Some unorthodox points on race and racism in America

-The persistent racial divide in America is perpetuated by two complementary fears, both rooted in all to present realities: oppression and crime. The left, and most black people, cares more about oppression; the right, but also most people who are not poor blacks or hispanics, cares about crime.
-Baldwin himself said this. “White people hate black people out of terror; black people hate white people out of rage.” Read correctly, this statement means: both are forms of racism, both are understandable, neither is justified.
-Both problems are real. -Fear of either of them motivates activation of the other.
-Recognizing this reduces the sense in hating anyone for what they are predisposed to fear.
-Of course the failure of full democratization after the Civil War and of racial integration is a driver of crime, because it has left a black culture that is heavily deformed, as people understand that they are excluded from the mainstream society.
-The concept of oppression is misconstrued today in theatrical terms as something one person or group does to another. So if you are oppressed and in and as your demographical identity, there must be an opposite identity that is the cause of your oppression. If black people are oppressed, white people are to blame.
-Instead, the focus should be on what is done and secondarily on what types of persons are chosen as targets. If they can be, anyone could be. If they should not be, it is because no one should be.
-The only way to shift concern for these things away from race is to not talk about it. This is a good idea. Instead of talking about race, talk about the abuses of the police, mass incarceration, etc. Do mention that far too many of the victims are black. But what you object to is the general state of things, the way things are, and what kinds of things are done.
-Slavery was not a project of prejudiced white people to oppress black people because they did not like them; it was a project of capitalism driven by profits and greed.
-It is obviously ‘racist’ to be inclined to suspect of members of a demographic group that they can rightly be associated with tendencies one so strongly opposes.
-There is at least as much - in fact, there is far more - black racism against white people than white racism against blacks. This persists because people think it is justified. It is a major cause of violent crime. -The repudiation of someone else’s hatred of me does not justify my hatred of them.
-Instead, it justifies thoughtful judgment. This is the opposite of hatred. Thoughtful judgment is the medium of all justice.
-Capitalism, not racism, is the real problem.
-Opposition to racism is opposition to either the privileges or attitudes some people have.
-Many privileges ought to be rights and enjoyed by all. The left wants this.
-Privilege-bashing is done from the standpoint of a capitalism that might as well offer nothing to anyone, so that the good life itself is attacked, in different terms depending on the identity of the target.
-Most often, racism is considered an attitude that cannot be tolerated. But this leads only to a morality and not to a politics.
-Since a big part of the problem is capitalism’s use of policing, why augment the state’s capacity to police and sanction attitudes?
-The barbarism continues not because so many people are prejudiced, but because so many are blind. They are blind not so much to what they themselves want or believe, as to the way things are and what is wrong with them.
-Not even the Holocaust was the consequence merely of prejudice. It was not a riot becoming a pogrom, but a massive state enterprise whose machinery was oiled by the indifference of people just doing their jobs, and not wondering about what the consequences may be of doing as they are told.
-Change institutions, change the way things are done; worry less about who likes or doesn’t like whom.
-I am not your problem. I would be both ally and comrade at least on some issues if you let me. Ethnic nationalisms are reactionary, and they make this solidarity impossible.
-The function of the separatist minority culture is to maintain segregation and give inequality and policing an alibi.
-Criticism is not hatred, and mine is not. Enemies are hated, and one fights to defeat an enemy; one certainly does not speak truth to him if he has power over you. Friends criticize each other.
-So why can’t we criticize each other, and each other’s beliefs and values; indeed, their very culture? Tell me, friend, sole figure of political alterity, what you don’t like about me, and why, and let me reciprocate.
-Isn’t the only alternative to just stay on your side of the wall?