Revolutionary tracings Book

This is a rather disturbing read considering what is currently happening in the States. First published in 1970, these two essays ponder the dynamics of white guilt: The term „radical chic“ describes the impulse of rich and famous people to endorse progressive or even radical causes, but not (or not solely) out of conviction, but rather to underline their status, curate their image and indulge in virtue signalling – at the core, radical chic is a form of sublimated decadence. Wolfe’s text describes a fundraising party composer Leonard Bernstein actually threw for the Black Panthers.

In „Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers“, Wolfe reports from the Office of Economic Opportunity in San Francisco. It portrays how thugs pressure and threaten public officials and thus manage to render the anti-poverty programs largely inefficient.

While Wolfe does point out some real problems, he is also stupidly smug in his self-assured privileged position, unable to show sufficient empathy for those who can't just eat cake and vanish to the Hamptons because the system he profits from strategically disenfranchises them, and representatives of this system can still murder them with impunity. At the moment, I’m so rattled, furious and sad that I don’t feel like I’m able to weigh Wolfe’s arguments or properly comment – I’m just overwhelmed by the fact that discussions go on over decades and decades and don’t seem to move forward one single bit: Systemic racism, white privilege, and poverty on the rise. How can that be? Yesterday, the headline of a big national newspaper in Germany read „Trump declares war on America“. Just let that sink in.