The Whites of Their Eyes

"A few prominent African Americans, such as Cornel West, Russell Simmons, Kanye West and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), have made appearances at Occupy protests. 'Occupy the Hood,' a recent offshoot, has tried to get more people of color involved. But the main movement remains overwhelmingly white: A Fast Company survey last month found that African Americans, who are 12.6 percent of the U.S. population, make up only 1.6 percent of Occupy Wall Street."

-- Why African Americans aren’t embracing Occupy Wall Street. Washington Post, Nov. 25

"We really can do it. We can reclaim our country from the oligarchs. We can recapture what America used to be about."

-- How Occupy Will End. Huffington Post, Oct. 31.

So here we have a mostly white popular movement that fantasizes about going back to the good old days: back to the New Deal, back to the Great Society, back before Reagan. The academic reaction?

Absolutely priceless.

White-majority ahistorical nostalgia: bad when coded as "right," good when coded as "left." Academic analysis goes no farther than the label, and may be safely disregarded.