raised as a birthright quaker i've always been on the side of the oppressed, but in recent years i've come to question some of the classifications of oppression, and this essay presents some of those questions. You must not ask why blacks don’t succeed;

We like to think that only primitive people have taboos. New Guineans, Andaman Islanders. But us Americans? We’re too liberated for that.

Well we have taboos, alright, and they cause more damage and misery than any of the weird stuff the Asaro Mud Men or initiates in the Cult of the Crocodile believe. One of our fiercest taboos is the absolute prohibition against asking why blacks don’t do as well as whites. There’s only one official, obligatory answer: racism. If blacks don’t do as well at something — income, crime rates, test scores, school grades, school discipline, the Oscars, Covid cases, jobs in orchestras – you name it: If they don’t do as well as whites, it’s our fault. White people have created a deeply racist system.

This taboo will be enforced even more fiercely with Joe Biden in the White House. He promised to “root out systemic racism,” which he says is everywhere. That means remaking every aspect of American society to favor blacks because, as Kamala Harris explained in a campaign video, “equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place.” “We,” meaning blacks and whites.

If you ever wondered if different races might have different natural abilities, or might even be genetically different, you’re a hopeless bigot. Barely human. But there is a milder form of taboo-breaking. Maybe blacks and whites don’t end up in the same place, as Kamala says, because blacks and whites don’t always act the same way. Could it be that what blacks do or don’t do makes a difference? Is it possible that black students are suspended more often because they misbehave more often, for example?

No. That would occur only to bad people. The problem is racism. It’s not up to blacks to do anything differently. As Ebony McGee, a professor at Vanderbilt University, explains to white people: “You got us into this mess — why is it our job to get us out?” ........read and watch more......