The narrative that white people “hold the power” conveys a wrongheaded notion of white superiority and creates an illusion of black dependency on white largess. This false assignment of responsibility, while coming from an authentic desire to produce change, can create a new kind of mental enslavement.
Glenn Loury, a Brown University economist, exposed this concern at a 2019 event sponsored by the Manhattan Institute titled “Barriers to Black Progress: Structural, Cultural or Both?” Mr. Loury was challenged with the proposition that before black people address factors within their locus of control—such as high levels of single parenthood, which create a greater likelihood of child poverty—white people’s racist attitudes and actions need to be resolved. “You just made white people, the ones who we say are the implacable, racist, indifferent, don’t-care oppressors, into the sole agents of your own delivery,” Mr. Loury said. “Really?”
Ian Rowe (Wall Street Journal but paywalled)
(H/T: Cafe Hayek)
