Written in 2018, this author’s posit reminded me of a book I have been reading by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi. Kendi’s explains that racism, at it’s heart, is a form of self-interest. (Get a copy How To Be An Anti-Racist: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780525509288 )

Elad Nehorai, the author of The Philosophy of Selfishness is Destroying America, discusses selfishness in a (mostly) objective tone. “…in order to get what we want, someone else must pay a cost. And vice versa: if anyone else gets what they want, it comes at a cost to us. …This is the philosophy of selfishness. A person gaining in society must inevitably mean the fall of another. The gain of women will, must, come at the cost of men. There is no other outcome, for this is the way the world works: there are winners and there are losers, and if you are not the one winning, then you’re a loser.”

In his book, How To Be An Anti-Racist, Dr. Kendi explains that it is not ignorance and hate that give rise to racism, it is rather, the opposite. Self-interest fuels racism which gives rise to ignorance and hate.
Racism was constructed and is maintained to perform a purpose, that purpose: a tool to maintain power. Therefore, self-interest, at the heart of racism “sparks ignorance and hate” and we must combat it with hope and to treat it like the cancer it is.
Nehorai goes on to explain, “Obama’s election, and the subsequent cultural and economic rise of blacks in America (think: Black Lives Matter, and the backlash), sent a message: minorities are rising, and so white people will soon suffer. Whatever negative economic effects were happening in the white, rural and suburban worlds had to be because of the rise of another group. It could not be structural issues like education, it could not be issues of their own, it could not be their lack of diversity. It had to be the rise of others.

This is the philosophy of selfishness. And it’s one that has been bred in Americans since its creation. To build the country, it had to be on the back of slaves. A philosophy so deeply ingrained that it took the deadliest war in American history to simply begin to break the idea that whites could only prosper when they treated others like animals. Worse than animals.
And so those committed to the opposite.. of enhancement of what makes humans great: our interconnected nature, our ability to do great things when we work together… either don’t realize or don’t care that they’re actually hurting themselves. To them, it’s impossible to imagine a world where others’ success also means their success.”

This article was written in 2018. The next excerpt, I am wondering, if we have seen the beginning… what do you think?

“…And so, at some point, be it now or later, there will be a reckoning. One where the sufferers rise up and take back their dignity, or one where today’s “winners” become tomorrow’s losers.
But ultimately, like Pharaoh, it is up to them to decide how it goes. Because no matter how many times we repeat this story, the ending is always the same. And always will be until the final ending: the day all men and women are free.” by Elad Nehorai