Institutions once deemed inevitable became unthinkable through political struggle

Evidence

Although government, corporations, and the dominant media try to represent racism as an unfortunate aberration of the past that has been relegated to the graveyard of U.S. history, it continues to profoundly influence contemporary structures, attitudes, and behaviors. Nevertheless, anyone who would dare to call for the reintroduction of slavery, the organization of lynch mobs, or the reestablishment of legal segregation would be summarily dismissed. But it should be remembered that the ancestors of many of today’s most ardent liberals could not have imagined life without slavery, life without lynching, orlife without segregation. — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 57

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: how the ‘imagination horizon’ of any era renders current institutions eternal — an essay on moral imagination and institutional change.
• XREF: connects to: Terms like peace and democracy are contested concepts in struggles — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 377; Utopian futures cannot be assumed and each institutional dimension carries life-threatening risks — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 399; The European party system reigned unchallenged for barely four decades — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 664 (+3 more)

Related

• The stability of the surrounding world made the excluded appear as unfortunate exceptions (similarity 0.87)
• Revolutionary politics requires active intervention in history rather than correct waiting. (similarity 0.86)
• Slavery, lynching, and segregation each institutionalized a distinct form of racism (similarity 0.80)
• White supremacy survived slavery by re-inscribing itself in new institutions (similarity 0.80)
• What was progressive in one era can become politically backward in another (similarity 0.78)