Racism in America.

Racism is alive and well in America, which has been made abundantly clear since the election of Barack Obama.  Let’s spend a few moments considering why it seems to persist despite over 150 years of government policy, five amendments to the Constitution and several laws that attempt to abolish the idea anyone has the moral right to enslave another or restrict the rights of the individual to participate fully in the choices afforded the average citizen in our Republic.

Could it be a mistrust of others is inherent in our nature/character?  Do we retain the ties to family and tribe and as a result carry forward a prejudice we can’t really come to grips with?  Or is it we lie to ourselves to build a world view where we are always right and those others are always wrong?

I watch as young liberal whites join in the protests and riots, just as the liberals of my generation did in the 1960s to counter the racial hatred so evident in the south.  I’m not talking here about the anarchists who take advantage of the conditions, but those who honestly believe in attempting to end the discrimination. Unfortunately, here we are 50 plus years after the years of Dr. King and the movement that led to a national dialogue, and if anything, the war over racism rages just as it did back then, without any apparent success at eliminating this us versus them approach.  Why?

I don’t have any real answer, but I think a CNN analyst named Van Jones hit a nerve when he was talking about how the affluent liberal white women of the cities are every bit as racist as any member of the KKK or Aryan Nation.  When push comes to shove they will pick up their phones, dial 911, and accuse an African-American of attacking them if they get the least bit upset by something he did.

Finally, when will we begin to question personal motivation on the part of the media, the celebrities, and our politicians?  Who benefits from creating discord and class/race warfare?  We talk a lot about the income disparity between the wealthy and the poor, but who is talking about the destruction of the middle class?  The people who moved from the cities and the rural areas to create the suburbs where there were two cars in every garage and Mom could stay home and raise the kids.  How many of those families exist today?  Today to make ends meet don’t most middle-class families need two incomes?  Why is that? 

I wish I had answers, but then again it is clear the experts don’t either.  I can only shake my head as we continue to decline as a civil society.  The one thing I do think is Trump is a result of that decline, not the cause of it. We have witnessed for the last 20-years how the influential are impervious to legal threats, while the poor are victimized by police forces increasingly structured as urban assault units.  Something must change, but I am not sure we are capable of that change for we expect the government to mandate something that must be a moral choice.  I don’t think the government can do that.