Mitch Landrieu: America Desperately Needs a Truth and Racial Healing Commission

We’ve been saying for decades that the future of White America can be seen in post-apartheid South Africa. Until recently, this warning had fallen on deaf ears among mainstream conservatives who comforted themselves with the Constitution and MLK quotes and who scolded and marginalized us for our skepticism. The future was going to work out fine and we were “racists” for doubting it.

CNN:

“(CNN) – Racism remains this nation’s Achilles’ heel. If we do not face it and fix it, we will continue to suffer. The news in the past few weeks, from the police shooting of Daunte Wright to the debate about voter suppression, underscores once again that we have a long way to go to fulfill America’s promise of justice and equal opportunity for every American. To get closer to fulfilling that aspiration, we first need a consensus about the history of racism in the US and the effect it still has today.

We — and by “we,” I’m referring primarily to White Americans — have spent generations burying our heads in the sand when it comes to how we talk about race and learn about our complex history. This has gotten harder to deny or even ignore. The disproportionate effect of the pandemic on people of color, the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and so many other Black Americans — along with the involvement of White supremacists in the January 6 insurrection — have sparked a necessary, nationwide discussion on race.

Unfortunately, policy changes have been few and fleeting. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act is stalled in Congress, state-level voter suppression legislation has exploded, and despite efforts to address it, there are deepening racial gaps across employment and health outcomes due to Covid-19. Even after the events of the past year, public opinion research shows still wide gaps in attitudes and perceptions on race and whether systemic racism is a major problem. …”

The “crazy people” on the “far right” believed in a future dystopia.

Yeah, well, now actually they are saying that the United States becoming more like South Africa *is* the plan and that antiracism as colorblindness is passé.