To be sure, we become Pollyannas at our peril. We must blow the whistle loud and long when 45 blacks in Tulia, Texas, (16% of the town's black population) are rounded up on trumped-up drug charges by a racist detective. But we do not have to insist reflexively that putting time limits and work requirements into welfare programs is an "anti-black" act morally equivalent to vetoing anti-lynching legislation.
It's OK to look back, as long as you do not stare. Here's hoping that ever more we will place our votes according to how we actually feel — left, right and center, with our eyes on the complexities of getting ahead in an imperfect but promising world.
| There's more of John McWhorter's brief Los Angeles Times commentary "As Racism Recedes, More Blacks Move to Political Center," if you're of a mind for it
posted in articles on March 23, 2004 6:59 PM | t (0)
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