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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

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See? Again with the "them". (Genuinely not trying to be nitpicky and you didn't mean it that way - a family is a plural noun - but hopefully you'll allow the point.) I'm not talking about "them". I'm talking about specific people. I'm saying that if you see the new black family and then expect them to act per negative stereotypes and then that comes across even when you first meet them and say hi, that's bad. It's true that humans and especially modern Americans aren't super great at "firewalling" the two things, which the whole 'microaggressions' thing was a somewhat deluded and misplaced crusade at affecting, but it does take effort to extend some charity especially at first.

And of course you did list purely and universally negative stereotypes. The family could equally as well bring humor, food, a neighborly sense of watching out for the kids, hospitality, a deep faith, etc. Of course, there are some "culture-clash" values or practices that are a bit more value-neutral than selling drugs/blaring music at 2am/street racing that cause friction, sure. I'm not going to claim that all cultures and practices are of equal value either. But you have to admit starting out with "white = universally good" is not a great building block. I'll still stand by what I said though. It's really not all that bad if that's the true belief you have, but you have to be honest with yourself about whether it might bleed through or not. Only God will judge us by the contents of our heart, for everyone else in society, we have to make do with actual behaviors.

If you get right down to it most of us agree about this, but I think it's really easy to let the politically charged parts distract from it. And it tends to be a more prosperous and mentally healthy mindset to boot, when you default to trust rather than default to suspicion. That's the secret sauce of humanity's success and I don't think tech has changed it too much.