Lifeboat

 https://x.com/shamasharan/status/2065899582320734399?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw

 

"There is a lifeboat. We are all in it. Black people. White people. Hispanics. Asians. Everybody. It's not a luxury cruise. It's old. It leaks a little. The seats are uncomfortable. Half the passengers are convinced the other half packed too much luggage.

But it floats.

Out on the horizon, clear as day, is an island called Racial Harmony.

Now it's not Utopia. It's just a place where people stop treating race like the central organizing principle of human existence and get on with their damn lives. It's also not a crowded, leaky lifeboat.

And here's the thing: We're actually making progress.

Slowly. Painfully. Imperfectly. But we're moving. You can see the island getting closer.

...and that is precisely when the lunatics start drilling holes in the boat, because apparently some people would rather drown than arrive.

The thing that drives me into a state of incandescent fury is that most people in this boat want the same thing. We know an overwhelming majority of white people are not racists. Most black people are not racial fanatics. Most people wake up in the morning worrying about bills, kids, jobs, mortgages, sore backs, broken cars, and whether the dog just threw up on the carpet. We all can't find our phones at the worst moment.

Most of us are not plotting racial domination.

Most of us are not attending secret meetings.

Most of us are not spending every waking moment obsessing over skin color.

Most of us are just trying to survive.

But somehow, every microphone in America gets handed to people whose brains appear to have been assembled from spare parts found in a dumpster behind a grievance factory. Now, because I'm black, I'm apparently expected to be represented by these people.

No. Fuck that. Absolutely not.

I reject the assignment. I did not hire these idiots. I did not elect these idiots. I would not trust these idiots to supervise a lemonade stand, much less represent ANYONE.

Yet every time one of them climbs onto social media or television and starts screaming "Every white person is secretly evil!" or "Every institution is irredeemably racist!" or "Every disagreement is oppression!" or my favorite, "Every setback is proof of some grand racial conspiracy!" Somebody inevitably assumes they're speaking for me.

They are not. They're speaking for themselves. And frequently for their bank accounts, and for attention.

Outrage is profitable. Outrage helps people feel good about themselves. Outrage excuses their failures. Outrage boosts political campaigns.

Racial harmony is boring. Racial harmony doesn't get clicks. Racial harmony doesn't get speaking engagements. Racial harmony doesn't get people invited onto cable news panels to yell at one another for three hours.

But rage? Rage is a growth industry, so the professional arsonists keep setting fires.

Every misunderstanding becomes a racial incident. Every disagreement becomes evidence of systemic oppression. Every tragedy becomes an opportunity to divide people into opposing tribes and start throwing rocks.

Then the people handing out microphones act SHOCKED when tensions increase, as though pouring gasoline into a campfire and then wondering why the forest is burning is some kind of mystery.

The worst part is that they don't just attack the people they hate. They attack the rest of us. They attack anyone who actually wants to get to the island. They attack people who want to judge others by character instead of ancestry. They attack people who are trying (however imperfectly) to move forward. Those people become enemies too.

See, the activists, the race hustlers, the grievance merchants, and the professional outrage addicts don't actually need solutions. Solutions are bad for business. If we reached the island, their careers would be over. Imagine being so committed to your ideology that you'd rather keep people angry than let them reconcile. Imagine seeing the shore twenty feet away and deciding to sink the boat because arriving might reduce your influence.

That is what infuriates me. Not racism itself. (Well, ok. ACTUAL RACISM, when I do see it, makes me angry, too.) Human beings have been finding reasons to hate one another since the invention of the second human being.

No, what infuriates me is the deliberate sabotage. What infuriates me is the conscious choice. What infuriates me is people who see progress and respond by trying to reverse it because peace threatens their status. People who would rather rule over a shipwreck than be ordinary passengers on a successful voyage are insane. Every time one of these fools pops another hole in the hull, the rest of us have to stop rowing toward the island and start bailing water.

That's the real crime.

Not that they're loud. Not that they're obnoxious. Not even that they're wrong. It's that they are stealing time. Stealing progress. Stealing trust. They are stealing the future from people who are desperately trying to build one.

The island is right there. Most of us can see it. Most of us want to reach it. But a loud minority of fanatics, narcissists, opportunists, and idiots keeps trying to sink the boat because they'd rather be captains of a disaster than passengers in a success.

And after a while, you stop feeling disappointed. You stop feeling frustrated. You start feeling angry. Because the island is right there. And these bastards keep drilling holes."