OCTOBER 29, 2020 – In the aftermath of Trump’s upset victory in 2016, people struggled to explain Trump’s draw. Misogyny and racism were among the explanations, which were indictments of the “deplorables” who voted for the Orange Man.
But the more empathetic among reasonable people reached for a deeper explanation: folks who’d been “left behind” by the Information Age and economic globalization. Some journalists assigned themselves credit for sitting down in small town cafes and kitchen tables on dead-end streets in coal-mining areas of Pennsylvania and gutted factory towns of Ohio and Michigan interviewing “decent white folks” who’d been left high and dry by the rest of America.
Sorry, I didn’t buy into it. By that I don’t mean I didn’t recognize a connection between the hardships of “decent white folks” and the appeal of an unhinged, anti-establishment demagogue. But if anyone had a beef with the prevailing economic order, it was African-Americans whose economic privations had been institutionalized for many generations. Even liberals who expressed empathy for the “decent white folks” left behind were ignoring Blacks in America yet again—outside of the shocking prevalence of “shoot first, then aim” policing policies.
Sure, we who’ve benefitted from global prosperity must be mindful of all fellow citizens who’ve been marginalized. This imperative applies if for no other reason than self-interest—ignore a “not-in-your-neighborhood” problem long enough and eventually it will darken your doorstep. Yet the focus on economically disadvantaged whites mocks the “BLACK LIVES MATTER” signs in our all-white neighborhood—including the one in our own front yard. If the systemic economic discrimination of Blacks had been given proper focus generations ago—with a continuation of Reconstruction, not its brutal termination—the conditions that led to “shoot first, aim later” policing policies wouldn’t have become the norm.
As the media focus on yet another police shooting—Philadelphia—and the looting in its aftermath, we find ourselves watching the same old divisive movie. Liberals react to the shooting. Conservatives react to the looting. Few people seek to understand “the story behind the story.”
We need to restart and reboot. We do this by pressing the “acknowledgment key.” That’s not the “reparations” key, the “defund police” key, or even the “BLACK LIVES MATTER”-sign-in-the-yard key. It’s reading a book—take your pick among this sampling: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas Blackmon, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isobel Wilkerson, or The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein.
Only when the majority of white people in this country—privileged and not-so-privileged; liberals and conservative—have a deeper understanding of the base line can we begin to understand the determinants of prevalent conditions today. Only then can we begin to formulate, then implement constructive, broad-based policies.
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
