A Symbolic, Feel-Good 'Racial Reckoning' Has Replaced Actually Helping Black Kids | Opinion
June 23, 2022
Two years ago, in the aftermath of George Floyd's killing, I witnessed nearly 1,000 white Americans at a park in Bethesda, MD breathlessly chanting, "I will love my black neighbors the same as my white ones." Many were on their knees with both arms stretched upward to the sky. While I believe that recognizing our shared humanity is important, I cringed with each refrain, knowing that these wailing overtures of allegiance do nothing for the black and Hispanic children struggling with poverty, crime, incarceration, and family dysfunction.
This kind of well-intentioned but ultimately empty virtue signaling seems to always end up substitute for genuine action to uncover and address real issues, and I warned at the time that these expressions of white "allyship" might lead the next generation of Americans to grow up believing that the entire destiny of one race—black Americans—is reliant upon the voluntary largesse of another—white Americans. But if this were the case, it would trap blacks and whites in the roles of oppressed and oppressor, robbing both of a sense of personal agency.
