Wesley Yang made a good point on the context of the NYT\u2019s 1619 thing and Coates bringing up reparations again and a renewed focus on slavery and \u201cthe awokening\u201d in general.
That as new streams of immigration make America less white, they simultaneously make it less black, or at least less Negro \u2013 the nation formed in slavery in America.
And I could see that, a felt sense of danger that if slavery and blackness aren\u2019t deeper written into the national narrative, then to the degree these new arrivals are assimilated to America, it\u2019ll be again be to a specifically white America, with blacks left on the outside, like with the \u201cwhite ethnics\u201c before.
But it hangs up on that nation thing. Like, if you don\u2019t want the American narrative to just be the White nation\u2019s story, okay, but the rightists that bluecheck shitsnots say are \u201ctelling on themselves\u201d are right, the Black nation\u2019s story as proposed is one featuring the White nation as an enemy, or at least Pharoah\u2019s people, where it is featured at all.
Though I mean what were the White nation\u2019s alternatives on offer? Well, the traditional one up to 1970 was \u201cit was a damn shame that the White nation split and turned against itself in the waste of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and a great glory it was able to reunite\u201d.
The upgraded one was \u201cit was a damn shame that the White nation enslaved the blacks, but a great glory it freed them and invited them to join the White nation, thus resolving that plotline\u201d
Which I suppose was still the promise when I grew up, the narrative as I learned it was
The Civil Rights Movement Was A Great And Glorious Thing (by which they mean the \u201850s part) but
The \u201860s Went Too Far Sometimes (by which they include the Civil Rights Movement) then in
The \u201870s [INAUDIBLE] so in
The \u201880s we remembered we were Americans, dammit, which means by
The \u201890s we couldn\u2019t wait for blacks to escape the violent, inner-city ruin in which they had always lived
so. I mean, I put it like that to render the rejection sympathetic and understandable, but I grew up with that whole 90s colorblind \u201cblack people can be Whites too!\u201d thing, I liked it, it seemed like it was working for a while, at least in the spheres I noticed, and when complaints became audible it felt like they could be classified and addressed as failures to live up to the ideal.
I dunno, the 90s dreams of \u201cwomen can be guys too!\u201d and \u201cgoyim can be secular Jews too!\u201d aren\u2019t doing too great either. Maybe there was just a strong enough monoculture with high barriers that things had to be made to work back then. Maybe the 90s utopian \u201cthe internet will lower barriers and give everyone a voice!\u201c thing was true but in a monkey\u2019s paw way and the thing we thought we were celebrating as that was an early stage where it built a culture more tailored to the already-set. I dunno. I have no solutions.
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