issues of race, though.
It is not in the past, it’s right here. With us, working both through class and race. It’s not a fake concept cooked up by the elites. It’s real and has material consequences. the suggesting is that we at least deal with the material consequences of it. If some whites want to stamp their feet and whine because it’s “unfair” that we address hundreds of years of systemtic racism instead of JUST class, that won’t be the first time they’ve done that. If you want to address racism, YOU HAVE TO ADDRESS RACISM, not pretend that because it’s a social construct that it doesn’t exist.
YES!
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It got flagged as off topic, so it’s been taken down for you.
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