22 Comments
Nov 10, 2021Liked by Geary Johansen

I agree with Josh. I am about as detached and analytical as they come, and have an appreciation for the finer points on either side of the cultural divide. And yet, it's never enough. So now, despite being more than willing to meet in the middle, I find that supposedly I'm the problem. And hope is giving way to my mood, which is dark. At some point, you give up trying to make it better, and just look for gasoline and a match, consequences be damned. I fear I am closer to that edge than I'd like to be, and am still being pushed.

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Nov 10, 2021Liked by Geary Johansen

Your idea, whatever it is, whether others agree it's great or not, doesn't matter to most who will never know what it is unless you have a truly great one that others adopt to their benefit. That's real progress, not centrally planned, forced progressivism.

If your idea only works by forcing it on others, then your idea is based on immorality, hubris and likely will make matters worse. Voluntary, live-and-let-live society allows many ideas to flourish as others agree to use them and show results they prefer. Forced society divides, rejects minorities and diversity, directly harms, is the antithesis of tolerance and appreciation of others, leading to closed, submissive, fearful people, the opposite of progress.

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I couldn't agree more, and it's great advice. It really is so very difficult to create emotional detachment when it comes to race. Why is that? Probably the same reason that racial discrimination seems so odious . . . there's nothing that you can do about your race. Things that deeply affect your life over which you have no control are really hard for a lot of us to deal with.

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Nov 11, 2021Liked by Geary Johansen

A very insightful article. To my mind racism is a problem because it is usually perceived as being one directional. Link it into the fact that certain groups underperform and you have a potent brew. However, racism operates both ways and so we need to look elsewhere for the cause of under performance. I don't think there is one cause but a myriad of interlinked causes of which racism is a very minor aspect.

The West has done a massive amount to eliminate racism and pretty much successfully. Unfortunately, for some people it will never be enough. The woke left and the writers who express crypto-racist views like Reni Eddo-Lodge (Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race') imagine it everywhere rather like the 'Reds under the bed' scares. Some people would rather imagine a one size fits all problem and solution. Personally I prefer a non-fashionable colour blind approach.

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Detention for one minute late the school? I think I would have had my fair share of those…

“ every parent is subject to the same stringent disciplinary code as the students.”

What does that mean? How could a parent be disciplined by the school? Charged a higher fee for tuition? They can’t be put in detention. That would be like my parents telling me today that I was in a time out. I’d laugh.

Race and education are both emotionally charged topics, but I think there may be a broader desire in America for nuance conversations. The Very Online Twitter mobs are very polarized. But most Americans of all races don’t want to have their kids segregated in schools. There’s higher acceptance of interracial marriage than ever before and, importantly, high rates of actual interracial marriage. Meaning that America is getting more racial diverse but less racially divided.

I’m definitely not one to say we’ve totally solved race in America even if I think we’ve come an incredibly long way. True racism is rare but I saw a fair amount of it growing up. It seems to me that most of the people pushing theories of systemic racism (which in a few highly specific cases does exist), haven’t seen much real racism (i.e., individuals actually willing to physically and emotionally attack other individuals due to the color of their skin).

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Nov 10, 2021Liked by Geary Johansen

While I agree that we should avoid emotional quick fixes (... the style and wording of some of the CRT education bans come to mind ... ), I take issue with points Two, Three, and Four.

Adopting those without caution is just asking to concede, and concede, and concede. Which is how we got here.

"They invade our space and we fall back. They decimate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here."

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Nov 10, 2021Liked by Geary Johansen

Just starting to read. I love your opening sentence. Truly. But typo in sentence #2:

Emotional attachment or investment is the greatest barrier to engaging rational thinking, or the type of empiricism which could solve our most pressing thorny problems. When we first envisaged the promised land which MLK invited us to march towards, we HAD no understanding . . .

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