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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024

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Yeah definitely, of course they would be justified. One of my arguments in favor of separation between whites and blacks has always been that it’s psychologically damaging for blacks to have to share a society with a majority group who, on some level, view them as lesser. I’m a lot more self-aware and at peace with my condescension and antipathy than most white people in 2024 are, but that doesn’t mean white liberals don’t look down on black people. They sublimate those feelings, or redirect them toward poor whites, or come up with elaborate and increasingly baroque apologia about why none of the bad things about black people are black people’s fault, but at the end of the day the vast majority of white Americans just don’t like black people very much, and don’t particularly want to spend time around them. They might even worship black entertainers and athletes, and might participate in the public rituals that idolize black culture, but in terms of the way they live their everyday lives - their social groups, their interests, where they end up moving once they have kids - they don’t want to be around the modal black person.

And black people know it! Thats part of why they tend to be so hostile toward whites: they know that whites are phonies! What they say doesn’t match their revealed preferences! And what I’m saying here on The Motte is what a great number of blacks imagine that their white liberal friends are actually saying behind their backs. This contributes to a siege mentality, and to many blacks living a sort of daily pyschodrama in which they examine every word spoken to them by whites for esoteric signs of those whites’ latent hate and racism. Because they understand that whites don’t actually, in their heart of hearts, see them as equals. Most whites have great relationships with certain individual blacks, particularly in the South. And for those somewhat functional blacks, it must feel like a real minefield trying to deduce which whites like them and which ones merely tolerate them.

This is an inevitable result of two very different racial/cultural groups being forced to live side-by-side, particularly when one of those groups is so obviously far behind the other one and not showing any signs of closing the gap. It’s one of the reasons why I believe that it’s actually best for blacks to not have to live like this.