Sadly, our cultural and political elites long ago abandoned an honest commitment to oppose racism and prejudice in all its forms. Now we're just having a vicious no-holds-barred fight over which races are inferior.
It's no surprise at all that we ended up here. It's the inevitable result of insisting that not all racial discrimination is bad, not all animosity is an evil, and not all racial supremacy theories are wrong. At that point it becomes a power struggle, not a quest for harmony.
Of COURSE we're stuck in an endless, bitter racial power struggle. That's how most of our elite wants it. They derive vast power and money from the struggle. Many of them have no other skills to speak of, no way to make a living at all, let alone become celebrity millionaires.
You have to understand that left-wing thought, especially in the tenured-radical faculty lounges where most of our really bad ideas germinate, is utterly captivated by a vision of history as endless power struggles - nothing but powerful oppressors and powerless victims.
They think "justice" is found only by turning the powerless victims into powerful oppressors. The righteousness they accumulated as victims, plus the wise guidance of academic elites, will help them use the tools of oppression to correct past injustices and build a better future.
Our academic, cultural, and political elites are exactly like the war profiteers of the military-industrial complex, doing everything they can to keep conflict brewing because war = profits. They ARE the cartoon war profiteer villains they profess to hate.
We're very far removed from what turned out to be a rather brief moment when our culture was dedicated to the proposition that all racial discrimination is wrong, in thought and deed, because it violates one of our highest principles: the presumption of innocence.
As with free speech, a society must embrace and practice this principle voluntarily in order for it to thrive, not merely regard it as some arcade ideological treasure locked safely in a constitutional vault. If we don't BELIEVE in these principles, they tend to wither away.
Racial prejudice replaces presumed innocence with presumed guilt. You know nothing about a person except the color of his or her skin, but you presume them guilty of various crimes and sins, and you might not give them much of a chance to prove their innocence.
It doesn't matter if you're a Klansman or a high-toned academic pushing elaborate theories of "inherent racism" and "white privilege." You're doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING. You've only changed which people are presumed guilty based on the color of their skins.
This will be made clear if the Left ever gains the power to force an explicit reparations bill on America. In that moment, countless innocent people would LITERALLY be presumed guilty, convicted, and punished by the State based solely on the color of their skins.
We cannot push such ideas while claiming in the abstract that racism and prejudice are wrong. Clearly they're NOT inherently wrong. We're just endorsing one set of racial supremacy theories - with the power of the State and oceans of corporate financial support! - over another.
Warning: once you decide to model your society on presumed guilt instead of presumed innocence, the power struggles will never end. The power to convict and punish people without trial is simply too great. Generations will fight their neighbors to the death to possess it.
The presumption of innocence is a check on power. Presumed guilt is a bottomless fountain of sinister power. It is arguably the root of all oppression, especially in societies where people get to vote. The people must be taught to embrace presumed guilt in their hearts and minds.
And if people embrace presumed guilt - if they tart racial prejudice up in elaborate academic and political garb and pretend it's high and noble instead of ugly and vicious - then that's what they will get under the law. Reject it entirely or be ready to fight over it forever.
Just as a society obsessed with censorship and speech codes doesn't have "free speech" just because the Constitution says so, a society that indulges in "justified" racism will never have justice or harmony. Only when none of us is presumed guilty will all of us be free. /end
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
