Birmingham jailer to MLK: What do you people want? MLK: Respect. Wise man. Everything else would follow from that. But short of full respect, what do our Black brothers and sisters want? Would reparations do? No Whitesplaining would be a good start, I hear. (BTW, I'm supposed to pass for White in this society, but I don't like it.) So I will recite facts, and quote the views of our Black brothers and sisters.
I have heard it said that respect would be better than material reparations.
But you can't eat respect. So short of that, until millions more angry old White guys die off in mostly the normal way, let’s talk about what the rest of us can do toward dismantling systemic racism at every level of government, and in corporate behavior.
Hillary Clinton’s first job out of law school was going undercover to bust segregated "Christian" academies, but Republicans and Russians convinced too many Black and other voters to stay home in 2016, or waste their votes.
We don't need any more of that kind of talk, especially not White supremacist folk Whitesplaining to other White folk that the whole problem is Those Other People.
The 1994 Crime Bill took a toll also.
See Dying of Whiteness, by Jonathan Metzl, for information on angry old White guys dying younger than normal by trying to stick it to all of their supposed enemies, and also by alcohol, drugs, and suicide.
Now, what I hear specifically from polls, pundits of color, the Congressional Black Caucus's legislative proposals, and Black citizens speaking for themselves is that the wish list begins with
- SCOTUS-proof voting rights
- Education, including real Black and Native American and other neglected history, not Lost Cause lies
- Jobs with equal pay and benefits, formal and informal
- Health care for all, no excuses and lies and exceptions
- Unbiased law enforcement and courts, i. e. Equal Protection of the Laws
- No Constitutionally authorized slavery in prisons, and no private prisons
- Fair housing (Especially not the old "Fair Housing" law that mandated redlining)
- Fair access to consumer and business banking services
- No more environmental racism
- Real food in the poorest neighborhoods
- Immediate career termination with prejudice for any politician who uses overt or Dog Whistle racism
Almost all of which we can actually do with a Democratic President, House, and Senate.
Our White candidates have trouble with cultures that they have not previously experienced, but they are mostly ready to talk about all of the above, and to staff up with people who know a lot more about it.
Remember, when FDR was elected, he had no set of New Deal plans. Frances Perkins had to invent all of that for him. We are way ahead of that now. In particular, Elizabeth Warren already has a plan for all of those things, and the House under Nancy Pelosi has passed hundreds of bills covering everything we have so far thought of. Multitudes of people know a lot about what needs to be done.
- Educate yourself. Don't buy into any of the old lies.
- Spread the word.
- Take action.
- Let our allies and fellow victims know that you are doing it.
Everybody in the Good News group is politically active. That's good, indeed excellent. But what are you personally doing to understand and oppose racism?
I set out on a lifelong study of human delusion while I was a child, including when I lived in a mixed-race neighborhood. I wrote a Diary series, Grokking Republicans, that delved into science on the psychology of authoritarian racism and related mental ailments. I wrote extensively on racist Dog Whistling, here and on Dkosopedia. I joined and sometimes wrote for the Black Kos community group. I have fought racism and bigotry in religion, technology, politics, and other areas of our public life. I don't have room here for a catalog.
PS I have also been told an answer to Freud's old chestnut.
Q. What do women want?
A. Men who don’t tell women what they want.
For starters. Men who listen when women talk would be even better, a lot of women tell me. Some even go so far as to say
A women without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.
We can also discuss what Latinxs or LGBTQs or any others in our coalition want, in much the same terms, but with differences in the specifics in the various wish lists. Respect. No X-splaining. Listening to the litany of tsuris (Yiddish: troubles, especially from anti-Semites, but can be repurposed for whatever ails your close-in community), and what needs to be done about it. #BlackLivesMatter. #MeToo. #GringoTonto #OyVeyIzMir. #GOTV.
-
What's the Case for Slavery Reparations? [Obvious]
-
What Do Opponents of Slavery Reparations Say? [Obfuscation and denial]
-
Have Governments Paid Reparations Before? [Certainly]
-
How Long Has the Reparations Request Been Going On? [Since the Revolution]
-
What Would Paying Reparations Look Like? [Cash? Reconciliation? Respect? Enforceable rights?]
-
How Much Is Owed in Reparations? [Trillions in current dollars, unspeakable mental health damage]
-
Do Reparations Have a Chance of Passing in Congress? [Ask me after the election]
So what else, then?