Perpetuating (the Notion of) Difference 1

Chauncey Devega, in a typically long post on a different issue, turns the tables with this nugget:

The Future of Black Politics issue (of the Boston Review–ed.) has the following question on its cover: Is Black Politics Good for America? My response to such inquiries has always been, “is white politics good for America?”* As a student of black politics I am always suspicious when “our” concerns are racialized, and those of other folks taken to be “normal” or “mainstream.” That assumption explains so much about the challenges which face black and brown communities in the 21st century. I remain puzzled that it has not been more thoroughly interrogated.

The same could be said about every issue relating to persons marginalized or viewed as “different” from stereotypical white-bread Americans. Such reasoning makes the “out” group, whoever it is, appear more out, more strange, more different, more somehow inhuman. It’s how you turn other persons into a “Them.”

For instance, I give you this article by Dick Polman.

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*Based on the evidence of things seen, no.