(The title is a nod to the late, great Roger Ebert.)
A sampling of the challenges that Black Americans face on a day-to-day basis:
- On the job market, Black folks have finally achieved employment equality with white folks! Hooray! Oh wait, that would be Black college graduates achieving equality with white high school graduates. Also, Black unemployment is still more than double the rate of whites.
- At the University of Minnesota, there are 15 percent fewer Black students entering grad school for the 2014-2015 school year. That is troubling; even more troubling is that it is a trend nationwide.
- From New York to St. Louis to Tempe, Arizona, police violence towards Black people seems to spark only the slightest of responses from elected officials.
- Black people face the biggest assault on political participation since the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which the Supreme Court is increasingly deeming irrelevant due to “social progress”.
- In addition to that, the Supreme Court has laid waste to affirmative action programs in education, restricted Black women’s right to choose by giving employers control over their family planning decisions, and made it harder for largely women of color caregivers to obtain the benefits of union representation.
But, you know, tell me all about the existential threat that Black people face from Australian rappers with an electropop beat and a dorky imitation of Southern voice inflection.
I think we need better “thought leaders”. Preferably ones that engage in a measure of thought…..and perspective.
The South Lawn 