Hear what the deplorables have to say
Published in the Boulder Daily Camera, December 2016
As we are constantly reminded, race and cultural issues are still alive in America. This should surprise no one since our Statue of Liberty asks the world to "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" with no predetermination about where they might come from. As a result, our nation has filled up with an ethnically diverse and culturally rich population that is the envy of the world.
It hasn't always been pretty. From the beginning, we've always exercised our right to limit exactly whom we let in based on some need or bias of the moment. And, our behavior has often fallen somewhere between rude and cruel for some of our ethnic populations, like African slaves and Asian laborers.
In the true American spirit, we have regularly offered acts of penance to the people we have treated so poorly and their descendants. From freeing the slaves to the Civil Rights act of 1965, our efforts were often more than simply "leveling the playing field" hoping that this might eventually lead to equality. We went a step further by writing laws and promoting societal behaviors to help classes of Americans based upon their ethnicity. We protected those classes of Americans from discrimination but didn't stop there. Our government mandated affirmative action programs that granted an edge to selected ethnic groups in getting into schools, finding good jobs, and even profiting from doing business with the government. In essence, we tipped the scales of opportunity away from white America in favor of Americans from other races.
This was the right and uniquely American thing to do. I know of no other time nor place in history where the ruling class intentionally put itself at a disadvantage to right past wrongs on the underclasses. If you want the most extraordinary example of American exceptionalism in the 20th century, that might just be it.
And, it affected people's lives. Data on minorities in America over the past 50 years tell a story of opportunities realized by many who had been denied them in the past. Income and education levels are far more equal than they were and are still moving in the right direction.
But, these actions affected white America, too. Whites were, by law, at a disadvantage and many felt the burn of reverse discrimination imposed on them by their government. Making this even more difficult was the implicit gag order insisting that we recognized our privileged white status and shut up about the medicine we had to take to make America right again.
I suggest that you don't need to be all that enlightened to recognize that this was never sustainable. If we've learned anything it should be that discrimination of any sort is not a good long-term national policy.
Maybe more importantly, left out of the conversation was that many white Americans were becoming every bit as disadvantaged as those from the protected classes. I come from a 250-year family history in Appalachia where I was born. Hillbillies-r-us. We died in the Civil War to free the slaves and we're the ones who mined the coal that allowed American industry to thrive in the 20th century and were rewarded by dying early from black lung, a heritage well documented by J.D. Vance's current bestseller, "Hillbilly Elegy." Yet, us hillbillies along with other white ethnic subgroups found ourselves catching the blame for others' suffering while ours was ignored.
That frustration metastasized during this election when Sen. Clinton declared many of these white folks "Deplorables." Not fair. Not fair at all. We ain't all rich, Senator, and some of us is hurtin' bad.
And that frustration is a big part of the story about how that crazy man got elected.
On Dec 2nd, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager told America that white supremacists won the election and we should all be ashamed of ourselves. In today's America, almost every ethnic identity has some advocacy group with a cool name like "Black Lives Matter. But, when struggling white Americans have something to say, everybody checks the bottom of their shoes to see if they stepped in something.
What is unkindly being referred to as a "white nationalist movement" is not an attempt at raising the white supremacist flag once again. That horse has long since left the stable and almost no one wants to see it return. Maybe, just maybe, these underprivileged white Americans have a point. How about instead of responding with the well-worn and largely unfair accusation that they are all irretrievably racist, we listen to what these folks have to tell us.
As we are constantly reminded, race and cultural issues are still alive in America. This should surprise no one since our Statue of Liberty asks the world to "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" with no predetermination about where they might come from. As a result, our nation has filled up with an ethnically diverse and culturally rich population that is the envy of the world.
It hasn't always been pretty. From the beginning, we've always exercised our right to limit exactly whom we let in based on some need or bias of the moment. And, our behavior has often fallen somewhere between rude and cruel for some of our ethnic populations, like African slaves and Asian laborers.
In the true American spirit, we have regularly offered acts of penance to the people we have treated so poorly and their descendants. From freeing the slaves to the Civil Rights act of 1965, our efforts were often more than simply "leveling the playing field" hoping that this might eventually lead to equality. We went a step further by writing laws and promoting societal behaviors to help classes of Americans based upon their ethnicity. We protected those classes of Americans from discrimination but didn't stop there. Our government mandated affirmative action programs that granted an edge to selected ethnic groups in getting into schools, finding good jobs, and even profiting from doing business with the government. In essence, we tipped the scales of opportunity away from white America in favor of Americans from other races.
This was the right and uniquely American thing to do. I know of no other time nor place in history where the ruling class intentionally put itself at a disadvantage to right past wrongs on the underclasses. If you want the most extraordinary example of American exceptionalism in the 20th century, that might just be it.
And, it affected people's lives. Data on minorities in America over the past 50 years tell a story of opportunities realized by many who had been denied them in the past. Income and education levels are far more equal than they were and are still moving in the right direction.
But, these actions affected white America, too. Whites were, by law, at a disadvantage and many felt the burn of reverse discrimination imposed on them by their government. Making this even more difficult was the implicit gag order insisting that we recognized our privileged white status and shut up about the medicine we had to take to make America right again.
I suggest that you don't need to be all that enlightened to recognize that this was never sustainable. If we've learned anything it should be that discrimination of any sort is not a good long-term national policy.
Maybe more importantly, left out of the conversation was that many white Americans were becoming every bit as disadvantaged as those from the protected classes. I come from a 250-year family history in Appalachia where I was born. Hillbillies-r-us. We died in the Civil War to free the slaves and we're the ones who mined the coal that allowed American industry to thrive in the 20th century and were rewarded by dying early from black lung, a heritage well documented by J.D. Vance's current bestseller, "Hillbilly Elegy." Yet, us hillbillies along with other white ethnic subgroups found ourselves catching the blame for others' suffering while ours was ignored.
That frustration metastasized during this election when Sen. Clinton declared many of these white folks "Deplorables." Not fair. Not fair at all. We ain't all rich, Senator, and some of us is hurtin' bad.
And that frustration is a big part of the story about how that crazy man got elected.
On Dec 2nd, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager told America that white supremacists won the election and we should all be ashamed of ourselves. In today's America, almost every ethnic identity has some advocacy group with a cool name like "Black Lives Matter. But, when struggling white Americans have something to say, everybody checks the bottom of their shoes to see if they stepped in something.
What is unkindly being referred to as a "white nationalist movement" is not an attempt at raising the white supremacist flag once again. That horse has long since left the stable and almost no one wants to see it return. Maybe, just maybe, these underprivileged white Americans have a point. How about instead of responding with the well-worn and largely unfair accusation that they are all irretrievably racist, we listen to what these folks have to tell us.
