I think I have an idea that the current methods don't work.
Not at all.
That is, the guilt-shaming, the hyper-sensitivity, the unconvincing collective shock at minor, individual events, the assumptions about motives, the virtue-signalling, the contentedness with punishments that are worse than the offence, the pretense that anything is ever going to happen if it actually costs something.
To me, this is all theatrics. It's a means to expiate guilt that you don't need to feel in the first place.
There's no resolution for black folks down this path. No cure for a damaged society. It creates the divisions it fears, not the transparent colour scheme it desires. Or the happiness it claims to pursue.
America is a bad place for racism not because the issues can't be addressed but because it addresses them in a way that is doomed to fail. Slavery isn't a unique American issue. Everyone else had it.
I think America can be united about race, but only if people try something new: that is, to minimise the blame games and the victimology; to search for constructive pathways; to allow room for people to behave like people do - including doing things which can look silly in the rear-view mirror.
In the end, the US did something about slavery, of which it can be proud. It had a civil rights movement. These are facts that y'all can unite behind. But you never do. You're so intent on looking for bad apples and jumping on any deviation from correct behaviour, you never move forward.
If you don't pursue the numerous opportunities for unity, and instead relentlessly call out minor individual infractions, I guarantee you will be in the same place in twenty years.
For myself, the appeal of MLK was that he kept his eye on the prize: advocating reasons for respect between cultures, looking for the path to a colour-blind future. I found the same in Obama. But maybe they were all-for piling onto a single guy who wore black-face one night when he was a young man. And I missed it.
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