Nobody's acting like it never happened.I don't think "focus" (whatever we might mean by that term) on white privilege and/or racism either helps or hurts black people, no.
But I do think knowing our history -- which is the context of the world in which we live -- helps everybody equally. You can't know where you're going if you don't know how you got where you are now.
Just remember that history means history. Acting like it's going on today ignores the truth. Blacks were better off when they weren't constantly being reminded how everything bad that happens to them is because of race. Repeat this lie often enough and it becomes a self-fullfilling reality when it's nothing but pure fantasy, and builds an overly sensitive nature that is counterproductive. In other words, they learn to see racism when it doesn't exist.
Acting like it never happened also ignores the truth, which was my point there. And I brought all that up because we're on USMB, and I see that ignorance demonstrated here on a daily, even hourly, basis. I spend a considerable amount of energy correcting it.
The purpose behind all that, here and elsewhere, is that none of us know what we're dealing with -- what our context is -- without knowing that history, and that history has been demonstrably suppressed. Institutionally.
I always get in trouble asking for context, but it's not going to stop me from seeking it.
The problem here is the left constantly priming the pump. Inventing racism where none exists.
Documented history is not "invention". It's documented. That means somebody recorded it before we got here.
And when that history recounting is met with endless denials, deflections and incredulity, it's clear that either awareness, or acknowledgement, of that history is sorely lacking. Were that not the case such citations would be met with "yeah, we know all that, next point". When that happens we can say "nobody's acting like it never happened".
Which will be a step forward.