America is going through a Black awakening

[Apparition of Jack]

So, since I haven't seen anyone else point this out (not just here but in general), I figured I'd explain something I've observed as a result of current events in the US.

Basically, a lot of the cultural / racial / political tension happening right now is due to the fact that American identity is shifting and black (and other POC) Americans are finally, perhaps for the first time in history, claiming their place as a legitimate, respected cultural and social force in US society.

While this was a process many decades in the making, I would say the "instigator" of all this was the election of Barack Obama not once but twice to the White House. What does the President of the US represent? In many ways, they represent the "prime" American; they represent the "best" qualities Americans like to see in themselves - respect, restraint, decisiveness, civility, being strong yet gentle, and so on. They occupy something of a spiritual position in the American psyche.

It is also, of course, no coincidence that up until 2008, they had always been white (and also male, but that's for another time.) While white America has, to varying degrees, accepted other races in US society, and has even taken on board some of the cultural practices and ideas of non-white Americans, it was always this sort of "unspoken agreement" that black Americans, hispanic Americans etc. could have their music and food and unique culture, but white Americans would always be on top. The whitehood of the Presidency was only the manifestation of that.

That all changed when Obama got into power. All of a sudden the highest office in the country - the very face of the country - was now occupied by a black man. Obviously at the time there was a lot of negative reaction to this, but overall most Americans went along with it because Obama seemed like a capable leader and they didn't really think to much of it beyond that. It was a cultural shift for sure, but the implications of it wouldn't fully be felt until later. And not only did he win once, but he won twice. This changed his presidency from a "random black aberration" in an otherwise white position, into a legitimate era of US politics.

And Obama was legitimate in a lot of ways. He was, as I pointed out before, respectful, restrained, decisive (at times), civil, strong yet gentle, and so on. He embodied the very best of the American mindset, and yet.. he was black. Even to outwardly-liberal white Americans (and hell, even to black and other POC Americans), this felt very strange. The idea that the civil American mindset could be embodied and defined by a non-white person was nothing anyone was previously used to. It was in essence a collective shamanic trick where the highest "white" authority now became defined by a non-white face.

And to wrap it all off, what I am arguing is that much of the cultural confusion going on today is just the delayed reaction to this fundamental shift in the US psyche that is still being integrated, in a sometimes-painful way. Every American today had nearly a decade of a non-white face leading the country and steering the ship of state, and people are just now getting used to that reality. It means that from now on, no one can ever say a black person or a Latino person or whomever else can't do this, or can't do that, or can't define this, or can't embody that, since now the entire nation knows that that is essentially horseshit. If a black person is just as capable of literally leading the country as any white person out there, what's to stop black (and other) people from defining business, and industry, and education, and engineering, and so on? The answer is of course nothing. The black American voice that has for centuries played second fiddle to the white American voice is now singing at the same volume and even in many ways leading the a capella.

That's why these riots seem to be so heated (amongst a host of other reasons.) That's why BLM seems to be so powerful these days. The old ways of having whites on top and everyone else bellow are breaking down, and a truly multi-racial society is emerging in the process. Of course a lot of people, both whites and even some non-whites, will find this uncomfortable and react negatively towards it, but at this point the course has already been set. And that's not to say that everything will now be fine and dandy from now on, there's still clearly huge discrepancies to be addressed that'll take decades to fix, but the cultural momentum to really solve these issues now has a social legitimacy it never had in decades before.

These are time of great change for the US, but it's all part of the evolutionary process to make the world more just, more fair, more free, and so on. The future holds many promises.

[Gidiot]

Great post man, in many ways I think coronavirus was a earthly intervention and yet thousands and thousands of suffered and died by its force. It pretty much has ruined trumps chances of re-election and sparked the beginning of a more inclusive healthy green society. 

We were getting there before GF but now his face is everywhere and it’ll go down in the history books for sure.

[Boethius]

And yet America, arguably, was only ready & willing to elect its first Black president precisely because of how accomplished Barack Obama personally was. Put differently, if Barack Obama "set the standard" for Black people in America, then America felt like it had nothing to fear in elevating a Black man to the highest office in the land. It was after Obama became president and started bringing awareness to the suffering of the Black community (with unfair policing as with the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. and with brutality as with the murder of Trayvon Martin) that America's attitude started to curdle. It was one thing, after all, to acknowledge Black people when they were self-reliantly overcoming lingering hardship -- such an acknowledgment actually flatters America's view of herself as the Land of Opportunity -- but quite another to acknowledge the ongoing debt that America owes to the Black community and the ways in which America continues to fail her Black citizens.

Hence Trump. As soon as Black people started asking for help or demanding accountability from the government, what they got instead was the boot. From the beginning, Trump directed law enforcement agencies to halt the trainings and initiatives they had started to put in place under Obama for curtailing police brutality. And he seemed to think the Black community should be grateful for his administration ("what have you got to lose?" he asked of Black people many times).

So we know from Obama's time as president that "respectability politics" isn't going to work in inspiring (white) America to provide the relief the Black community requires. We know from Trump's time as *whatever it is he is doing* that blunt force isn't going to magically cause the Black community to straighten out its own affairs. The only option left is for the Black community to play a leading role in setting governmental policy for uplifting its people. This will come about from both the Black community seeking such power and from (white) America ceding its power in turn.

Hence the excitement over Biden choosing a Black vice-president.

 

Edited July 23, 2020 by Boethius