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I am a white Brit, living in America, my wife is black and I have a mixed kid. So I am certainly to an extent tied in with how they are treated. I am often the only white person at family gatherings ( though not always there is a white ex-marine married into the other side of the family). And of course my wife stands out when we have family gatherings back home in Northern Ireland in return. My experiences and situation make me an outside observer to both black and white communities in the US.
My overall point is though that long term the interests of blacks and whites in a shared polity converge. That is the project I am talking about. The US project. I think the progressive project will fail as well, long term and that is perfectly ok. I think the only long term solution is a much more liberal near race-blind solution, where factional tribalism will still occur (as that seems built in), but it is not race base (as we seem to deal really badly with that). But the black community (generalizing of course) is not ready for that yet. Whether you want to say it HBD, culture or racism, they are still doing poorly compared to those they see around them. So the siege mentality remains. Time and success seem to be the only exits, to get a longer term more stable franchise. So a thumb on the scale will help. Or even just the appearance of a thumb on the scale.
There are plenty of black people who are not terribly enamored of what the Democrat's have managed to accomplish, but just as with Trump and his white rural working class base (a group which also needs significant help) the people who at least say they will help you, even if they don't seem better than those who don't say it at all.
Because they are people just like you and I, they aren't monsters or the like. With white friends and white partners and white bosses and white employees., and so on and so forth.
Your points are pessimistic and do not take into account other situations where similar situations play out and rapprochement is being worked upon. Real race blind integrated liberal democracy has not been tried in the United States. Largely because the US is not ready for such. The US is not villainous or uniquely evil for having slavery in its past. But its fix was incomplete and now the situation is where it is today. The choices down the line as I see it are a new civil war, or further attempts at proper integration. The first will be terribly catastrophic, the second is difficult. So it goes.
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I don't think they do, and black people don't seem to think they do. Up to some point, an America where blacks get special privileges and spoils is better for black Americans than an America where they don't but is better off as a whole.
Then other communities should treat the black community as a tribal enemy, or at least rival. Appeasement doesn't work, it only feeds more demands for special treatment.
Blacks aren't any more hostile to Trump than they were his recent Republican predecessors, when the rural working class was largely a Democratic constituency. Trump got 8% and 12%, about the same as GWB who got 9% and 11%. Reagan got 14% and 9%, and GHWB got 11% and 10%.
I'd argue it depends what you mean by appeasement. Back home significant concessions were made to Catholics including dismantling and replacing the entire police force with one that had 50% Catholics ( an over representation), quotas in government jobs etc. Parades commissions to limit where Unionists could march and much more.
Is that appeasement or is it recognizing that building trust with a group that has actually been oppressed requires steps if you actually want a chance at building a lasting peace after?
What is appeasement and what are concessions to make up for real discrimination from government entities?
Northern Ireland certainly isn't perfect now by a long shot but its certainly better than it was for both Protestants and Catholics. It isn't a zero sum enterprise.
Black people aren't going anywhere. They can be treated as an enemy (appeasement or defeat) or they can be treated as a part of the polity that must be somehow reintegrated or else long term stability is a massive risk.
There was a time I felt about Catholics that many people seem to feel about black communities. But time and experience has taught me I was wrong. Rapprochement is possible even with violent history. It does not have to be oppositional.
All the things you mention are appeasement.
As long as black people can obtain more by refusing to consider rapproachment and instead using past grievances (and present ones, real or imagined) to successfully demand continued special treatment, they will. I am not sure racial rapproachment is even possible; Jefferson may have been half-right when he said white people would never accept black people and black people would never forgive white people. But even if he wasn't, it sure won't be accomplished by white politicans and activists acting as if white people deserve disapprobation from black people.
Then peace is never going to be possible in your paradigm. I prefer one that concretely offers that hope, and has shown that it can deliver.
Peace is possible, but it requires that black people give up their grievances. If they will not, then it is not; white people yielding more will not help.
Sure, but that is a step by step process and at a population level not so easy. People do not just give up their grievances. But they can be put in a position where other things are more valuable. Self-interest is the only cure that sticks I think. As Catholics became wealthier, were given the opportunities to make up for those they had been denied, became more aware that the government bodies that had specifically oppressed them were now more responsive to them, all of a sudden support for the IRA began to disappear.
Until Sinn Fein itself decided the way forward had to be through democracy, as support for violence was drying up. But you can't keep things the same and think that is going to work. It clearly hasn't.
Hell, they didn't even have to actually make things equitable, they just had to say they were going to try and make some good faith efforts. As the Catholic Middle class began to rise, that did the rest.
All the recent steps have been backwards. What we're doing isn't working.
Certainly not if it's in their interests to hold on to them.
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