I often feel out of place when I discuss topics like these because I have such an outside perspective. I'm white, upper middle class, and I've grown up in one of the less diverse suburbs of Detroit, which is far enough away from the actual city that I don't witness the social issues, either. But I see a lot of write-ups similar to this, though maybe a little less insightful often times. I tend to agree with most points when I read them, but I think quite a lot of people who are becoming more activist about these things are going about it the wrong way. I was reading a conversation from days (or maybe it was a month) ago on here where one person (regretfully I don't remember who) made a good point along the lines that it's really hard for those in the privileged class to accept the advantages they have. And it's entirely true. And repeatedly trying to make this point isn't going to convince them. To be honest, I don't know what can convince them, but I do believe that there's some things that can become more standard in these dialogues to get people more engaged. Rather than merely promoting the identification of privilege, which is what I at least regularly witness online and in groups around my university, people need to be taught what kind of specific institutional changes need to be made to fix things. Obviously that's difficult, because it's somewhat nebulous and there isn't really a definite answer on what CAN fix a lot of the racial divide or even if it's realistically a completely attainable goal. But that's what the conversation needs to start turning to, and people might naturally gravitate towards that conversation. I have to apologize because I feel like my argument isn't entirely solid, but it's just the thoughts I've been having on this lately. Any solutions to racial divides in American society are going to require cooperation between races, and I don't think the current dialogue is effective at engaging privileged groups.
I agree. I understand that people are raised in very different social situations, but it's never productive to only yell at a group for being privileged. People never respond to that. This method, trying to induce change by angrily and immaturely calling out the group with the most power, never makes much sense to me. I also think we have a lot of gender issues in America, and many women choose to call men pigs and assholes as if that's the most efficient way for them to take any responsibility or help them out. What kind of logic is that, ya know?
That's a fair point, but I think there was more intent here than just being a rant, the format is just providing a style of rhetoric for him to deliver his arguments, by framing it as something he's angry somebody else doesn't realize. I personally do think there's some constructive stuff in here, in that he's trying to convince people to be more open to his perspective and the perspectives of people like him, that they normally instantly disregard. As I said, I agree with this stuff. But the issue is that this style of rhetoric, rants, is becoming something of the norm in my experience, and I think more people need to be engaged in constructive dialogues before everything's just drowned out in anger.
I see your point. I wasn't trying to dismiss it, racial problems in our country are very real. I was, however, dismissing the method the guy above me talked about. I really feel like it distances black Americans from the very people whose opinions they're trying to sway. I'm not saying the author is without merit.