this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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The thing is, saying that it's doomism about everything America has ever done is really reductionist to the actual point being made:
Like, one part of the actual CRT discussion (not whatever Florida/Praeger U thinks CRT is) is pointing out that post WWII, many families were able to take advantage of the GI bill and the prolific creation of new housing projects to get a higher education, get a house out in the 'burbs, and pull themselves out of poverty.
But at the same time, many benefits of the GI bill were denied to vets of color, and red lining meant that many they could not buy houses in the cheap new housing developments. So many black families weren't able to join the new middle class, and weren't able to start accruing generation wealth, and between what I've stated and many other policies that families of color were still barred from, and many things I'm glossing over, are still poor now.
And, okay, cool, that happened. The US did a racist thing, and it has repercussions into today. But if you try and have a conversation about what to do about it, you get this response that... well I didn't do that, that happened in the '40s-'50s, I wasn't even alive, why should I care? You just hate America.
And they're right, it's not the fault of most people alive today. But people are still reaping the generational benefits of those policies, and people of color are not. Other families are still impacted by a lack of generational wealth. People alive today.
And there is a real conversation to be had about what to do next about it. Are there policies in place that disproportionate impact the poor, who are disproportionately people of color because of the policies above? Iunno. But not talking about it only benefits the people who have already benefitted.
So it really is a conversation about what to do next, but one with any historical context at all.
But instead you have this Praeger U response, which says that we shouldn't teach children that anything bad ever happened in history. We weren't racists because slaves wanted to be slaves. Therefore people of color who are poor today are just lazy (even if they did the same things your family did to get out of poverty), and we don't need to talk about it.
Edit: removed an extra "the"
I just wanted to say this has to be one of the best explained and written opinions on CRT and things surrounding "affirmative action" (in quotes because this kind of loosely fits maybe?). I've always believed that racist events from the past affect the current lives of the population disproportionately but had neither factual examples or any idea of what this means for how to move forward. Thanks for writing this down, I'll save it.
Thank you for expressing this so eloquently!
We have records of exactly who was denied. If they are alive and want that privilege, they should get it. But afaik it's private info and only people closer to the issue can work on it. On reparations it'a fucking hard to prove who "deserves" them, and we can literally never pay enough to pay back wages for slavery. I'd rsther bring the conversation back to classism. If I agree that black americans deserve reparations, then we are all just one working class anyway. Let's get the conversation back to current issues where we can win.
Well, yeah, you're hitting on the the kinds of things I was thinking of when I said
I was focusing on one narrative that I could speak to well, because that's specifically the policies that helped my family, and I know they were not available to people of color. There are hundreds of different narratives that have caused the class divide and the race divide in this country to be so closely associated.
But overall, I agree: If we didn't spend so much money and resources trying to appease the greed of a few dozen people for whom everything would not be enough, then I think a lot of these problems would go away...
That said, I'm not sure how easy it is to talk about boosting up the working class without having a conversation about race. Enough people buy into, and fear, the welfare queen idea. You wouldn’t want to give them free money.
You have made a good point but I don't think that's really the point the OP response tweet was making which was more of a lazy taunt and broad rejection of America as a whole. Not to say what Praeger U's vague dismissive appeal to patriotism is itself a good point, it is not. But the question here isn't just whether there is a case for social justice in some form, it's whether "American values" should be rejected wholesale for being tainted.
For instance, the equal protection clause of the constitution, which was used to dismantle various segregation laws, stands in the way of some race based remedies to past racist disenfranchisement. There is a value that the law should not discriminate. Whether or not that value is correct or could be questioned, I think it merits some reverence that isn't nullified by gesturing at the sins of the nation.