I came across probably the best article I've read on current race relations in the US. This one seemed to either fly under the radar....or was flat out ignored by most media outlets.
The Virtue Signalers Won’t Change the World
Some excerpts...
Pretty smart stuff...but then again, I tend to think highly of opinions that mirror my own. As a side read (because I know you'll want to read more after this article) here's a link to a satirical blog mentioned in the article. It reads pretty hilariously these days for something written in 2008...
#101 Being Offended
Thoughts?
The Virtue Signalers Won’t Change the World
Some excerpts...
In fact, however, third-wave antiracism is a profoundly religious movement in everything but terminology. The idea that whites are permanently stained by their white privilege, gaining moral absolution only by eternally attesting to it, is the third wave’s version of original sin. The idea of a someday when America will “come to terms with race” is as vaguely specified a guidepost as Judgment Day. Explorations as to whether an opinion is “problematic” are equivalent to explorations of that which may be blasphemous. The social mauling of the person with “problematic” thoughts parallels the excommunication of the heretic. What is called “virtue signaling,” then, channels the impulse that might lead a Christian to an aggressive display of her faith in Jesus.
The people espousing this third-wave ideology are not unintelligent, mentally imbalanced, or working from some nefarious agenda. They want to be on the right side of history. However, upon reflection, and aware of the risk of how an essay like this might read in the future, I suggest it is going nowhere fast.
Second, and more important, is it even necessary to force a revolution in thought? Certainly a people cannot succeed as slaves, or under a system that condemns them to officially segregated and second-class status. However, human history hardly shows that an oppressed group needs the wholehearted love and acceptance of its overlords. Are black hands truly tied because whites are more likely to associate black faces with negative concepts in implicit-association tests, especially when evidence suggests that the results do not correlate meaningfully with behavior? Or because whites aren’t deeply informed about the injustices blacks have suffered throughout history? Precisely why must whites transform themselves to so extreme a degree for racial disparities to close?
Under the new regime, people like Murray and Johnson had it wrong and apparently now qualify as antique figures; fostering social justice requires fashioning oneself as vulnerable, injured, and/or broken by things thoroughly “woke” people in the past would have treated as things to be brushed off their shoe. The contrast here is not simply “complex.” It suggests that the struggle has gone off the rails. The new zeitgeist is under-considered and even condescending, seductive but fruitless, a fashion statement in the guise of a program, and finally, a distraction for a people who have already been through so very much.
Pretty smart stuff...but then again, I tend to think highly of opinions that mirror my own. As a side read (because I know you'll want to read more after this article) here's a link to a satirical blog mentioned in the article. It reads pretty hilariously these days for something written in 2008...
#101 Being Offended
Thoughts?