THE MISSING SEAT • RACE & EQUAL HUMANITY

The Absurdity of Being Black in America

America made race matter for generations. Now Black people are expected to explain its consequences without making anybody uncomfortable.

A reel of Joshua Doss speaking at Harvard reached me with a description about how absurd it is to be Black in America. Harvard’s own listing places Doss, a pollster and strategist, at its 21st Annual Black Policy Conference in April 2026. I don’t have a verified transcript of that speech, so I’m not going to put my argument in his mouth. But the framing stayed with me. Absurd is a useful word for what happens when a country asks you to trust its promises while refusing to finish the conversation about its conduct. [1]

America knew how to notice race when it was deciding who could be enslaved, where people could live and whose children could attend which schools. Those decisions weren’t misunderstandings floating around in the air. They were made, enforced and defended by people with power. The records remain. National Archives material documents how government-backed planning displaced Black communities, including neighborhoods cleared for redevelopment and expressways. People had homes, businesses and relationships there before somebody decided the land would serve another purpose. [2]

Then comes the instruction to move on. What does that mean for the family whose property is gone? For the children who inherited less because an opportunity was blocked before they were born? They can move forward with their lives. They still deserve an answer about what happened to what their family built. The absurd part is being treated as unreasonable for asking a question the country would understand immediately if a bank, company or property owner asked it.

We’ve already asked at The Missing Seat whether ending a wrong is the same as repairing its damage. This is the next question: what happens to trust when people are expected to accept that the damage is over before anyone has accounted for it? If you want somebody to believe you, you don’t get to call their questions the problem. You have to answer them.

There are receipts for progress. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and employment, among other protections. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 confronted discriminatory barriers to voting. Those were enormous changes, won through organizing, litigation, protest and sacrifice. Black people helped force America to honor rights it had withheld. Calling that progress is honest. Using it to end every conversation about what remained is something else. [3][4]

Look at one measurable part of the picture. In the Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, median wealth was about $44,900 for Black families and $285,000 for White families. Wealth means assets minus debts. These are 2022 figures, not a measurement taken today. They don’t tell us the cause of every dollar of difference or the story of every family. They do tell us that a claim of equal accumulated wealth would be false for that survey. [5]

For a family, wealth can mean being able to survive a job loss, help a child through school or start a business without one bad month destroying everything. That’s why this matters beyond a debate about history. The question is whether people have the resources to use the opportunities we say are available. Being allowed to apply for something and having a fair chance to reach it aren’t automatically the same thing.

There’s a legal version of this contradiction too. In 2023, the Supreme Court rejected the admissions systems used by Harvard and the University of North Carolina. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett. The majority said the programs failed equal-protection requirements. The decision also recognized that remedying specific, identified unlawful discrimination can justify some government action involving race. So it would be wrong to say the Court banned every remedy that considers race. [6]

But the practical question remains: when a remedy is rejected, who is responsible for the loss it was meant to address? A ruling that a particular program is unlawful doesn’t establish that the underlying damage has disappeared. Supporters of the decision argue that government should protect people as individuals and avoid stereotyping or disadvantaging applicants because of race. That concern deserves an answer. The answer should test the actual program, its evidence, who it helps, who it burdens and whether another approach can do the job. Simply removing the program doesn’t complete that work.

That’s where the conversation becomes exhausting. Black people are asked to explain the history, demonstrate the connection, acknowledge the progress, reassure everyone that they aren’t assigning personal guilt and then suggest a solution that makes nobody uncomfortable. Meanwhile, who is being asked to demonstrate that the replacement actually works? If the people losing access must prove their loss, the people changing the rules should have to show what protection remains.

None of this requires pretending every Black person has the same life or every White person received the same advantages. Poor White families have real struggles. Black success is real too. Neither observation answers what a particular institution did to a particular community. A useful conversation gets specific enough that evidence can change somebody’s mind.

And Black life is bigger than the argument. We build families, businesses, art, friendships and futures. We laugh. We fall in love. We have ordinary days that don’t need to become somebody’s lesson about America. Having to account for discrimination doesn’t mean we owe the world a performance of permanent misery. Joy doesn’t cancel a claim for justice, and achievement doesn’t release an institution from answering for its conduct.

Who is missing? The people whose experience is welcomed as an inspiring story but dismissed when it becomes a demand. The residents who knew what a neighborhood was worth before the demolition. The families who could explain what a lost opportunity cost if anybody asked them. They deserve a place in deciding what repair means, rather than being invited afterward to applaud whatever somebody else chose.

Here’s one practical place to start. Pick an institution you can actually question: your city, school district or university. Ask it for one documented example of racial exclusion in its own history, what it did to address the consequences and the evidence showing whether that response worked. Ask who was reached, who was left out and what remains. A press release announcing a program isn’t the same as a result. Where records are public, request them. Where they aren’t, ask the institution to disclose them.

Voting matters. So do public meetings, organizing, complaints, research and supporting people already doing the work. You don’t have to solve the entire country to insist that one institution answer a clear question. Send TMS a document or a response we can check. We’ll follow the evidence and distinguish an unanswered request from proof of wrongdoing.

I’m not asking America to pretend nothing has changed. I’m asking it to stop using what changed as permission to ignore what didn’t. If a remedy worked, show us who it reached and what it repaired. If it failed, explain why and what comes next. If the evidence is incomplete, say so. But don’t demand trust while treating the questions needed to earn it as an insult.

America spent generations making race somebody else’s burden. Expecting Black people to carry its consequences and then apologize for noticing them is pretty damn absurd.

Ally = Action. 🪑

Sources and Receipts

Verification notice: This is TMS editorial analysis inspired by a reel’s framing, not a transcript or summary of Doss’s speech. Wealth figures refer to 2022. A group disparity does not establish the cause of every loss. The 2023 decision rejected the specific admissions systems; it did not ban all remedies involving race.

Return to the Seat: TMS invites records and institutional responses for verification and follow-up. An unanswered request alone does not prove wrongdoing.

Policies matter. People matter more. Sometimes the seat filler is you.

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