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The backdrop of 2020 protests against police & our reckoning w/racism is "a parched landscape of stagnant progress toward racial parity, half a century after the passage of landmark Civil Rights legislation" oped by Shaylyn Romney Garrett & Robert D Putnam https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/race-american-history.html
what explains the stall in progress towards racial equity and reconstruction? 1. White backlash
second cause of reversal: 2. the "i-we-i" curve. What?! this is a theory of America's shift over the past 50 years from self-centeredness to community values, followed by a a return to egoism
they suggest that we can get out of this mess by "rediscovering the spirit of community"
And this new upswing, must also aim for "a higher summit by being fully inclusive, fully egalitarian and genuinely accommodating of difference."
Finally, I'll add from my position as part of marginalized communities & as an anthropologist: these grand narratives are good, but also mask the many alternative communities, those largely disengaged with the dominant society and its norms, who uphold equity and shared values.
Review of their book, The Upswing: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/books/review/the-upswing-robert-d-putnam.html
