Yes, exactly right.
Which is why integration and diversity will never work.
Especially in a proposition nation like ours, where the central political proposition, which is supposed to bind us together, has been utterly shredded and discredited as nothing more than dead white male slave holder claptrap.
Actually you've just made the case for reparations. If someone is damaged the damage should be repaired. Integration and diversity have already worked so that's a non argument. Besides, if you did your own genetic history you're probably not pure blood anything. German, Italian, Dutch, etc are all "diverse." But there are communities that need to be repaired. America gave reparations to Nazi traitors (Ford and GM) who turned around and gave reparations to their Jewish WW 2 slaves. America also paid reparations to Japanese Americans for a few short years of interment and loss of property. But the other week an Oklahoma court denied reparations to two survivors of the Tulsa ethnic cleansing (yes, well over 100 years old), for reasons I don't know as I haven't read the case. Reparations are typically a legislative remedy anyway so that's probably why they lost. The other thing that you've proven is the Brandon Johnson speeches you highlighted may have a basis in reality. If there is "genetic trauma" then it's okay to blame black people's problems on white racism. Note
I didn't make these arguments. They just naturally flow from
your genetic trauma argument. I think life is much more complex than pure genetics and even epigenetics (Fancy word for genetic memory). The problems are communal rather than individual. That's why I'm excited about what happened in Tangelo Park Florida. It was a community wide fix
that happened without government intervention! I get it. You're probably worried when you look at the unqualified successful outcome of what happened in Tangelo Park that someone might think "Hey! Maybe the government could do that?" Well...the government could if it wasn't so inept and corrupt. But sometimes even inept and corrupt government get it right. I have been
very pessimistic about the black democratically run government in Birmingham Alabama. Schools were failing. Crime was (and still is unfortunately) rampant. But, and I have to do more investigation to find out how this happened, in 2024,
91% of Birmingham public school third tested reading at grade level! Now, I have no idea how this happened. At the beginning of the 2023/2024 school year the mayor made news by
complaining that 50% of third graders were truant and asked the DA to prosecute the parents, which the DA declined to do. I'm not sure how you go from 50% truancy the year before to 91% reading at grade level. But they did do some innovative ways to fight truancy.
They entered low income parents who's kids had perfect attendance into a raffle for $300 towards rent or utilities. The result was a huge increase in students with perfect attendance! One could say "The parents should be making their kids go to school anyway" and they should, but that one $300 raffle was
much cheaper than trying to prosecute the truant parents.
Anyhoo, there are real problems in the black community, but regardless of how we got here (genetic trauma from slavery, ethnic cleansing events after slavery, Jim Crow, red lining, the CIA bring drugs in, the war on drugs disproportionately being waged against black people, drop in church attendance, God being taken out of schools, no fault divorce, perverse welfare incentives for single motherhood, "urban renewal" purposefully destroying black communities, corrupt tax officials stealing property, corrupt banks stealing property, lead poisoning in water in places like Flint Michigan, gansta rap music being elevated of music with a conscious, fill-in-the-blank), the only real concern I have is where do we (my community) go from here? Anyway, that's all I have to say. Happy Juneteenth!