Social Justice Warriors have a pattern of holding up past sins committed by the United States (and Europeans generally) as if these past sins define who we are today.
Former president Obama once said, “… the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives — you know, that casts a long shadow. And that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on. We’re not cured of it.”
Hillary Clinton has said, “When I talk about breaking down all the barriers that stand in the way of people’s ambitions and dreams, racism, along with economic issues, educational issues, and all the rest, have to be addressed,” she said. “Otherwise, we are never going to be the nation we should be. We’re never going to overcome our legacy — dating back to slavery, segregation, Jim Crow.”
According to a Georgetown law professor, “all white people are racist” and “all men are sexist.”
An Emory University professor published a letter to white people claiming “… you are racist.”
A former Social Justice Warrior talks about his experience within the SJ movement, explains that the SJ movement “promotes white guilt”.
It is standard SJ fare to claim that America (and specifically white Americans) must atone for the past sins of racism. Thus, the institution of America carries the burden of racial guilt.
However, if institutions carry burdens of guilt, then let’s get more specific. It was the Democratic party in the United States that was most responsible for slavery and Jim Crow.
At the time of the Civil War, all slaveholders were Democrats, or at least no one has found an exception at this time. And the Democratic Party was the party of Jim Crow, as well. Although the KKK was not officially aligned with the Democratic party, it consisted of white Democrats who terrorized both white and black Republicans (mostly black ones).
One of the rationales that some Democrats had for slavery was that blacks were unable to take care of themselves, so slavery was actually good for them. This attitude sounds reprehensible today; however, the Democratic Party still treats blacks as if they are unable to stand on their own and require a dependence on government.
Now, some Democrats will say “wait a minute, this isn’t fair, the Democratic Party of today isn’t the same as it was historically!”
However, the United States as a whole isn’t the same as it was historically, either. SJWs who go around browbeating Americans over a history of slavery, the KKK, and Jim Crow can’t then complain when we point out that it was actually the Democratic Party which was most involved in this history.
If a SJW wants us to ignore the racist past of the Democratic Party, fine then, by the same token, we can also ignore the racist past of the United States.
Believe it or not, many Democrats try to pin their own party’s racist past on Republicans. However, this is not supported by the evidence. It is true that many white Southern Democrats have switched parties from Democrat to Republican, and that most black Americans have switched parties from Republican to Democrat. However, the white Southern Democrats who switched to Republican did so as they also became increasingly less racist. The Republican Party has never championed slavery or Jim Crow laws; the Democratic Party did.
“But what about the Southern Strategy?” According to the myth of the Southern Strategy, the Republican Party became racist in order to woo white Southern Democrat voters to their party. Sean Trende has written a well-documented book, The Lost Majority, which effectively debunks this myth. White Southern Democrats began shifting to the Republican Party beginning in 1937-38, primarily over economic interests.
In fact, were it not for the Democrats’ racial politics before 1970, these Southern Democrats would likely have shifted faster to the Republican Party. “The real ‘Southern Strategy’ was the one pursued by the Democrats, especially under FDR, to keep conservative white Southerners in a liberal party.”
However, be that as it may, perhaps reasonable people can all agree that no one needs to feel guilty for past sins of any institution to which we belong, whether that’s the Democratic Party or the United States of America. It is sufficient to favor race-neutral policies in the present.