The history of slavery and racism in this country was a savage hypocrisy and a violation of our values.

in critical •  3 years ago 

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If I were to say...

"If you vote Democrat you are supporting a set of values that are at least more racist than Republicans. Look at the history of the two parties. The Democrats stood by as slavery continued, the Trail of Tears happened, and multiple other racially motivated atrocities were carried out. The Republican party, for all of its flaws, was literally founded as the abolitionist party. Yes, there were conflicts within the abolitionist movement about how to end slavery and Lincoln's rhetoric about slaves isn't dissimilar to Robert E. Lee's; but, it was the Republicans who decided to risk splitting the country in half and commit to tens of thousands of men to death for that cause.

What's more, the split continued after slavery. The Southern States which remained to be the common sites of lynchings, segregating, racial hate crimes, and Jim Crow remained heavily Democratic for most of the century after the Civil War. Woodrow Wilson was the most active supporter of the KKK to ever climb to the office of the presidency. George Wallace, the governor of Alabama when Martin Luther King Jr. marched on Selma was a Democrat.

That happened while Civil Rights legislation was mostly being championed by Republicans.

Due to the history of this institution, it's irredeemable and should be done away with entirely in the name of racial equity."

...most of you would rightly call me a moron.

Everything that I wrote was factually correct; but, the logic of the conclusion is dumb.

The thing is that the dumb argument that I just made is the same argument that the woke are making about the USA and her institutions. That dumb argument is the conclusion that Critical Race Theorists have arrived at. That same dumb argument is the conclusion of the 1619 project. Namely, it's the dumb argument that, rather than learning from history and seeing how things have changed, we should embrace an idea of original sin when it comes to institutions and systems. It's an attempt to associate concepts with race and identity coupled with a refusal to think that concepts and institutions can adapt as we learn more.

When Kendi says that capitalism is inherently racist, he's making the same dumb argument that I made. When people say that American institutions are built for white people they're making the same dumb argument that I just made.

There are two world views that you can take from the racist history of America. You can decide that the racist history of America is indelible and irreversible until we tear down the foundational institutions and replace them with other systems, like socialism, which also mostly saw their genesis (at least in popularity) with white men. Or, you can take my side and view that the history of slavery and racism in this country was a savage hypocrisy and a violation of our values that we've spent too much time trying to snuff out.

The difference here is that my side doesn't have to lie.

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