Are Symbolic Anti-Racist Gestures Like Team Name Changes and the Juneteenth Without Cost?

This is something I wrote loosely without actually thinking if I’m really correct or not. I don’t hold myself to the obligation that I need to feel I’m right about something when I write something. I can only attest that it’s what I felt when I wrote those words down. Perhaps that lack of self-assurance is something that this world needs more of in this age of dogmatism and cancel culture.

Arguing against a symbolic gesture to a disenfranchised group is one that would make you look like a complete jerk for opposing. When my conservative brother-in-law told me nearly twenty years ago that he was against MLK Jr Day because he didn’t think we should put Black people on a pedestal, I was a college student excited to be studying critical race theory and instantly thought he was a bigot.

For better or for worse, I have changed my way of thinking. Don’t get me wrong: I continue to believe that racism and cyclical poverty exists but I also believe that the current way we (in my belief) falsely prioritize racism as the number one problem in the country and uncritically weaponizing it against our opponents is problematic.