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Row Row Row Your Boat, Gently Down the Racism Stream
Investing in Black people will benefit white people
Two men are on each end of a rowboat.
Slowly rowing in the middle of a large lake, miles from the shore.
Then one of them takes his oar out of the water and starts hitting the floor of the rowboat near his seat until he makes a small hole in the bottom, water now steadily seeping into the boat.
The other man looks over at him. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“What do you care?” the man who just punctured the boat responds. “This is my end of the boat.”
I was recently traveling and ran into an old friend from college. He immediately volunteered his opinion on a topic I’d written about many times:
the mass incarceration of Black men and women
“I like most of your articles, but I still think we need to make sure we’re keeping bad people in prison,” he said, trying to goad me into a response.
“It’s not a race thing,” he continued.
Another “liberal” with me immediately shook his ahead in agreement.
“You agree with that, don’t you?” he looked at me for approval.