America Is Hitting the Self-Destruct Button
Article by Ben Shapiro in "Townhall"
On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal released the results of a poll performed in conjunction with NBC News. The poll found that 56 percent of Americans believe American society is racist. Seventy-one percent believe race relations are either very or fairly bad. Most troubling, 65 percent of black Americans say that racial discrimination is built into American society, "including into our policies and institutions."
The notion that America is systemically racist bodes ill for the future. It's also a dramatic lie. American history is replete with racism; racism was indeed the root of systems ranging from slavery to Jim Crow. But the story of America is the story of the cashing of Martin Luther King Jr.'s promissory note: fulfilling the pledge of the Declaration of Independence to treat all men equally and to grant them the protection of their unalienable natural rights.
America has worked to extirpate the nearly universal sin of bigotry in pursuit of the fulfillment of the declaration. The story of America is 1776, not 1619; it's Abraham Lincoln, not John C. Calhoun; it's Martin Luther King Jr., not Robin DiAngelo.
It is particularly true today that American society does not deserve the scorn being heaped upon her head. American society is decidedly not racist. According to Swedish economists from World Values, America is one of the most racially tolerant countries on Earth. American law has banned discrimination on race for two generations and more than half a century; in fact, the only racially discriminatory laws on the books cut in favor of racial minorities, who have been granted special privileges in arenas like college admissions.
Some problems of wealth inequality are in part products of history -- history always has consequences. But overwhelmingly, the pathways to success are not barred by discrimination. Black Americans occupy many of the most prominent positions in American society, from government, to entertainment, to education, to finance. Responsible individual decision-making is generally rewarded for all Americans, black and white. And Americans are more than willing to fight those who would obstruct the possibility of success for those who make the right decisions.
More and more Americans apparently believe that the American system is endemically racist -- yet the system produces more wealth, freedom and opportunity than any on Earth for millions of citizens of every color, creed and religion. If a majority of Americans believe that society is racist -- not just individuals, but a vast swath of friends and neighbors, and America's institutions to boot -- then it will be quite difficult for Americans to unify.
https://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2020/07/23/draft-n2572954
Post a Comment