Who do we wish to be? In conversation at The Ink, Eddie Glaude, Jr., Princeton professor of African American studies, ponders, in essence, “Who do we take ourselves to be?” in the wake of 50 years of Reaganism, Thatcherism, neoliberalism. That framework is collapsing. What kind of society have we created? Madison and others insisted on the importance of character, that we had to be certain kinds of persons in order for democracy to work. And this 50-year run has exacerbated some of the distortions in what makes us who we are. We’ve always dealt with the dangerous and disfiguring effects of white supremacy, of patriarchy, of class ideology. But over the last 50 years, they’ve congealed in a particular sort of way. For democracy to work, we have to admit that we have to become better people. If we are the leaders that we’ve been looking for, then we have to become better people. And if we’re going to be better people, we have to build a more just world, because the world as it’s currently organized actually distorts our sense of self, our relationship with each other. Glaude considers the intractability of prejudice in a social system with roots in slavery. Reaganism rode the backlash to greater equality for marginalized Americans that accelerated in the second half of the 20th century. It might be trite by now to cite, “when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression,” but it’s clear some of those formerly more privileged Americans…