I'm just back from Italy and the recent shootings in Macerata and the fear-based politics being used by Berlusconi and others makes it clear to me that many people are afraid of black African consciousness and seek to suppress it. When I see the problems around Trump's staffers and his support of abuse of women, the horrible statements he made on Howard Stern, for example, I think the #metoo movement is important and needed today. In both of these cases we can't and shouldn't be silent.

So although I agree with you that often this debate devolves into a shouting match between "tribal" groups who refuse to understand each other, I also think there's a side that's legitimate, which seeks to give voices to the oppressed and seeks justice and truth, and there's a side which clings to white patriarchy and furthers the crimes committed by it. The "blood and soil" crowd are dangerous and ascendant and a lot of money is working overtime to end the post-WWII consensus, to break the world into competing ethnic zones and drive wedges between people based on class and gender. Admittedly you find violent responses from the progressive left as well, but overall I think, #blacklivesmatter is perhaps the most important movement operating today. I listened with interest to this ZeroSquared podcast about positive aspects of Trump's revealing of the fault lines in our culture. The guy raises the point that racism is entrenched and we arent all going to wake up and hold hands and defeat racism overnight. His point, which I think has merit, is that we dont want to live in a police state in which a large number of people are imprisoned and suffer from police violence. Its not about race, its about resisting the dehumanizing effects of state violence. Trump uses race and gender to divide us from each other. We have to grow up and see through his strategies, which obviously work as he was elected. We need to see that we are all together on this limited biosphere called Earth and we have to work together to make it a better place for our children. Sadly I worry we are moving in the opposite direction.