What is the controversy surrounding #takeaknee

[Rev. Rye]

You are not helping blacks by basically shitting on them for using their positions to point out social inequality.

First, in general, I think racial inequality is propagated by focusing on it. Where I live, racism is lower now than it was when I was a child, but there weren't any protests. People have just realized that skin color shouldn't be a big deal. Racism will never be gone completely as our brains are hard-wired to sort things by appearance. But, looking at my parents' generation, my own, and my children's - and the election of a black president - I figured nine years ago that we were well on our way to becoming as post-racial as possible. Now, after 8 years of a black president, race relations are worse than before. Personally I think the powers that be on the left want racism to continue in order to get votes.

Strange, considering that, from what I remember of the last nine years, it's the right who's been engaging in blatant race-baiting, not just on the usual post-9/11 targets of Mexicans and Muslims, but I've also seen people citing Obama's blackness as a demerit on his character and using it as an excuse to propagate a bullshit rumour that he was born in Kenya, a rise in conservative news media singling out black people as criminals, a major presidential candidate who explicitly said he didn't want to use welfare to make black peoples' lives better (and also may or may not have called Obama the N-word):



And now, we have Trump, relying on exploiting racial hatred to an extent not seen since George Wallace ran for president in 1968, and WINNING THE GODDAM WHITE HOUSE.

While I can certainly see that there are some on the left who seem to prefer a state of perpetual race war to a prospective post-racial America, it seems they make up a smaller (but possibly more vocal) minority than you seem to think, not having that much influence in the real world. It's telling that the biggest public spokesperson for that worldview is probably Azaelia Banks, who doesn't even seem to have enough pull to get her damn albums out in a timely fashion, let alone any political power (and she wound up voting for Trump, anyway).

You would have to be living in an alternate universe to seriously believe that it's the LEFT and not the right who's been doing most of the heavy lifting to undo the racial progress made in America in the last couple years.