The Irony of the Left's View of Race

When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.   When you are a liberal, everything is about race.  The truth is for most left leaning, liberal, progressives, everything is about race.  Consequently, because most media institutions and academic institutions are also of the progressive persuasion, they also have a race-centric narrative of almost all issues.  Ironically, this view seems to increase the importance of race as a characteristic of both an individual and member of a group, while simultaneously lamenting race is an important factor in our society.   By constantly making every issue about race, race becomes the focal point of every issue. It seems the goal would be to make race less of a factor.  I can already hear the left bemoaning such an idea and rightly pointing out that race has been a factor since the beginning of the US (I would argue since the beginning of humanity...Humans are wired to have an "us" and "them" perspective of the world).  And, I agree.  Unfortunately, race has been, and plays a large role in the context of American social, political, and economic life.  Still, I ask, don't we want to come to a place where race is not a factor?  If the answer is yes, then the question is how?

Race, unfortunately, has reared its ugly head in recent events.  Not sure if race has ever veered below the surface for any amount of time to rear its ugly head.  The first was the awful murder of a young black male, Ahmaud Arbery,  by a white father and son in Georgia.  It clearly seems that Arbery's race was a central factor in his shooting.  The subsequent lack of an arrest of the father and son by local officials also cast an even more disturbing light on the case.  It wasn't until a video of the shooting became viral that arrests were made.  Then there was Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, while being interviewed by Charlamagne Tha God on his nationally broadcast "The Breakfast Club", claimed that black people who don't know who to support in the upcoming election "aint black."  Then Twitter did what Twitter does. 

Biden's comment and those on Twitter who were defending him expose this ironic dichotomy of wanting to make race less of a factor and at the same time make it a deciding factor.  By the way, if you get a chance to watch the interview, I suggest you do.  To me, Biden's speech, dialect, and demeanor was so reprehensible, disingenuous, and clearly contrived, that democrats should be embarrassed.  Back to my point.  Those defending him, are basically saying that "real" black people won't vote for Trump.  This begs the question, what is a "real' black person.  To the left, a "real" black person is one who votes democrat.  If a black person has other views, then they are either "Uncle Tom" or that they have betrayed their "community." 
I find this whole racial triablization problematic and always have.  It is unfortunate and highly anti-American to reduce the substance of an individual or a group to a racial category.  Moreover, it is even worse that black America is often guilted into mass group-think to continue supporting the very people who do not want them to think for themselves and be more complex then the color of their skin.  But what is most appalling, is the fact that the Democratic party along with the  most influential black leaders in media, politics, and culture have a vested interest in the racial discord in our society.  They have no interest in seeing more racial harmony or the betterment of black America.  If  racism ended today, what use would Al Sharpton be to anyone?  

I long for the day when we don't speak about a "black" community or the Hispanic "community" not because I dislike either, quite the contrary.  It is because I see them as more then just a member of a category that was created to fragment society into smaller subsets.  I have acknowledge that as humans, we have a natural tendency to group people into categories and one of the easiest categories we create is "us" and "them."  I have all sorts of "us's" and "them's" and you know what, they include many races, nationalities, personalities, etc. I hope one day that "real" black Americans will no longer be a way to describe a person.  Instead, I hope one day black Americans will be allowed to have the freedom to think and act individually without the expectation of condemnation, ostracization. or questioning their "realness".  I think it is an utter shame that black America is pandered to every four years by a political party that has no interest in their betterment and no real record of any such betterment.

I get race is complicated, especially in the context of America.  I also believe that most of our discussions of race become counter productive, especially if the goal is to make race less of a factor.  I am just not sure that is the goal of the Left, the media, and academia.



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