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Paul Fiery's avatar

I'm reluctant to put money into his pocket, but I suppose I ought to read his latest. I'd say he's gone from the pretense of "most white people" to the thoroughly collectivist concept of "whiteness," where there is no need to differentiate between individuals of the same skin color. How else can he blithely say that white children deserve to be psychologically damaged by saddling them with blame and guilt and responsibility for things that were done in the past by entirely different individuals who also happen to be white?

I remember as a child, I first heard about racism in the form of a story about a lynching. (I was in Canada and had never met a black person; it was all news to me.) The villains were not presented primarily as white, but as ignorant southerners down there in the primitive south of the USA, and the story was definitely set in the past, not in the "past is present" style of today. This allowed me to empathize with the victim, who was an innocent black person that the enraged racist mob grabbed hold of and executed by hanging. I had several levels of reaction to this. I understood that a mob lynching was unjust even if the person were guilty because everyone has a right to a defense and to due process. (I understood this at the level of a 10 year old, but I grasped the essentials of it.)

What hit me with far more emotional force was the greater injustice that they'd grabbed "just any passing black man" without in any way proving that he was responsible for the crime. This struck me as an impossible level of injustice. It hit home because all of us have had the experience as children of being accused of something we didn't do, or of being punished for fighting when we were actually defending ourselves against some bully, etc. And it hit home on an existential level, because it showed that any one of us could be in this situation if the rule of law were to collapse and vengeful mobs roamed the streets. And it hit me on an empathic level, for I could imagine the helpless rage of righteous frustration the innocent man must have felt as the rope was slipped around his neck.

Well here we are, at a point in history where lynching by racial association is becoming a matter of public policy. Oh, there is no rope involved. This "punishment" has been transformed into more acceptable forms. White children may be psychologically punished for the sins that unrelated white adults perpetrated. The polarity of color has been reversed: Now a white person is always guilty and a black individual is always innocent. The horrific principle remains the same. There is no individuality. There is only white and black, and we know simply by skin color who "deserves" punishment, even if they are mere children.

It's crazy. I suppose I should post this as a response to Time Wise, though he seems entirely impervious to criticism. And he's right about most of his critics: The criticism he and the Project get from the partisan collectivist religious right is as flawed as he himself is. He need pay no attention to my lone voice, because I have no political constituency at all, and he may be unable to grasp what I'm complaining about anyway.

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Peaceful Dave's avatar

After reading one of his books I found no reason to read another or his Medium articles. It's over thing to drone on about a problem without a genuine attempt at a viable solution. That is common today. I objected to his give up, it's futile message. A Grand Wizard Klansman would love the guy. Dave your money.

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Peaceful Dave's avatar

Sorry about the wrong words thanks to swipe on my phone. Save your money, but it's ok to give it to Dave if you like ;0)

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