Saving Elie Mystal from White Society

I Am Not Ready to Reenter White Society

The basis for this sweeping conclusion was an incident he witnessed at a CVS. An older white woman shouted at a black teenaged girl, “Is this where you get the vaccines?” It’s not clear if the black girl worked there. Nothing suggests that this white woman thought that the young black woman’s race mattered at all. Data show that few whites see their race as central to their identity, in contrast to 75 percent of blacks. Republicans and conservatives are the least likely to pursue vaccination. I’d guess the woman demanding a shot was liberal.

However, Mr. Mystal saw race. This small incident led him to a sweeping conclusion that he isn’t capable of re-entering a society integrated with whites without feeling stress and anxiety. He feels this way even though the government, academy, and media give him preferential treatment because of his race. Most whites don’t have racial consciousness. The system that rewards Mr. Mystal punishes white advocates. Many whites become racially conscious anyway as a result of encounters with non-whites. Most initially wanted to believe in a colorblind world but were forced into white identity because of the way non-whites treated them.

I don’t begrudge Mr. Mystal’s mini-Wakanda. I’d prefer it if he and his co-ethnics would build it on a larger scale and leave the rest of us alone. On average, blacks commit more crime, use more welfare, and perform less well in school than whites. Whites would be fine without blacks. It’s less clear whether blacks would be fine without whites. Perhaps we can simply separate. This isn’t an extreme idea. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is currently prosecuting Derek Chauvin, proposed a separate black homeland early in his career. Of course, Mr. Ellison, like Malcolm X before him, quickly realized that it’s easier to grift off whites than to build a separate nation.