“Blacks Have To Want Success”

Ah, the wisdom of Jared Kushner. Yeah, he said that as his statement on the problems with and in Black America

Arrrgh.

Let’s try to apply the Three Gates to this. “Truth” and “Usefulness” are front and center. But I think most of you will agree that, in the framework I construct, his comments were not just dishonest and unuseful, but poisonously unkind.

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Here’s what he’s doing: taking a racist position without taking responsibility for doing so.

IF we “don’t want to succeed” he can’t be defining success as things that increase pleasure and decrease pain. What might be be his definition?

If Black folks do want to escape pain and increases pleasure, then either we don’t perceive the possibility of greater happiness, or we don’t see a roadmap to it. Think he’s saying that if history were reversed, white people wouldn’t “want success’ or be capable of seeing the path to it, or believing that path will work for them? I rather doubt it.

There’s nothing unusual about Jared Kushner’s comment, and I’ve heard similar from white people, especially conservatives, all my life. This is why I laugh at people who try to convince me “Biden is racist.” Yeah? Compared to whom? He’s just a typical white guy of his generation to me. I’ve voted for “typical white guys” all my life, choosing the ones who seem the best combination of competence and empathy. And over the course of my life, seen the needle moving in the right…