Since it is relevant, I am 40 years old and black. I have a very large extended family and pretty much all of my cousins have drunk the "racism is everywhere" kool-aid and especially this past year. I have gotten into plenty of arguments with them and I finally realized it was just pointless. As well as with some friends. I think I have gone over police statistics, actual crime stats, and the world history of slavery so many times that I talk about it in my sleep but it is pointless. One of my cousins was talking about reparations and got mad when I asked him if he was going to hold the African leaders who sold our ancestors to the Europeans accountable or if he is so anti-slavery why doesn't he donate to organizations who fight modern day slavery instead of obsessing over slavery that ended over 150 years ago.
A white friend of mine has turned super woke since George Floyd and he got really pissed when I told him that he was so brave to condemn racism and thanked him because I didn't realize I was oppressed until I read his facebook posts. He then told me that he couldn't believe I would work so hard against my own people. I had a good laugh about that one, although being called a white supremacist was the best laugh, followed by when my relatives and I did our DNA/Ancestry test. I am about 20% European and also have a little Native American and Asian. One of my more militant cousins told me that i may have brown skin, but I inherited a "white personality" from my white ancestors.
Sadly in my early teens I went through a brief "everything is racism" period so I can understand how that sucks you in, plus I think it is human nature to a degree to want to be a victim about something. I remember complaining to my mom about my school not having any black history lessons and she told me that I was free to pick up a book and read on my own. My mother was big on reading and my parents taught me to learn about your culture/history and then learn about other cultures. That was eye opening because it was then I learned that every race/ethnic group has been oppressed or has been oppressors and that land conquest was as old as time along with slavery. Another thing was the fact that my grandfather never had any sort of grudge along with my other elderly relatives so I felt stupid and realized that if you look for racism everywhere you will find it.
Honestly if I had billions of dollars my reparation plan would be to buy land in any non-white majority country of their choosing and ship everyone of any race who can't shut up about how evil America and the west are. America is not a perfect country but to act like zero progress has been made (I actually heard a lady say that very little in regards to race relations has changed since 1776) really pisses me off. A little research will show anyone that if you are born in a western country you are in the world privilege group.
Sorry for the long post, but I decided from now on I can't talk to people who have that victim mindset or can't shut up about racism.
I wanted to explain something related to the current discussion in length, because it explains a lot in the OP and beyond.
People are designed to suffer.
Lets say God took heed the suffering and pleading of man on earth, and decided to improve our lot. For clarity, lets define human existence on a number line. All negative numbers denote negative human experiences, and the bigger the negative number the worse the experience. All positive numbers denote positive human experiences, and the bigger the positive number the better the experience. God relents and changes the universe in our favor, removing the worst half of human experience (removing all negative numbers up to zero). The only experiences left are the positive numbers down to zero (the top half).
At first, everyone is overjoyed and thankful. How wonderful life has become. Then, after some time, the elation wears off. After some more time, they get used to it. After enough time, it will largely be forgotten. This is due to people being inherently imperfect, finite, and mortal. There are some exceptions to this, however, the important part is that we have imperfect memory and imperfect information sharing (so people understand what it was like before the change). It should also be noted that, due to people living different lives, inherent to life and the nature of the universe itself, all people experience different things.
This difference in experience breeds resentment, greed, and jealously of the lot of others. There are still people, for whatever reason, having bigger positive number experiences than others, and relative to them, others are experiencing worse things. Also, through our imperfect memory, we'll only be able to determine that low positive numbers are now the worst possible human experiences. What used to be the best half of experiences, has been bisected again by humanity, and the new neutral has shifted to the middle of positive numbers. Why does God let such horrible things happen to us? Why won't God help us?
God relents again, and removes the worst half of human suffering again (zero to the mid point of positive numbers). Now people are only capable of experiencing the top 1/4 of human experiences...and the same process occurs again. People are initially happy and thankful, then get used to it, then forget it, then redefine their existence relative to others.
The only way for this process to stop is for God to limit all human experiences to the exact same thing, where we all experience the same thing. This would rob us of our humanity, and would we even be alive if all our experiences were directed and controlled? We wouldn't even have free will in such a circumstance.
This hopefully highlights some things about people, and what's currently happening. This isn't a complete list, but some things I wanted to bring up:
1.) Even though black people today have it much better than their ancestors, they still lament to have more, if not for the evil white people keeping them down.
2.) Even though most people alive today have it better than their ancestors, due to technological progress and capitalism/mercantilism bringing up the lot of the average person, with things like cars, A/C, heating, electricity, abundant food, refrigeration, TV, computers, phones, internet, abundance of clothing, relative peace, etc., people still lament their lot in life and suffer.
3.) This explains why people nowadays are bitching about smaller and smaller things. People used to bitch about getting eaten by predators, or wondering if they'd be able to gather enough food to survive through winter. Now people bitch about someone saying something online they disagree with, or the delivery guy taking too long to deliver their food. The more our lot is improved, the more trivial the things we'll bitch about.
4.) One of the ways politicians gain power over us, is by pointing out the differences in human experience, and paint it in a way where they can divide people and pit them against each other, saying "it's their fault you're suffering", or "if it wasn't for them you'd be living blissful and happy". I'm not saying those statements can't be true, just that it's an easy way to manipulate people. This is what the mainstream has done for non-white people against white people (all white people are racist), for women against men (feminism), younger people against the older ("OK boomer"), etc.
5.) Even though degredation of society is inherent to continual improvement, there are some things we can do to alleviate it (at least with what I can think of). One way is by forming and keeping traditions to continually remind ourselves how good we have it and where we come from. Oddly, modern praying (giving thanks at meals or before bed) fulfills this, and even if one isn't religious it would still be a good thing to begin doing. Another way is by teaching everyone (via schools, parents, or cultural stories) how good we have it and where we've come from. The last way I can think of is by keeping people as close to nature as possible, regardless of how much we can insulate ourselves from it.
One of the main reasons society devolves is because as society improves, more and more roadblocks keep being put between us and nature, which prevents stupid people from earning immediate reprisal from mother nature. We don't have that now, because through modern technology and conveniences, we don't have to worry about making fire (heating and electricity), or foraging for food (grocery stores and restaurants everywhere), or hunting (meat just appears in the grocery store!), or being eaten by a bear (unless you're dumb enough to take a selfie with one), or failing at our job (unemployment and welfare), etc. This can either be done by everyone all the time, to where most people are self sufficient living on their own homesteads, which in my opinion seems somewhat inefficient on the large scale if we want to continually improve our technology, or we can have a coming of age right, where people are forced to live on their own in nature (or possibly in a small enclave) for a certain amount of time, and if they survive, they can re-enter society as an adult.
Thanks for reading and have a good one.
Thank you! Very well said