Lately, something that has been turned on it's head. One particular group of Americans have been subject to institutional racism for centuries. Yet after only a couple decades and despite clearly still driving the bus, white folks now imagine themselves the victims of terrible injustice. Oh, the horror.
What is whiteness? blackness? ethnicity?
A few things that, thanks to history, a lot of people are unable to get past.
Does history still effect the present?
Yes, and in an odd way. There are millions of people still alive in this country who remember having to sit on a "coloreds only" park bench or go in the back door of a hotel, yet their struggle to be treated as equals has generated a backlash that we can read about right here in this thread. Oh, the terrible unfairness of being compelled to hire black people!
I'm going to go with "not 50 years." A half century ago, this nation passed a law which dragged certain states and counties (kicking and screaming in some cases) to guarantee that the rights of minorities to vote would no longer be institutionally impeded.
The nanosecond that parts of the Voting Rights Act were overturned by the Supreme Court, states practically fell over themselves in order to bring back restrictions on voting - under the bullshit premise of preventing "voter fraud." Yeah, we get it...voter fraud is when "those people" vote.
Is white supremacy still a thing?
As a movement? It is at a relative low point, though it has rebounded in recent years thanks to that guy with the funny name in the White House. There's still a remnant of the Klan out there, still plenty of White Nationalists around the fringes of society, and still a few "mainstream" politicians and public figures with one foot still in that ugly past.
As a practical matter? Yeah, whites are still supreme. If you want to hail a cab in New York City, not get shot by cops, or not get pulled over just about anywhere in America, it really helps to be white.
If the system is broken, how do we fix it and should we?
You're asking the big questions tonight, huh?
I think a lot of it has to do with just the passage of time. 50 years is not enough, obviously, but maybe at 75 years past 1964 enough of the people who battled in favor of racial segregation and discrimination will be dead enough that their grandchildren won't grasp why they should judge others based upon the color of their skin. Maybe it'll be an even 100 years. I hope it won't take that long.
