I don't want to write a history tome here today, but the government promised newly freed slaves 40 acres and a mule. It never came. Someone recently pointed out that the equivalent of 40 acres and a mule today would be about $60,000. I'm no math guy, but that would be a lot of money. We might not be able to do that, even if we should. It's not like racism simply vanished, even at the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And the effect of this ongoing racism in economic terms--in practical terms--is the prevention of the accumulation of intergenerational wealth. We'll come back to that.
Yeah, there are racist attitudes floating around in the Republican Party, and in the conservative media ecosystem. Of course there are. The GOP absorbed the Dixiecrat South within a period of about 20 years. We would have at the very least absorbed racially insensitive attitudes as a function of partisanship, when I was there. It's worse now, because talk radio rose up in the late '80s, at the repeal of the so-called "fairness doctrine", all the while preaching to a predominantly white audience that as time has passed, has grown older and more reactionary.
I can't wait to hear how I have absorbed these opinions from the "liberal media," and bought their lies "hook, line, and sinker." It's not my fault that we sacrificed our critical faculties to oppose the sexual ideology of the Democratic Party. It's not my fault that GOP candidates can't win minorities. I digress.
Actual racism has real economic costs, to say nothing of the promises made and broken to our own citizens in the past. We could probably have a more productive conversation about it, if every economic transfer weren't met with cries that the Red Menace is descending. Fusionism is dead; let it die, and then let's reengage real issues on their own terms.
Yeah, there are racist attitudes floating around in the Republican Party, and in the conservative media ecosystem. Of course there are. The GOP absorbed the Dixiecrat South within a period of about 20 years. We would have at the very least absorbed racially insensitive attitudes as a function of partisanship, when I was there. It's worse now, because talk radio rose up in the late '80s, at the repeal of the so-called "fairness doctrine", all the while preaching to a predominantly white audience that as time has passed, has grown older and more reactionary.
I can't wait to hear how I have absorbed these opinions from the "liberal media," and bought their lies "hook, line, and sinker." It's not my fault that we sacrificed our critical faculties to oppose the sexual ideology of the Democratic Party. It's not my fault that GOP candidates can't win minorities. I digress.
Actual racism has real economic costs, to say nothing of the promises made and broken to our own citizens in the past. We could probably have a more productive conversation about it, if every economic transfer weren't met with cries that the Red Menace is descending. Fusionism is dead; let it die, and then let's reengage real issues on their own terms.
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