The Case of Structural Critique

Ta-Nehisi blogs:

So my beef with these guys is not that they make structural critique, it’s that they seem bound to a set of strategies that just haven’t gotten us anywhere. Again, I need to hear about something else besides Affirmative Action and a vague notion of social justice. And then I’d like to see it pitched in such a way that it makes the broader country see their own interest in our interest. That’s not merely crass politics–I actually believe that Jim Crow was ultimately bad for the broader country, not just for black people. I don’t think boom in prisons is a good thing for any American of any color.

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