Ah, now here we are getting back to my earlier mention of what Booker Washington called race hustlers.
First: he clearly didn’t think everyone claiming to be a leader to be a race hustler, nor should we.
I think what he might say that clearly separates someone fighting for civil rights from a mere race hustler is when there’s progress the former goes back to their life (at least with respect to any actual progress) where the latter doubles down (because happier and more content people simply will not need them at some point).
But going back to what he actually wrote, part of his point was that such persons make their living keeping problems going.
To this I’ve observed that as real progress is made these same race hustlers face the problem of becoming unemployable UNLESS they can push the boundaries of what constitutes racism etc.
Thus, ironically, the less offensive society becomes the more easily people are offended or the less oppressive society becomes the more time people have to feel oppressed by things that really don’t matter to their lives.
And all of this I would attribute to the needs of the few, to keep getting a paycheck, trumping the good of the many ... who might be better off being happier and more content, being able to realize that these are not the bad old days.
You are only getting part of it.
I grew up hating Swedes. My father hated Swedes. My Grandfather hated Swedes. It goes back to the old country, and as far as I can tell to at least the 1600’s and farther back.
Why? One of our ancestors got kicked out of Gotland for fighting and drinking. If you knew our family, that kind of fit. I would bet the fighting was SEPERATE from the drinking.
Now take it to an African American in say, Atlanta. The Klan is still a going concern today (with about as much impact as the shag carpet preservation society). Their grandparents may have been alive to experience Segregation, and everything they were told all of there life was that all Whites owned slaves, hate people of darker skin, and want to kill them.
Hell, I have black family members who grew up hating Swedes like me, go off into the world and be told that they “Have to choose!” Either they get on the hate whitey train or they will be excluded from they community.
The Serbs and Croats hate each other. The Saxons and Swedes hate each other. The Franks hate everyone (and everyone hates them back). The North Italians view the South Italians and Mongols, and the south views the north as barbarian invaders that ended civilization.
And that doesn’t even take into account the cultural divisions in the USA (Ever run into a New Yorker in Texas?)
So I totally believe this guy is certain all cops want to kill him. He was told that, just like many African Americans have been, because in the Bad Old Days of Dixie, the white overseers and slave hunters DID kill them.
Humans are funny things. Grudges get passed down with care for millennia. While hustlers are a part of it, that ignores the vast majority of the fact that most have no relation to current reality or their causes remembered.
That is the the conversation that needs to be had. You can tell this guy “I don’t hate you because your black!” all you want be he will probably never believe you. All the authority figures in his life have told him otherwise.