So one thing I just thought of to go back and read John Derbyshire’s 2012 “The Talk: Nonblack Version”, the essay in response to Trayvon-era tensions that lead to his “mainstream conservative” purging and establishment as “dissident right”, 4 years before it turned out that yes, a return to racial cleavages was the immediate future of American conservatism
And it’s striking how much nothing his points have to do with the current environment. Like “blacks are less intelligent and more violent, black areas are dangerous, affirmative action means many blacks are incompetent in their positions, black administrations will be corrupt”, that was def. a running 80s-90s position
That’s just not the thing now. Whites have returned to the cities but “a black guy will mug you, steal your car radio and hubcaps” is no longer a live trope. There is a feared, identifiable group that might move into your neighborhood and bring street violence, crime, drug use and sales and it is not “blacks” but “the homeless”
Which god knows a lot of them are black, and a lot of 90s black crackheads were homeless, and there were a lot of rough white vagrants in Skid Row LA or SRO Manhattan all along, but still that is how the “there goes the neighborhood” demographic is defined now
Even Affirmative Action from the competitor’s perspective, Grutter v. Bollinger was in 2003 with then-swing vote O'Connor saying it might expire in 25 years; later swinger Kennedy was against and the court only grew more conservative with his replacement but you don’t hear much
Which is not to say we’re out of the land of worn stereotypes, I see the rebirth of older things - fear of “The Bloc Vote” swamping earnest white republicanism, etc. from Reconstruction/Redemption, but since the Trayvon/Ferguson/BLM street actions sputtered out after Obama honestly it’s startling how much this wave isn’t continuous with the powerful Republican race discourse I grew up with
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