Van Jones: Every White Person Has Racist "Virus" In His Mind

Eh, look.

   This is a pretty ****ing stressful "moment" in the USA, race-wise.

   Jones's isn't the greatest comment. But I think it's excusable, at least. Right now, anyway.

   I have a high opinion of Van Jones. I think he's smart and reasonable. I think the things he says usually ought to be taken seriously--this among them. I mean...I'm not sure he's right about the comparative threat posed by Democrats and the Klan... Though, TBH, the latter group has usually overlapped substantially with the former...

   I will point out that, were the racial roles reversed, and had a white person said anything even vaguely like that about black people, the howls from the progressive left would rise to shatter the celestial spheres.

   Which doesn't make it false. Hell, of course he could be right...though I very much doubt it. 

   It'd be great if we could have a real discussion of this stuff, but I fear that the stupid right and the stupid left have queered that well and good. 

   IMO reasonable blacks in America are fighting against three implacable foes: (1) extremist white racist asshats, (2) the substantial black criminal underclass, and (3) the radical left / critical race theory progressive cult. Sorry, you guys, but you're basically screwed. Much of what gets counted as "racism" by (3) is actually inductive conclusions by ordinary non-blacks partially based on (2). In fact: not just non-blacks. Who was it--Jesse Jackson?--who said: if I'm walking down a dark street and see a group of young black males approaching, I cross the street. And (3) spews ludicrously stupid false accusations of racism around so indiscriminately that it's hard to take any accusations of racism seriously anymore. 

   Seriously. American blacks just can't catch a goddamn break.

   Anyway. I think Jones is mostly (though not entirely) wrong. Ignoring particulars about A. Cooper, what generally kicks in in most whites (and everybody else, including blacks) is inductions based on (2). There is no way for reasonable black people to be entirely free of excess suspicion so long as (2) does the things that (2) does. It ain't fair, but it ain't entirely unreasonable, either.