But nearly fifty-seven years after King’s speech before the crowds gathered on the mall of the capital, and four years after the first black president left office, the country finds itself deeply divided over the issue of race, with increasing numbers of blacks and whites alike noting a marked deterioration in race relations since the beginning of the new century. Anger over the deaths of blacks at the hands of police led to large-scale riots in Ferguson, Missouri as well as in Baltimore, and Milwaukee, bringing back unsettling memories of the wave of riots during the summer of 1968 that put 125 American cities to the flame. Identity politics and the concept of intersectionality, once an idiosyncratic preoccupation of cloistered academics, have made the leap into the mainstream media, where news and even entertainment programs now make routine reference to navel-gazing theoretical formulations that categorize human beings according to their membership in oppressed groups. The elites in the media and in politics have sought to place racism at the forefront of public consciousness, not as a problem to be addressed through mutual understanding, but rather as an evil that must be eliminated by means of the harshest measures. The scourge of white supremacy, according to CNN and other mainstream media outlets, hangs heavy over the land, just a few years after the American people handed the country’s first black president two electoral victories by solid margins. A remark construed as racist can get one fired from a job, as in the case of television star Roseanne Barr, and even to notice that it is possible to lose one’s job over a thoughtless statement is to draw the unrelenting ire of the outrage mob. Read Full Article »
Civil Rights Against Civil Society
In t
he minds of a great many Americans, the civil rights movement has been a vital unifying force for their diverse country. Regardless of whether they vote Republican or Democrat, Americans across the political spectrum are united in viewing the black struggle for civil rights as one of the moral foundations of the nation. It stands as proof that peaceful, non-violent activism can bring down longstanding racial barriers and put an end to unjust and exclusionary practices. Even if the United States has not wholly overcome the legacy of slavery and segregation, the marches and sit-ins of the 1950s and ‘60s nevertheless made enormous strides toward reaching this goal; so that today, African Americans are well-represented in leadership positions in politics as well as in the corporate world. Such is the conventional understanding of the significance and the achievements of the protest movement indelibly linked to the martyrdom of its prophet, Martin Luther King Jr.
But nearly fifty-seven years after King’s speech before the crowds gathered on the mall of the capital, and four years after the first black president left office, the country finds itself deeply divided over the issue of race, with increasing numbers of blacks and whites alike noting a marked deterioration in race relations since the beginning of the new century. Anger over the deaths of blacks at the hands of police led to large-scale riots in Ferguson, Missouri as well as in Baltimore, and Milwaukee, bringing back unsettling memories of the wave of riots during the summer of 1968 that put 125 American cities to the flame. Identity politics and the concept of intersectionality, once an idiosyncratic preoccupation of cloistered academics, have made the leap into the mainstream media, where news and even entertainment programs now make routine reference to navel-gazing theoretical formulations that categorize human beings according to their membership in oppressed groups. The elites in the media and in politics have sought to place racism at the forefront of public consciousness, not as a problem to be addressed through mutual understanding, but rather as an evil that must be eliminated by means of the harshest measures. The scourge of white supremacy, according to CNN and other mainstream media outlets, hangs heavy over the land, just a few years after the American people handed the country’s first black president two electoral victories by solid margins. A remark construed as racist can get one fired from a job, as in the case of television star Roseanne Barr, and even to notice that it is possible to lose one’s job over a thoughtless statement is to draw the unrelenting ire of the outrage mob. Read Full Article »
But nearly fifty-seven years after King’s speech before the crowds gathered on the mall of the capital, and four years after the first black president left office, the country finds itself deeply divided over the issue of race, with increasing numbers of blacks and whites alike noting a marked deterioration in race relations since the beginning of the new century. Anger over the deaths of blacks at the hands of police led to large-scale riots in Ferguson, Missouri as well as in Baltimore, and Milwaukee, bringing back unsettling memories of the wave of riots during the summer of 1968 that put 125 American cities to the flame. Identity politics and the concept of intersectionality, once an idiosyncratic preoccupation of cloistered academics, have made the leap into the mainstream media, where news and even entertainment programs now make routine reference to navel-gazing theoretical formulations that categorize human beings according to their membership in oppressed groups. The elites in the media and in politics have sought to place racism at the forefront of public consciousness, not as a problem to be addressed through mutual understanding, but rather as an evil that must be eliminated by means of the harshest measures. The scourge of white supremacy, according to CNN and other mainstream media outlets, hangs heavy over the land, just a few years after the American people handed the country’s first black president two electoral victories by solid margins. A remark construed as racist can get one fired from a job, as in the case of television star Roseanne Barr, and even to notice that it is possible to lose one’s job over a thoughtless statement is to draw the unrelenting ire of the outrage mob. Read Full Article »
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