http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/black-pathology-and-the-closing-of-the-progressive-mind/284523/
Chait argues that I've conflated Paul Ryan's view of black poverty with Barack Obama's. He is correct. I should have spent more time disentangling these two notions,and illuminating their common roots—the notion that black culture is part of the problem. I have tried to do this disentangling in the past. I am sorry I did not do it in this instance and will attempt to do so now.Arguing that poor black people are not "holding up their end of the bargain," or that they are in need of moral instruction is an old and dubious tradition in America. There is a conservative and a liberal rendition of this tradition.The conservative version eliminates white supremacy as a factor and leaves the question of the culture's origin ominously unanswered. This version can never be regarded seriously. Life is short. Black life is shorter.
none of these White opinionated persons have walked that proverbial mile in the shoes of, in the life of, in a year of, in a day of or a minute of or a second either.
yet they have proposed to school America on the who, what, where, and why's of the Black experience oblivious evidently to how ass backward their impression is one born of the first encounter to trip here and subsequent subjugation over the last 6 decades.
fear of the unknown envy and jealousy of the human they have imprisoned, fear at their women sneaking a peak and.... instead of the feeling of conquering the savage beast they were faced with a fear that caused constant beatings, constant demeaning, and forever subjection to their whims. reassuring or trying to reassure their place as master and commander, but ignored the fact that Rome their model template fell too.
The argument is that structural conditions shape culture, and culture, in turn, can take on a life of its own independent of the forces that created it. It would be bizarre to imagine that centuries of slavery, followed by systematic terrorism, segregation, discrimination, a legacy wealth gap, and so on did not leave a cultural residue that itself became an impediment to success.
The "structural conditions" Chait outlines above can be summed up under the phrase "white supremacy." I have spent the past two days searching for an era when black culture could be said to be "independent" of white supremacy. I have not found one.
Certainly the antebellum period, when one third of all enslaved black people found themselves on the auction block, is not such an era. And surely we would not consider postbellum America, when freedpeople were regularly subjected to terrorism, to be such an era.
talking about slavery is a reminder that those who harbor those same attitudes today don't want to admit to, is it angst of conscious why else would the mighty conqueror not want to reveille in victory, those less educated have no problem, these are the red meat feeders that now have joined the ranks and express their racial proclivities out loud once again.
White media says it's because they hate Obama, can you truly hate and not know why or is hate an obscure inclination that comes natural to some like blinking an eye?
the lyric to the song free your mind by En Vogue says it best and complete,
"before you can read me you have to learn how to see me, free your mind the rest will follow" recognize. and realize how much easier life is because of those they oppose.
so why are we still in their jackpot combination of both their incessant domination or our incessant indifference? yes we can!!!
