With six words, Michelle Obama rewires America's conversation on race gift article from WaPo [View all]

https://wapo.st/4fSIrNo

subtitle-"Most of us, Michelle Obama said, “will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth.”


snip-"Harris “understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward,” Obama said. “We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth. If we bankrupt a business or choke in a crisis, we don’t get a second, third or fourth chance. If things don’t go our way, we don’t have the luxury of whining or cheating others to get further ahead. No."


snip-"It’s concise, centered on two familiar concepts. The first is “affirmative action,” the term used to describe programs generally focused on ensuring that non-White Americans have access to resources and institutions they might not otherwise have. And the second is “generational wealth,” the transition of economic (and social) power through families and, at times, communities."


snip-"The linchpin of Obama’s phrase, though, is its shortest word: “of.” She isn’t contrasting affirmative action and generational wealth as conduits to power and success, she’s overlapping them. She’s noting that generational wealth is a form of affirmative action, here in the person of Trump but certainly beyond that."


snip-"One of the central debates over race in recent years has centered on existence or extent of racism embedded in American social and legal systems. The rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, focused on systemic racism in law enforcement, increased the number of White Americans — specifically, White Democrats — who indicated that they thought discrimination was a central cause for the lower incomes and worse housing many Black Americans experience."



I only get to cite 4 paragraphs. Much much more there.