General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The Unbearable Whiteness of the American Left [View all]struggle4progress
(118,282 posts)you have to listen to them, and you have to give them some control over what's going to be done
America has many different cultures, reflecting the different histories of different groups here, and nobody can understand by pure thought how history shaped the thinking and the modes of expression of someone in a different group, without making a considerable effort, over an extended period of time, to listen to others
There's no shortage of minority leftists -- but they may express themselves differently, and they may have different priorities, than people raised in the white middle-class or upper middle-class
It's often more productive to discuss history than philosophy -- because history can teach us something about what happened, and what people thought happened, whereas philosophy can only help us discover ways in which our own ideas are unclear. So perhaps many people would benefit more by learning about Asa Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, or Edgar Daniel Nixon, than would benefit from an abstract philosophical panel discussion