"Political blackness was born in [an] era where 'coloureds were treated as part of a de facto underclass. Institutional racism meant they occupied menial jobs, were denied decent housing and education and were excluded...
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"...from many social spaces due to the 'colour bar'.
In this context, it made sense for descendants of Britain’s colonies to band together.
But political blackness is now a fossil. [I]t flattens out the diffs btw blacks & S. Asians into an abstract non-white identity.
3/10
"At the same time, the emergence of identity politics has had the effect of breaking up what was once a unified 'black struggle' into ethnic & religious fragments.
The Tories are the political group best equipped to appeal to an increasingly diverse electorate.
4/10
"In 1983, they ran an election poster featuring a besuited black man alongside the words: 'Labour say he’s black. Tories say he’s British'. The message is clear: we emphasise nationhood and want to include you in it, while the Left wants to keep you imprisoned by your race.
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"The party is responsible for the most ethnically diverse cabinet in the history of British gov't.
What this shows is that there is no such thing as 'black politics' in any unitary sense. Black people, / various backgrounds, are acting politically across the spectrum.
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"Yet today’s understanding of 'political blackness' still implies that you need to have a particular kind of radical politics be 'authentically black' politically — and any deviation equates to 'selling out'.
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"So don’t underestimate the power of a Tory government that can synthesise patriotism and multi-ethnicity, practise 'colour blindness' and rebut the Left’s accusations of tokenism by pointing out that they operate on talent and aspiration and beliefs, not skin colour.
8/10
"The Tories’ message of equality of opportunity and meritocracy strikes a chord with many, whatever their hue.
On the identitarian Left, instead of 'political blackness', ethnic minorities are currently stuck w/ 'people of colour’ or the soulless bureaucratic acronym BAME.
9/10
"Political blackness may have been flawed, but at least it was a radical attempt to encourage solidarity between different communities for a politics dedicated towards social transformation. Any attempt to revive it now would only degrade into kitsch.
10/10
"Despite the Left’s best efforts, political blackness cannot be the basis for any politics of solidarity any longer."
The Race To Focus On Race:
What happens when the narrative outpaces the truth?
"You’ve probably heard that on March 16th, Robert Long attacked two massage parlours in Atlanta killing eight people & seriously injuring another...
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"You’ve also likely heard that six of the eight victims were Asian women. In the days following the attack, news outlets published a string of reports blaming Long’s actions on racism.
Trevor Noah made the case more clearly than most:
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" '…The Atlanta shooter blamed a specific race of people for his problems and then murdered them because of it. If that’s not racism, then the word has no meaning.'
There’s no arguing with Noah’s logic here. The problem is, what he’s saying isn’t true.
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."
3/9
"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."
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.
"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.