Can we show more love, respect and kindness to each other in 2020?
During a conversation with a good friend who has deep knowledge of the economy, he suggested that our putrid economic growth rate of 2 percent is because we’re in the midst of a revolution, an unnamed revolution that is not dissimilar to the agricultural or industrial revolution.
It’s an information revolution, and because we’ve been providing all of the raw material to those in charge for free through apps like Facebook, Google, Snapchat and Instagram, we collectively have not personally benefitted economically from it. The bottom line is millions of Americans are hurting economically, and that’s when things get stirred up.
The Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville was a symptom that comes from economic suppression or depression. One other thing about this movement appears to be clear; it seems to be based on fear, not scaredy-cat fear, but actual deep-seated fear of economic insecurity and loss of power. Hence the distressing chant, “They will not replace us.”
Every time this movement has pulsated, it’s been during economically challenging times. No matter how well the stock market and unemployment percentages are doing, people are still hurting.
Maybe a look back at the history of our country from the podcast “On the Media” will put some things in more perspective. University of Chicago professor, Kathleen Belew, explained that participants in the White Power movement see numerous issues as threats to their power, threats to white reproduction which, in their minds, will result in their loss of even more economic control.
Interestingly, none of this is new. The expansion of our country into the western frontier in the late 1800s was said to be part of a post-Civil War effort to deal with both new immigrants and freed slaves. It was thought to have been done to keep the non-white population from taking control of the former slave states. There was also fear that the less affluent immigrants would use their new voting rights to encourage more socialism.
When we ran out of the land in the West, Theodore Roosevelt began to build an un-acknowledged empire. The author of “How to Hide an Empire,” Daniel Limmerwahr, explained that in 1888-89, we engaged Spain in war and took over Puerto Rico, Guam, and later Hawaii and American Samoa. We also had a very bloody war for possession of the Philippines where over 1.5 million Filipinos were killed. The borders of the United States of America’s lower 48 States only lasted for three years before we expanded.
Our political leaders were very careful, however, in that the non-white residents of the majority of these conquered islands were given only limited rights by the United States government. We now had a country that was an empire, ruled by white people, but not a country ruled by representative government.
Our leaders didn’t want the new residents to have voting privileges. The acknowledgment of white supremacy was quietly brushed under the rug, and the people who lived in the territories were and still are relegated to the shadows.
The hopeful news about all of this is we are seeing what we had complacently over-looked in the past and are beginning to address some of the root causes of this fear and hatred. Some have described the current situation as similar to a supernova in that this approach to governing is shining brightly before it burns out.
Someday, we might finally become a country of, by, and for the people of all races, religions, creeds and countries of origin.
A personal note: I had one grandfather who, in his youth, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and the Shrine and another who was a repressed Italian immigrant. Pick one. I’m just trying to figure out where all of this hatred and fear lives to try to make things better for my grandchildren.
