Thread by @LT3000Lyall

Great thread.

There is an amazing degree of commonality between the political dynamics & ultimate effects of race merchants in places like SA and what is occurring in US - albeit in a diluted form. Greater "race" consciousness invariably ends up harming those it claims to help.

https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Witt/status/1414885049095401480

One of the great tragedies of the second half of the 20th C is that while many Asians studied STEM in the US, and brought that knowledge back to Asia to drive economic development, African expat students tended to study the humanities & onboard left wing/identity political ideas.

They took that knowledge back and went into politics, and these imported ideologies amplified already tense ethnic and religious divisions and in many instances contributed to the emergence of decades of civil war, economic turmoil, and in some cases even genocide.

The mechanism was generally via race-based political entrepreneurs currying up resentment towards a "privileged" group, who were often groups of highly productive immigrants, leading to economic dispossession, persecution, people fleeing the country followed by economic collapse.

The ideas are very dangerous and are the cause of much unneeded suffering. Equal rights for all citizens regardless of race is a noble cause. Race based resentments over inequalities, historical injustices, etc tends to lead to economic impoverishment and violence/civil war.

One important difference in the US is that the "privileged" group most often targeted - caucasians - is also the majority rather than minority - at least for now and in the foreseeable future. This limits the degree to which the ideas can spiral into dispossession & persecution.

There are some minority "privileged" groups in the US though, such as jews and to a lesser extent Asians. There has been a rise in anti-Semitism and anti-Asian sentiment/violence/discrimination in the US in recent years, which is a predictable outcome of identity politics.