The American Left's strategy for racial equality is self-defeating

The following was written to some close friends and family, after I opted out of a discussion of race issues in America inspired by a book club meeting.

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To begin with, let me make clear some things I am in agreement about.

I agree entirely that racial disparities exist, in incarceration, in income, in health and longevity, and many other metrics, and I agree that it is a problem

I agree entirely that the root causes of these disparities,histrionically, are slavery, Jim Crow, racism, etc, which continue to have effects today

I agree also that racism exists, and that some portion of disparities are likely a result of racism.  

While I disagree, I do understand the reasons for the focus on racism and oppression- it really was about 100% of the reason for disparities for 100s of years, and up until very recently.  Most of the people involved in our discussion are actually old enough to have been alive as it was happening in real time (even if not in the actual places it was most prevalent)

But the thing so many of today's Social Justice Warriors and activists and protesters and reporters and authors and commentators haven't seemed to consider is that society actually can, does, and has changed.  Slowly, to be sure, but it does, and like the lobster in the pot, the change may be too gradual to notice in real time, but there is a threshold past where the change is significant.  

Racism is explicitly illegal.  

We have black cops and judges and CEOs.  

And yes, even a president (well, 1/2 is close enough).  

Activists and others who counter the "post-racial" claims, that having a black president does not end the conversation are correct: this fact, these facts, they do not end the conversation on race.  

But they sure as hell should change the conversation!  They should change it a whole heck of a lot. 

Yet the talking points today remain largely the exact same ones heard during a time when a (half) black president was completely inconceivable.

The power structers, the laws, the cultural norms, the dynamics of everything about society have changed.  Its time for the social justice activists to catch up.