"In addition, every person who brings their experiences to Washington and every struggle represented at the March will add to the ideological alternative to the conventional wisdom that has dominated mainstream U.S. politics--that the problems of the Black community are largely, if not entirely, the fault of the Black community itself. That scapegoating message has been constant since the end of the civil rights era in the mid-1960s, when openly preaching the inferiority of African Americans fell out of favor in mainstream politics. Instead, racism was repackaged, often through coded appeals for "law and order" and "personal responsibility." Today, the idea that Blacks--and not the system--are to blame for their own oppression is accepted across the political spectrum, including, in varying degrees, by leading figures in the Black community. But as Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor wrote for SocialistWorker.org: [E]very once in a while, something happens that tears the mask off, revealing the ugly face of U.S. society. The murder of Trayvon Martin and now the acquittal of his murderer confirms again that racism is so tightly packed into the blood and marrow of American democracy that it cannot live without it. The assembled masses of the marchers in Washington will be definitive evidence, for anyone who cares to listen, of both the depth of the crisis of Black America and the fact that its causes lie in systemic oppression that is woven into the fabric of U.S. society and Washington politics."
Posted on: Fri, 23 Aug 2013 00:11:51 +0000
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