Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Has anyone read a good non-mainstream or little-known well-regarded hypothesis as to why the black family collapsed in the mid 20th century? Not necessarily looking for a Jared Taylor-tier piece, but I'm open to arguments the mainstream would consider taboo, such as questioning our liberal principles.
I don't know what qualifies as mainstream to you. McWhorter has long beaten the drum of HipHop culture and its precedents uniquely harming Black youths; his argument being that the cultural credit given to Black kids for being "authentically" Black promotes and perpetuates cultural stereotypes. He argues that white kids consume rap with a degree of ironic distance knowing it is a fantasy, as I cannot be a Black gangbanger any more than I can be an Elf in Tolkien. Black kids experience this popular form of fantasy as the authentic Black self to strive for.
There is also the argument, made forcefully by Clarence Thomas and simply by Sean Turner here with respect to HBCUs, that affirmative action in the mainstream/white community harms the Black community by siphoning off its leaders. Whites skim off the talented tenth and leave the rest to rot without their own natural leaders. Talented Blacks get diversity handout jobs at Goldman or Cravath or some federal department rather than building business in the community, talented Black students go to Harvard to be mediocre instead of being on campus leaders at Howard, attractive and accomplished Black men marry white women. Integration, and the popular fetishizing of diversity and Black inclusion, served to undermine rather than build the Black community. It took a thousand years of ghettoes in Poland and Ukraine to build the Yiddish community, Blacks never got that chance.
It'd be hard for me to imagine what I'd do if were a talented black man, but if I try and imagine myself having two options - go to Goldman for a job (that I suspect may not be entirely due to my talents, but offers good pay and an opportunity to advance if I work really hard) or try to make a local business in the community, while dealing with local drug lords, crime, poor population, and just in general possibility of being a victim of random drive-by shooting - I must say I'd be severely tempted to go to Goldman. It's probably not good "for the community", but I have only one life, and I do not plan to be a martyr. Would it be fair and realistic to expect significant number of actual talented black men to be martyrs "for the community"? I mean, if they do, all power to them, but can we expect that, or complain fairly if that doesn't happen?
Jews living in those communities had a very rich and colorful culture, but usually were dirt poor and didn't have any prospect of better lives, and felt pretty bad and also pretty hopeless about it (notice any similarities here?). What changed though was the parallel movements of Haskalah and Zionism. Basically no Jews now live that way anymore. Some went on to become secular Jews and assimilate, to certain measure (much less easy of an option for a black person, for obvious reasons), some went away to found Israel, some went to America. I'm not sure which lessons that teaches us with regard to black people - their situation is different in many aspects.
I saw the burnout rate in those really idealistic black guys who did Teach For America after college rather than jump straight into a good paying gig. That program ate those guys up and spat them out: just threw these upper-middle class black guys into the worst ghetto schools imaginable because they can handle it, right? Don't think any of them had even dealt with being called oreos before.
I would 100% take the "as a queer black man, I bestow the title of Anti-Racist on this company" sinecure.
I've read about half-dozen of articles to the tune of "I was a starry-eyed young teacher bubbling with enthusiasm to help under-privileged children and fix the system, now I am a burned-out cynic with depression and I didn't fix anything and don't think it's possible". They certainly feel like there's a pattern.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link