You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
Saturday Night Live‘s Leslie Jones performed her most recent stand-up routine Thursday at the Carolines on Broadway, and it included a line some might find slightly racist:
“If I see another 45-year-old white woman from Williamsburg saying ‘black lives matter,’ I’m going to punch you in the mouth…Stop doing that.”
Jones is a funny woman, and prior stand-up is indicative of that–but this is something else. The context is unclear, but the message is one that increasingly pervades progressive culture. One cannot speak about an issue if one isn’t the correct gender, race, ethnicity, or other minority. It’s a peculiar form of self-segregation.
Quartz recently ran an article by Renee Sylvestre-Williams, titled: “Why I refuse to watch ‘Moonlight,’ or any other film about race, with white people.” In the piece, Sylvestre-Williams writes that she’s tired of being the “token interpreter” for minority issues:
I’d rather have conversations with other people of color. Such conversations are deeper, richer, and often more meaningful because there’s no need to be a token interpreter. And with the Oscars coming up this weekend, I’ve been thinking about this idea a lot.
Sylvestre-Williams goes on to note that it’s not her job to explain minority issues to white people:
…white people seem to get something emotionally satisfying out of being shocked by movies about the non-white experience…it’s not my job to enlighten my white friends about what the films’ underlying themes actually are.
This attitude has been developing over the last several years. Leslie Jones complains about wealthy white women saying “black lives matter.” A minority filmgoer doesn’t want to engage in racial discussions with white people anymore. On college campuses, minorities have even demanded “blacks only” safe spaces.
This disposition is being cultivated by the Left because it keeps minorities in a victim box. Instead of decrying self-segregational behavior as unhealthy, progressives encourage it, because by keeping people down, and claiming that institutional racism pervades society, one creates a weary group of individuals. Such a group is then predisposed to gravitate toward the political party that promises them relief and protection–even if what that party is offering is simply more of what isn’t working.
Self-segregation isn’t the solution to racism; it’s regressive, and ultimately harmful to society as a whole.