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Make Racism Wrong Again
The new credo.
Last week, I was driving through the oft-underrated state of Connecticut. I was sitting at a light when I noticed a sticker on the car in front of me:
“MAKE RACISM WRONG AGAIN.”
The core problem is, of course, racism. Coupled with the genocide of the natives, the enslavement of Blacks is the original sin of this country. That problem, whether manifested in slavery, Jim Crow, or some other unholy vessel, has persisted without interruption since this nation’s founding.
A secondary problem is that racism seems to be getting worse, not better. We are now living through perhaps the only moment in our nation’s history where the slow creep towards racial equality has not only been paused, but reversed.
Shame used to serve as an effective — albeit frail — deterrent. In a former life, politicians did not want to appear bigoted. The old formula went something like scandal, apology, resignation. Now it seems to be scandal, another scandal, double-down, and attack. (It always humors me when a conservative will disregard an article because the publication purports to have some sort of “liberal bias,” when that article merely reprints the president’s words verbatim.)
Even privately racist politicians would give lip service to notions of equality. Then, of course…
