Monday, September 21, 2020

Black American academic dares to opine that Back lives are not inherently different from white lives

Here's a brave man. Black American "cultural critic" Thomas Chatterton Williams, in an interview with the BBC, opines that the way to get multi-ethnic society to work, which should be everyone's goal, is not going to be "by doubling down and reinforcing the mistaken notion that we are separate races", based on what he calls "pseudo-scientific relics of conflicts past", but rather by "actually trying to live up to the idea of a transcendent humanism". 

Now, this is diametrically opposed to the views of Black Lives Matter, which is currently steering the narrative in America and elsewhere. Chatterton Williams does say that he understands, and indeed agrees with, BLM's protest movement aimed at fixing the culture of police brutality in the USA. He does not deny that there is racism and injustice at work on a large scale in American society. But, he says, "as far as they believe that there are actually Black lives that are fundamentally, inherently, essentially different than white lives, then I don't get on board with that rhetoric".

And finally, "I don't think that we are going to get to a better future by fracturing ourselves into ever more hyper-specific identity categories".

Like I say, brave man. I have to say that I agree with him in principle, although I don't see how that fine theory is going get translated into a practical approach.


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