I’ve thought about this a lot over the last few months. There’s several things occurring here.
Black Americans have often had to act as the moral conscience of this country—and have stood as the vanguard of some of the most successful social movements in human history. Thus, other groups often look to black people to legitimize their own social movements. Additionally, there’s often a tacit and underlying assumption by others, because of past victories, black people possess a social power to mobilize outrage (or what Jasper call moral shocks).
In turn, black protest is often viewed through this lens of “public utility.” Something that’s always available, inexhaustible, and generally taken for granted, being that it’s only missed when it’s not there. Moreover, there’s another component of this, which I won’t flesh out all the way, but I’ll touch on briefly. Capitalism does an amazing job of atomizing groups that should have some level of solidarity. Yet it is a structured outcome of contradiction saturation, where class antagonisms are displaced onto cultural and political fault lines. You see it all the time on this board or even in this thread.
“You didn’t care about my issue, so I don’t care about yours.”
This is a structural adaptation mechanism in response to sustained inequality, manufactured scarcity, and symbolic zero-sum dynamics.
Lastly, our capacity to be our grandparents or great grandparents in terms of protesting has been greatly diminished due to a myriad of factors. The current iteration of black people have not had one social movement that led to viable and longstanding change. That was our grandparents and great-grandparents that did that. So, other groups are calling on us for who we used to be—if that makes sense.
Black Americans have often had to act as the moral conscience of this country—and have stood as the vanguard of some of the most successful social movements in human history. Thus, other groups often look to black people to legitimize their own social movements. Additionally, there’s often a tacit and underlying assumption by others, because of past victories, black people possess a social power to mobilize outrage (or what Jasper call moral shocks).
In turn, black protest is often viewed through this lens of “public utility.” Something that’s always available, inexhaustible, and generally taken for granted, being that it’s only missed when it’s not there. Moreover, there’s another component of this, which I won’t flesh out all the way, but I’ll touch on briefly. Capitalism does an amazing job of atomizing groups that should have some level of solidarity. Yet it is a structured outcome of contradiction saturation, where class antagonisms are displaced onto cultural and political fault lines. You see it all the time on this board or even in this thread.
“You didn’t care about my issue, so I don’t care about yours.”
This is a structural adaptation mechanism in response to sustained inequality, manufactured scarcity, and symbolic zero-sum dynamics.
Lastly, our capacity to be our grandparents or great grandparents in terms of protesting has been greatly diminished due to a myriad of factors. The current iteration of black people have not had one social movement that led to viable and longstanding change. That was our grandparents and great-grandparents that did that. So, other groups are calling on us for who we used to be—if that makes sense.
