There is a lot of wisdom to this. And a lot of minorities have had challenges which are now forgotten.
When we focus on things beyond our control, we create a sense of hopelessness. And the result is that we fail to do the things in our control that can create change.
Here is a lesson. If you go back 100 years ago, there was a resurgence of the KKK. The main target of their ire was NOT blacks, it was the Catholics (mostly Irish and Italian) and Jews. Their political power was such that Prohibition was passed with the main goal of giving more legal tools to discriminate against those groups. And their greatest stronghold was not in the South - it was in Oregon.
See https://www.portlandmercury.com/feature/2017/11/15/19472650/... for verification of this. My father's side of the family was Irish from Oregon. I won't forget a long conversation with my uncle about what it was like as a child growing up with concern about which neighbors might be KKK, and the importance of not drawing unwanted attention to himself at school.
Nor was this then a new conflict. The Irish largely came here as refugees from events like the Irish potato famine that happened under the long and brutal English occupation. This occupation began with English invasion in the 1100s. The conflict had been religious as well since Cromwell's put down rebellion with massacres in the mid-1600s. And then they came to the USA, a country founded and run by WASPs - White Anglo Saxon Protestants. Who knew and remembered this history of conflict as well as the Irish did.
For Catholics, the importance of JFK being elected was no different than the importance of Obama being elected to blacks. To date, JFK remains the only US President to be openly non-Protestant. Despite his family's wealth and power, he saw in the Civil Rights movement a familiar struggle.
When you study the long history of discrimination and oppression, do not satisfy yourself with only studying your own people's oppression. Understand that your story is not the only one. Learn about other people's struggles as well, learn what worked for them, and try to emulate them.
The black community has done so at points. For example the Civil Rights movement went much better in part because Martin Luther King learned from Gandhi's example and successes. However the current narrative that I see seems actively counterproductive.
When we focus on things beyond our control, we create a sense of hopelessness. And the result is that we fail to do the things in our control that can create change.
Here is a lesson. If you go back 100 years ago, there was a resurgence of the KKK. The main target of their ire was NOT blacks, it was the Catholics (mostly Irish and Italian) and Jews. Their political power was such that Prohibition was passed with the main goal of giving more legal tools to discriminate against those groups. And their greatest stronghold was not in the South - it was in Oregon.
See https://www.portlandmercury.com/feature/2017/11/15/19472650/... for verification of this. My father's side of the family was Irish from Oregon. I won't forget a long conversation with my uncle about what it was like as a child growing up with concern about which neighbors might be KKK, and the importance of not drawing unwanted attention to himself at school.
Nor was this then a new conflict. The Irish largely came here as refugees from events like the Irish potato famine that happened under the long and brutal English occupation. This occupation began with English invasion in the 1100s. The conflict had been religious as well since Cromwell's put down rebellion with massacres in the mid-1600s. And then they came to the USA, a country founded and run by WASPs - White Anglo Saxon Protestants. Who knew and remembered this history of conflict as well as the Irish did.
For Catholics, the importance of JFK being elected was no different than the importance of Obama being elected to blacks. To date, JFK remains the only US President to be openly non-Protestant. Despite his family's wealth and power, he saw in the Civil Rights movement a familiar struggle.
When you study the long history of discrimination and oppression, do not satisfy yourself with only studying your own people's oppression. Understand that your story is not the only one. Learn about other people's struggles as well, learn what worked for them, and try to emulate them.
The black community has done so at points. For example the Civil Rights movement went much better in part because Martin Luther King learned from Gandhi's example and successes. However the current narrative that I see seems actively counterproductive.