I’ve always liked reading John McWhorter. Here’s a twofer from him. One:
Some might object that we should not check that impulse, and that extremism is necessary to create lasting social change. But it’s useful to recall that, when it comes to profanity, there were once people who considered themselves every bit as enlightened as we see ourselves today, with the same ardent and appalled sense of moral urgency. They were people who said “Odsbodikins” and did everything they could to avoid talking about their pants.
Note that none of these things involve white people “realizing” anything. These are the kinds of concrete policy goals that people genuinely interested in seeing change ought to espouse. If these things seem somehow less attractive than calling for revolutionary changes in how white people think and how the nation operates, then this is for emotional reasons, not political ones. A black identity founded on how other people think about us is a broken one indeed, and we will have more of a sense of victory in having won the game we’re in rather than insisting that for us and only us, the rules have to be rewritten.
July 21, 2015 @ 12:57 am
The second essay was interesting, even if one does agree straight out with his policy prescriptions (but his point about practical actions is well taken).
I could not read beyond the first few comments. Terrible, just terrible.
The usual "conservative this" and "reactionary that" and "you are Uncle Tom because you question the orthodoxy of middle class symbol manipulators that the only proper life path is college and some bland white collar job with $150,000 of student loans"
July 21, 2015 @ 1:20 am
Well, it was a Daily Beast article; caveat lector. I remember reading to the bottom, seeing something like 1546 comments or whatever, and just snickering at the thought. I've always admired the ironic way the Onion's comments read, "X number of reasonable discussions are occurring."