Are we being duped , a black perspective, what does it take to open your eyes Mark , check this guy out , he's an eminent writer
You are trying so hard!
He is not 'an eminent writer', he is someone with a podcast and one self-published book.
This is just one voice, and also a voice yelling, which I don't really appreciate.
He is also a bit confused, or deliberately deceptive. People are kneeling not because 'they are on their knees' but because they are 'taking a knee' acknowledging a mild protest made by Colin Kaepernick, using a well-known American Football action. To spin that into 'white people are on their knees', is a horrible distortion.
He says that white people are feeling guilty and asking for forgiveness for past (and present) racism. That may be so, in some cases, but I am doing neither, and advocating neither. I feel absolutely zero guilt or responsibility for the actions of my forebears or nation (in my case, mainly oppressing Irish tenants in Tipperary). I don't believe in the idea of inherited guilt like that, and have not claimed to do so. And I think the white-person argument along the lines of "I'm feeling cross and righteous because people are saying that white people like me should feel guilty" is a bit odd - as people on here would say, you should just 'get over it', 'walk the other way', 'don't even look at the Panamera'. If a black (or white) person said I should feel guilty about the actions or advantages of my past I would be happy to tell them to feck off. BUT, I do realise that the advantages of my past (good genes, money, a fine education, etc, etc) have given me quite extraordinary opportunities that other people have not enjoyed, and I do feel a bit guilty, in the here-and-now, about relying on them and squandering them to quite such an extent. But oh, well....
It's not about
historic white guilt, it is about
current black disadvantage, some of which happens to linked to the past. It is not about white people paying for past sins, it is about those people who are currently lucky enough to be unencumbered by the effects of racism,
recognising that it might be an issue, and trying to do
something about it, rather than searching the internet for reasons to pretend it isn't an issue. It is not about all white people living in 'privileged luxury' (and 'white privilege' is
such a terrible term), its about white people being lucky enough to be able to go around in a blithe 'default' existence (unless they are Gingers, obvio.), never being questioned for 'driving a flash car while black' or 'walking in a nice neighbourhood while black'.
If you are a white person, who does not recognise that black people are routinely disadvantaged in the UK and elsewhere, then you are, in my personal opinion, not paying attention or actively deluding yourself. The task is not to find reasons to say, 'oh, poor me, I'm being attacked' or 'yes, but, this is not a problem' or 'loo at this black person behaving badly' or 'look at these three black people who say everything is ok'; the challenge is say 'yes, I see the problem, and I would like to help'. Not because of guilt or riots or 'political correctness', but because that's the right thing to do.
