Here is the thing: it doesn’t matter one tenth as much how white people talk about black people as it does how BLACK people talk about black people.
Racism amounts to the proposition that some people among us will be disliked and mistrusted and even hated for no intrinsic fault of their own, through what is often but not invariably misunderstanding.
So be it. I personally have had the experience of being disliked for no good reason, mistrusted for no good reason. Did this send me into a self destructive tail spin? Would anyone have been doing me a favor if they had rationalized for me my self abusive behavior? Of course not.
Ultimately, I think the only sane, reasonable, psychologically sound answer from white people with respect to the problems of black people is to 1) grant that we are all sovereign individuals, who rise and fall based on our willingness to accept at least some accountability for our actions; 2) stop rationalizing failure through patronizing racism; 3) stop standing in the way of actual progress through actual psychological and more importantly political codependence. If, for example, we are to offer social benefits, they should be larger for intact families–at least for some period of time.
Now, having said that, I think the tensions and anxieties of the ghettos have given rise to many, many mental illnesses, which carry through, generation after generation. Most homes have emotional dissociation, chronic anger, fear and shame, and precious little security, in either an emotional or a physical sense. Far too many black kids in this country watch kids their age die.
If these were white problems, we would be all over them. I grant pervasive racism to this extent, but the flip side of this is that blacks have internalized this narrative of helplessness, in far too many cases, and part of the reason they don’t do more is they expect white “liberals” to help them. This is their signature and long term failure, one which I will reiterate I do not understand.
Personally, I think every kid should have to answer an ACE questionaire every year, and if they start collecting points, they should be offered neurofeedback for free, at school. This would help a lot. And I suspect there would be close if not perfect overlap between ACE scores and behavioral problems.
And I feel very, very confident that Democrats would oppose this. They oppose everything which might work to break up their voting bloc. They support black helplessness, provided they are the designated champions, and are able to maintain a perceived monopoly on this.
It’s sick on many levels. I continue to look at this whole thing and see an unbelievable amount of utterly unnecessary failure.
Black people are not beasts. I honestly think in aggregate they are blessed with the potential for more spirituality than most white people. But they become, like anyone would, beasts when they are raised in cages and beaten down. And these cages are where the Democrats want them. They don’t mind rage and crime, as long as they can use them politically. They don’t mind pain and suffering, provided they can get votes out of them.
Studied indifference would be vastly kinder, vastly more generous, and vastly more useful. Nobody helped the Irish, Italians, Jews, or Poles (among many others, some of whom did in fact come from de facto slavery): they figured it out on their own.
Malcolm X figured this out long ago. And he was shot by his own kind.