02 Nov 2020 Battling White Privilege With Black Squares

Virtue-signaling.

“It’s very, very easy, but it’s not real activism,” said Project 21 member Derryck Green. “It’s not constructive activism.”

In an interview with Will Witt, Derryck criticized the currently popular methods of using social media, yard signs and other high-visibility/low-impact means of advocating for change. It’s a far cry from the actions of real activists just a few generations ago. Derryck lamented:

If we were to depend on this generation for civil rights, we’d still be segregated. Because social media is a poor stand-in for actual activism.

Derryck noted that white virtue-signalers feel compelled to do something because they are being singled out by the Black Lives Matter protesters and in the establishment media:

White people… in the last 10 years, 20 years, have been in this situation where guilt has been thrust upon you. And sin and evil has been thrust upon you because you are white.

You are a benefactor of “white privilege.” And… if left unchecked, you would expand white supremacy. So white people are in this, what I call, this act of self-preservation where they want to go out and prove that they’re not like the other bad racists that actually advocate white supremacy.

Using the example of “Blackout Tuesday,” when people (and businesses) replaced their social media avatars with black squares, demonstrating the pointlessness of their virtue-signaling activism, Derryck said:

[S]ocial media is a substitute for real activism. It’s really easy to post a black square that means absolutely nothing.

Compare the black square to Martin [Luther] King and the elders of the Civil Rights Movement that are marching in unison, knowing that – at the end of the march or during the march – they’re going to meet police batons, they’re gonna meet dogs, they’re gonna meet firehoses, guns. But they still did it because the greater good was equality, and sharing in the American Dream, being protected under the U.S. Constitution, forcing the country to grow up to the ideals that are articulated in the Declaration of Independence.

They endured that. Thank God!

It’s not as if there aren’t a lot of good ideas for people who do want to make a difference. In fact, Project 21 offers dozens of them in its “Blueprint for a Better Deal for Black America.” Derryck pointed out that, although embracing these ideas may be the best thing to do, it’s not what the “woke” crowd likes or has the ambition to see through to fruition:

Why don’t they – instead of posting a black square – go advocate for open access to better schools? That’s very difficult to do because [of] the intimidation, the bullying… you’ve got to do actual work…

Why not advocate for blacks to, you know, be married and stay married?

“I don’t think a lot of people have it within them to do that work,” Derryck explained. “It’s easy to sit on the couch, post something and – boom – …see how many likes you get.”

???@thewillwitt @derryckgreen pic.twitter.com/Dgd6KrsgbD

— PragerU (@prageru) October 22, 2020