It’s not so much nonsense as it is uncomfortable truth. It’s very, very uncomfortable. But it is also true. None of us alive today chose to benefit from the things our ancestors did, the systems they built, the territories and resources they claimed, the wars they won, the people they killed. But we did benefit from them, we still do, and we are responsible for understanding and acknowledging that. It does not really have to be a big deal, but the longer and harder we refuse to genuinely accept that, the bigger a deal it becomes.
It’s not “white guilt” to understand that exactly the same things you worked hard for are also things other, much poorer people are also working just as hard for, and quite possibly much harder, while objectively accomplishing much less because of exactly that history. It also hurts to admit that some of that racist colonial history isn’t actually history, because it actually isn’t totally gone yet. Nobody’s saying we have to instantly paint the entire globe with fairness. It’s no person’s sole responsibility, but it is a shared responsibility that we need to be making an honest effort towards, and we should be held responsible if we ignore, minimize and deny those things.
There’s a lot of different directions I could go in defense and support of these principles, but I don’t think it would lead to productive discussion and I think it would be better for people to simply dismiss me as a naive, idealistic bleeding-heart liberal who can’t possibly grasp reality. But whether you agree with it being achievable or not, I think we should agree that whenever it is possible to move the needle at all, we should try at least to some degree. The first steps of any sort of improvements towards equality require acknowledging the premise in the first place. We have to understand the problem, that equality does not yet exist because genuine harm was done in the past and those consequences have continued to the present, not because some people and groups of people are inherently lazy or stupid or bad. A lot of people are very, very resistant to even admitting that, because they’re afraid that it will make them liable, that it will cost them something. And ironically, by denying it, I think it actually should cost them something. Only the truth shall set us free.
It’s not so much nonsense as it is uncomfortable truth. It’s very, very uncomfortable. But it is also true. None of us alive today chose to benefit from the things our ancestors did, the systems they built, the territories and resources they claimed, the wars they won, the people they killed. But we did benefit from them, we still do, and we are responsible for understanding and acknowledging that. It does not really have to be a big deal, but the longer and harder we refuse to genuinely accept that, the bigger a deal it becomes.
It’s not “white guilt” to understand that exactly the same things you worked hard for are also things other, much poorer people are also working just as hard for, and quite possibly much harder, while objectively accomplishing much less because of exactly that history. It also hurts to admit that some of that racist colonial history isn’t actually history, because it actually isn’t totally gone yet. Nobody’s saying we have to instantly paint the entire globe with fairness. It’s no person’s sole responsibility, but it is a shared responsibility that we need to be making an honest effort towards, and we should be held responsible if we ignore, minimize and deny those things.
There’s a lot of different directions I could go in defense and support of these principles, but I don’t think it would lead to productive discussion and I think it would be better for people to simply dismiss me as a naive, idealistic bleeding-heart liberal who can’t possibly grasp reality. But whether you agree with it being achievable or not, I think we should agree that whenever it is possible to move the needle at all, we should try at least to some degree. The first steps of any sort of improvements towards equality require acknowledging the premise in the first place. We have to understand the problem, that equality does not yet exist because genuine harm was done in the past and those consequences have continued to the present, not because some people and groups of people are inherently lazy or stupid or bad. A lot of people are very, very resistant to even admitting that, because they’re afraid that it will make them liable, that it will cost them something. And ironically, by denying it, I think it actually should cost them something. Only the truth shall set us free.