Last edited Fri Jan 6, 2017, 02:09 PM - Edit history (1)
class first and not address racism. In fact, in my post I said that both should be done together, and that what we need to do right off the bat, so that we can continue to talk about racism in society effectively and in a way that doesn't fall on deaf ears, redirect all the fear and anger at the source and away from immigrants and welfare and all the bullshit. Not first. Together.
As to reparations...
strategy does matter. I wish that weren't the case, but it does. This is about education. You want to start talking to people about gravity waves before they even understand the Earth revolves around the Sun. Do you actually think that that is an effective way to get progress? We can fix so much that it racist about our system without leading with that, for the very reasons I've been describing. We can alleviate so much of the pain and suffering actually delivered upon people of color in so many ways that are achievable right now, with the mindsets we're dealing with today, and we can address a racist system not after, but during the process. And the good news is that all moves us closer to making reparations an actual reality.If something is actually moving us in the right direction, not on some tenuous detour, but actually on the path to opening people to new paradigms, then why make the perfect the enemy of the good?
I have been saying that nothing is possible unless you advocate for it and make it a part of normal conversation, so I don't want to be hypocritical about my view on reparations, and I recognize that this is a contradiction. But the very call for reparations is something that triggers the limbic brains of way too many conservative white people. It feeds into the divide-and-conquer tactics already being waged upon us. It gives our enemies tools to use against us and shuts off ears to us before we can take that power away, and that's because without a whole lot of explanation(which people will not hear), it suggests again, that we are going to come for your stuff white people.
Could it be done? could we say from the get-go that we need reparations, but that we're going to take it just from the rich, who bear such a great responsibility in seeding and nurturing racism for their own financial gain? I feel like that's an advanced course on revolution, rather than the 101 class that we can get so many behind today,but I don't know, maybe.
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