I have zero illusions about the history of this country or how people who looked like me were treated even a few decades ago. I have zero illusions about what colonial rule in India was like and what atrocities it perpetuated.
There are real legitimate political aims here.
Conversation
Decolonizing minds is a real need. Activism in history made real gains. Civil rights pioneers made real sacrifices and scored real victories against human monstrousness.
Making the economy more representative of the population is a genuine need. Hiring and education must evolve.
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But grifter bullshit that plants and detonates toxic mistrust bombs in the economic engine not only serves none of these aims, it actively works against them. While also destroying the hard-won legacies of past social justice revolutionaries.
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How do you actually make continued gains in the story of “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”
The arc doesn’t bend itself. It’s like Moore’s law. Beneath the natural seeming trajectory there’s very strenuous active human effort.
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With Moore’s law, the 18-month doubling period of transistor density wasn’t a natural law. Every few years techies had to rethink large parts of the semiconductor stack to keep making the gains. The tricks that worked in 1970 ran out of juice by 1980 and new tricks were needed.
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The “arc of the moral universe” has had a huge number of diverse actors curving it over centuries. Royal-born Buddha 2500y ago, religious leaders like John Wyclif in Europe in pre-modern times, Gandhi in the 1910s-30s, black leaders 1950s-70s... each pioneered new tactics/models
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2020 is no different. It needs a new playbook. But it also needs the same old sincerity of purpose alloyed with deep self-awareness, critical self-scrutiny, systematic doubt, compassion even for the adversary/oppressor. The privilege of bending the arc is hard-earned.
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Changing history does not come cheap. You have to destroy and recreate yourself. The personal histories of past social justice leaders makes that much clear. They were *far* harder on themselves in pursuit of inner growth than they were on those they fought or the world at large.
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I personally am not a huge fan of Gandhi. I think he got lots of things wrong intellectually, philosophically, and morally.
But damn the man made sacrifices and lived his “experiments with truth” in extreme ways. I couldn’t put myself through a fraction of it. Gotta respect it.
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Replying to
Long story for another time. It’s mostly dead history at this point so not that consequential anymore. Net, his contribution to both Indian history and the global history of social justice was a positive one. The critical take diesnt change that.

