Roger Clegg offers seven thoughts for 7/7. One of them is this:
Some statues will come down, and some will stay, and the impact on black lives will be precisely zero. The Left has gotten people’s attention about (fictive) “systemic racism,” and its agenda turns out to be defunding the police and tearing down statues — what more do we need to know about how silly it is?
I agree with the first sentence, but not the second. The race-related agenda of much of the left goes beyond defunding the police (which is destructive enough) and tearing down statues.
It includes reparations, workplace hiring quotas (like the quotas many colleges use for student admissions), and the abolition (in a real sense) of the suburbs through the affirmatively furthering fair housing (AFFH) program.
It’s hard to pick, but defunding the police may be the craziest, most destructive of these agenda items. The foothold it has gained can only encourage the left in its quest to impose other radical programs.
The impact on black lives of reparations, hiring quotas, and forced integration of neighborhoods wouldn’t be zero. However, we shouldn’t assume that the impact on black lives would be game-changing.
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