I believe that the way one analyzes most social problems and resolves to address them is less intellectual than it is emotional.
One is willing to share with those for whom one feels sympathy; a kinship. And I believe that emotions are simply not very sympathetic to the economic underclass right now.
Much of that underclass is black, and in its media-highlighted aspects, "black culture" has not been so attractive recently to middle class America, white or black.
IMO, the widespread rejoicing in the black community at the acquittal of the murderer OJ was a very bad thing for this country. Gangsta rap culture is repellent to many middle class whites. Marion Barry's reelection did not win allies for blacks among other races, and neither did the role of Al Sharpton et al in the Tawana Brawley hoax. Overrepresentation of blacks in the prisons, shrill "entitled" welfare mothers (black and white) making "demands" on TV, the books-are-for-whites attitude, the furor around Ebonics, demands for reparations by those who have never been slaves of those who have never owned slaves... and lately, The Reverend Jackson's illegitimate child and the money he'd thrown at the situation, followed by his weekend of remorse and ...
all occurring in the context of the imminent demographic decline of the white population into minority status...
What I guess I'm getting at is that I think many people are furious, and alarmed, and that rational, constructive ways of addressing inequity and injustice and suffering are inaccessible to furious people.
I don't know what to do. I do know that cause and effect isn't so clear, here, and something had better be done to increase the percentage of the population that feels it has a stake in the proceedings. |
