Good Food, Good Company — By John Reed

Good Food, Good Company
While enjoying a meal out last week, I looked up from my plateful and surveyed the crowd. I’m convinced Southern restaurants are the most culturally integrated places in society: I saw people of every race there, speaking multiple languages. Poor people, rich people. Kids, adults, (very) senior citizens.
As a country we’ve made a lot of progress making sure everyone gets a fair shake, but there’s still a long way to go. From all-black neighborhoods to all-white churches and more, the dream of a color-blind society remains a work in progress. And despite the smug assumptions of many Northerners, I’d say the South has moved further in that direction than they have.
What bigotry remains is far more pernicious than before. Gone are the separate water fountains. In their place are misguided efforts to mix “equity” and “equality.” Equal opportunity does not guarantee equal outcome. In the programs to make sure everyone wins, the bar for success gets reset ever lower.
Irony is apparently a lost emotion. For example, the idea that all white people are by definition bigoted is just as racist as saying all brown people are lazy. Or that all Palestinians are innocent bystanders.
I’ve written before how social pendulums swing first one way and then another. Remember in the ‘70’s when there was genuine concern about the next ice age that was coming soon? Now apparently we’re boiling the oceans. On politics we’ve alternated fairly regularly from liberal to conservative. Until recently those variations have been fairly close to center.
Now the pendulum swings are a lot farther from the center, with the disruption a lot more visible. This is partly the media’s fault, as discord sells airtime and newsprint. But it’s equally the fault of lazy thinking on the part of media consumers, willing to parrot back their favorite outrage of the day.
While the ink wasters and microphone hogs paint us with broad brushstrokes, the true challenges that are solvable with nuanced detail get lost in the noise. The reparations rabbit hole can get so deep, at some point the Saxons will be seeing the descendants of William the Conqueror in court. But an obvious and common sense target like Volkswagen is glossed over for their slave labor during the Nazi era.
Meanwhile, I’m going to enjoy my pork chop and veggies. Cooked by a Spanish speaker, sold to me by a Black business owner, and eaten beside a table full of Asian kids working on their homework.