Yesterday a the New York Times published an opinion piece by a black academic, one Ekow Yankah. The essay is called Can My Children Be Friends with White People?

Professor Yankah’s answer is no, for the reason that black people must assume that every white person is, unless proven otherwise, such a virulent racist as to pose a direct and immediate threat of “rending, violent, often fatal betrayal.” (That this is certain is, apparently, demonstrated by the fact that Hillary Clinton did not win the last election.)

I considered putting up a post about this yesterday, but didn’t, as a familiar kind of fatigue quickly set in. I did offer a Tweet suggesting that John Derbyshire might have an opinion about the publication of this item, and noted that a chorus of voices were asking online about how it would seem if a white person wrote such an article, but beyond that I felt I had nothing much to add. This is where we’ve got to, and it isn’t going to get any better.

Today my friend Bill Vallicella sent me an email with a link to a response by Rod Dreher. It says, pretty much, what needs saying. For example:

So, let me get this straight: The New York Times published an op-ed by a black man who says that all white people look alike, and seem like they are a threat, even if they treat him kindly. If a white man wrote a column saying that all black people look alike, and seem like a threat to him, even if they treat him kindly, do you think The New York Times would publish it? The question is absurd.

Well, right. But again: this is where we’ve got to (and where the New York Times has got to).

Dreher quotes this passage, in which the author of the article tries to make sure that he’s just a big-hearted guy who’s trying to do his best:

We can still all pretend we are friends. If meaningful civic friendship is impossible, we can make do with mere civility ”” sharing drinks and watching the game. Indeed, even in Donald Trump’s America, I have not given up on being friends with all white people.

Thanks but no thanks, replies Dreher:

What a jerk. Why would any white person want to spend time with a guy who thinks he’s doing them a favor by granting them the absolution of his friendship? “If [particular whites] are not clearly allies, they will seem unsafe to me,’ he writes. How does a white person signal clear allyship? Why should any white person take the risk of being friends with this guy, knowing that if she says something that offends him politically, he will immediately consider her a racist threat, and withdraw friendship? … You know what? Many white people who might have been Prof. Yankah’s friend will now choose to keep away from him, because they feel judged by him, or they will be afraid to speak around him. He will take that as a further sign of racism. And if white children shun the Yankah children because their father has taught them that whites are not to be trusted or befriended, the Yankah kids will understandably take that as a sign that their father was right. Well done, Dad, well done.

Yes, well done. And so: what do we do now? I think it’s fair to say that civil society, to function at all, requires at minimum a default presumption that we all have enough in common with our fellow citizens to make it at least possible that we could somehow be friends. If, as Professor Yankah insists, even this (very) low bar is too high, then social cohesion is impossible, and the nation is doomed. And when it comes to cohesion, if a faction insists that comity with them is impossible, then it is. When white people suggest that the races are better off not trying to get along, they are called, nowadays, “white supremacists”. What, then, should we say about Ekow Yankah?

An exercise for the reader: what do you think the New York Times expects to accomplish by publishing something like this?