On the occasion of the trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, by @Hebro_Steele:
"Ideology blinds us to humanity while the act of witnessing reveals.
We see this blindness more than ever in today’s identity-politics-choked America."
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"To be a witness does not mean the surrendering of one’s values & principles; it only means understanding & empathy. The act of witnessing allows one to absorb the experiences of another human, allowing one to grow wiser."
"We cannot guess what went through Chauvin’s mind...
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"...as he kneeled on Floyd, but his hands in his pockets & his defiant stare revealed a man blinded to the man beneath his knee. When Al Sharpton declares 'America is on trial,' he blinds himself to the progress that countless Blacks have made in America.
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"Similarly, when our government introduces critical race theory into classrooms, reducing children to their skin tones, they blind our children to our greater humanity. And when we demonize one another politically, we do so to avoid having to deal with one another."
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Read @Hebro_Steele's whole article and watch his video here:
British gov't has released the report of its Commission on Race & Ethnic Disparities (CRED).
"Put simply we no longer see a Britain where the system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities. The impediments & disparities do exist, they are varied, and ironically...
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"...very few of them are directly to do w/ racism. Too often ‘racism’ is the catch-all explanation, and can be simply implicitly accepted rather than explicitly examined.
The evidence shows that geography, family influence, socio-economic background, culture & religion...
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"...have more significant impact on life chances than the existence of racism. That said, we take the reality of racism seriously and we do not deny that it is a real force in the UK."
Lovely piece on the misused, abused, and sainted for all the wrong reasons Frantz Fanon, by @tomowolade:
"St. Frantz is a mirage. As his biographer David Macey puts it: 'there were other Frantz Fanons', apart from his status as a prophet of Third World revolution."
"On the very first page of 'Black Skin, White Masks' Fanon states: 'I’m not the bearer of absolute truths'. Which doesn’t sound very saintly. He was trying to emphasise his humanity instead of being seen solely for his race."
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"Fanon, in his book, is trying to affirm the universal brotherhood of man. In one passage, he states: 'we must recall our aim is to enable better relations between Blacks and Whites'. It is no surprise, then, he is sensitive about anti-Semitism."
"Seven of the wealthiest eight ethnic groups in the U.S. today are populations of color, even as affirmative action broadly defined serves as a counterbalance to much of the residual bigotry within society.
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"In the real world, simply adjusting mathematically for mundane characteristics such as median age and study time closes almost all of the large racial—and gender—performance gaps glibly attributed to bigotry or genetics.
"Liberalism is attractive on both principled & strategic grounds. If liberalism has never lived up to its ostensible principles & values, that goes no way in proving that the principles & values are themselves unattractive ones.
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"The illuminating way to understand violations of (ideal) liberal norms [is] as a manifestation of the corrupting results of group power, whether of the privileged classes, men, or the dominant race, for liberal theory & practice.
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"But we can appeal to the idealized, non-group-restricted versions of liberal principles and values to critique the exclusionary versions—indeed, that is precisely what most American progressive social movements have historically done.
Frederick Douglass "saw free speech as 'the great moral renovator of society and government'.”
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" 'Slavery cannot tolerate free speech,' [Frederick Douglass] declared in 1860. 'They will have none of it there, for they have the power.'
He pointed out that slave societies required 'violations of free speech,' but was confident that 'truth must triumph...
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"...under a system of free discussion.'
Unfortunately, the trend among colleges is to tell students what to think...rather than to equip them to discuss important topics from a range of perspectives.
Why prevent the 'free discussion' that Douglass argued was essential...
"Elevate Black voices, but only when they support the right narrative. Our lived experiences should be heard, but only when they portray Blackness as endless suffering. Our opinions matter, but only when we affirm the belief...
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"...that all Black people think the same. When we remind the world that we’re whole human beings—capable of reasoning, nuance, & making mistakes—suddenly our thoughts seem nonessential to these people.
Articles about race should enforce the belief that to be Black is...
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"...to live in a constant state of fear & oppression. They should make Black people feel angry, helpless, & victimised. Or ideally, some combination of the three. We’re getting so used to this idea that some see any other message as anti-Black.