Earlier, on the internet, someone wrote something to the effect that more white dudes with prominent platforms in our glorious discourse should consider owning up to their past idiocies. Probably it was a person of color making this point, so it makes me extra horrible for not remembering where I read it and giving credit, but I read a lot of the internet every day and sometimes things, but not the source of those things, stick in my brain.
I think that by the time I actually had any kind of public platform - this sucky blog - I was relatively enlightened about such things. Of course I wasn't perfectly enlightened (and I'm not perfectly enlightened now). But when I was younger I was less enlightened. If I'd had a sucky blog then I probably would have written some stupid things. At the very least there probably would have been a bit too much of White Guy telling Black People how they're supposed to react to things.
Anyway, this isn't actually meant to be about me, it's about the fact that even just 15 years ago (and, really, even now), the "liberal" discourse on race was actually pretty stupid and horrible, at best. A lot of very serious liberals agreed that the most serious racial problem in this country was the tiny bit of affirmative action in some university admissions processes. This was at a time when the mass incarceration program for African-Americans for non-violent offenses was in full swing.
We can be better and less horrible.
