I just got through watching CNN Presents: Black in America, Reclaiming the Dream. It featured a panel discussion that included many scholars, religious leaders and activists in the black community. There were several segments including ones on the breakdown of the black family, the achievement gap and the HIV/AIDS crisis.
I found it especially interesting that not once did I hear any serious discussion of racism or any serious dialog about black/white interaction in America at all.
How can you begin to discuss issues like the achievement gap, the breakdown of the black family or HIV/AIDS in any serious way without discussing racism?
I applaud CNN for attempting to bring the plight of large populations of African Americans into the public eye. But all they did was talk about the problems facing the black community. Any attempt by a panelist to discuss the deeper roots of some of the problems facing African Americans was veiled, and attention was quickly brought back to the specific problem being discussed by the moderator.
But even if CNN had decided to allow it's panelists to speak about racism's thumb print on the issues they discussed, the format of the show was doomed to fail in one important regard. Everything was discussed in terms of how it's effecting black people and black communities. This fits the popular notion of racism as something that happens to a minority group rather than as something that not only happens to the minority group but something that benefits the majority group. To "reclaim the dream", the white man's nap sack has to be exposed and rejected by white Americans.
I can't say that I'm surprised thought. The MSM typically doesn't like to discuss white privilege to say the least.