A Kid With Skittles

John Howard Kunstler opines about race in A Kid With Skittles. He says that the USA talks:

…about [race] all the live-long day, just not very honestly.

Kunstler believes that the conversation over race is narrow because of the uncomfortable truths in there somewhere:

The reason the race conversation remains so constricted in America is because the central question makes everyone so uncomfortable. That question is: what accounts for the failure to thrive of such a large percentage of black America? It is uncomfortable for whites (especially Progressives) because it implies a failure of the social justice movement itself, and in particular the watershed civil rights struggles of the 1960s. It's uncomfortable for blacks because it stirs up immense anxiety over the stigma of racial inferiority.

Nowhere does Kunstler consider that the structural nature of racism which economically and politically oppresses non-whites. Whites do not see it because they are like fish who do not see the water they are swimming in. Because whites benefit from the current system, there is no need to question or examine the system.

Kunstler blames black separatism for the lack of progress. He does not consider why such a movement should exist at all. It just appeared in a historical vacuum:

The expectation was that the removal of legal obstacles to full citizenship would hasten economic justice and cultural equality, but just then something curious happened: the youth revolt of the late 1960s was underway and young black America immediately opted for separatism.

And, of course, the demon of multiculturalism is to blame. Instead of a single American culture, apparrently anything goes.

I believe the black separatist movement of that time derived largely from anxiety around the issues of cultural assimilation - that is, of black and white America forming a true and complete common culture. In any case, it was at this moment of history that the multicultural movement presented itself as an "out" for white America. Multiculturalism allowed white America to pretend that common culture was not important. It also promoted the unfortunate idea that we could have a functioning civil society with different standards of behavior for different ethnic groups. It has left the nation with the unanswered question of black America's self-evident failure to thrive, and an enormous body of narrative affecting to explain it away as "structural racism."

Kunstler then goes on to blame black men for getting arrested in such large numbers and ending up in gaol. Techers are blamed for not teaching black children to speak proper English.

And, Trayvon Martin was to blame for being shot by being scary:

Do white people fear black males who affect to act as if they are dangerous? Maybe black men should stop trying to scare people. Are these "racist" observations or exercises in reality-testing?

Or, should we consider that blacks act this way in order to stop white people from attacking them?

It is very hard to get people to see something as wrong from which they benefit. White people get better jobs, better housing, better education, and better treatment because they are white. Who wants to be treated as a black person? Why should white people give up these niceties for justice towards a fellow human being.

We can only be fully human when we treat other people as human beings. Isn't that enough to surrender our privileges as white people?