Just in time for MLK’s Birthday, new Blogger Jeremy Freedman looks at race in America — all these years after Dr. King’s famous “dream” of a coming American meritocracy. He concludes with this sentiment:
We can all get together and do better on race. I don’t think we have to scrap every last vestige of affirmative action, but that would be preferable to the current rant and rave until you get your spoils system. But sadly, the racial dialogue these days is more like a racist monologue with a bill attached.
I agree in principle with much of what Jeremy writes, but I’ll go him one better and argue that the real way to “do better on race” is to do away with the category altogether. More on this later today (in an extended form)…
In the meantime, visit Jeremy’s new site, Live from Red Square Albany (“A blog site devoted to exposing the leftist chatterers, bureaucrats and lobbyists that march into Albany, NY like lemmings. Also, it offers unique insight into weighty world topics”) — and see what y’think.
Related: “Johnny Student” on King and the King mythos, over on Samizdata…
Great. Another “anti-leftist” site. Yawn. Have any of you right-leaning bloggers even read Dr. West or Dr. Gates or Chomsky or Said or Bhaba or Barthes or Foucalt? Heck, have any of you even read Dr. King?
And what does it mean “to do away with the category” of race “altogether”? That sounds just plain silly to me. Why not follow it up with the obliteration of gender, while you’re at it? And, when you’re finished cleaning up <i>those</i> “categories”, you can work on ending “hunger” and “poverty,” and then go home to suburbia, have yourself a well-deserved Budweiser, and watch some teevee.
Dr. King worked tirelessly for racial equality; and you can’t have “racial equality” without 2 things: race and equality. This seems fairly obvious, does it not? Dr. King realized this, and his crusade led inexorably to the acceptance and celebration variegated cultures in this country (by the majority of Americans, that is). And our country is better for its glorious diversity.
You can’t turn back the clock no matter how hard you try, because “time” marches on.
Have you read the blogs? It’s pretty obvious they do read Said, Chomsky, West, etc.