“many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.” This is the concept that the GOP is fighting so hard to obfuscate for the Republican voter. If enough people understand this it will destroy the GOP. The GOP have no idea how to solve America’s problems, they are stuck in the last century.
Their base is aging out of the electorate and soon there will not be enough Republican voters to support them.
The best post this year, Professor Reich. I remember the March on Washington, Dr, King's inspirational speech, his voice ringing across the Nation, I was already engaged in the Civil Rights movement, getting out the vote, registering voters, marching, and anything I could do. I remember the pride and elation we felt when the Voting Right Act passed. When all my fellow students could be accepted as Americans. Then came the Vietnam War Protests. We tried to stay involved in both but as the war raged and male students would disappear from classes, protesting the war seemed more important than what we thought we'd already won. I've often wondered if Johnson and Nixon increased the war to hold back the Civil Rights wins. The damned war was illegitimate as much as the Iraqi War. Our own government lied to us and the press in both wars. But the bleating sheep always listened and insisted it was their patriotic duty to fight wars - legitimate or shameful. Now I worry about my dark skinned, beautiful granddaughter and her delightful family. We should have kept on fighting for civil rights and never stopped.
"I look forward to the day when my children will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character". Those words resonate with me. I was young when Martin Luther King made that speech. I watched it on television. I also watched what happened at the Selma Street Bridge. When our school was integrated, I remember moms of my friends with signs standing along the bus route that brought the first black students to our school. I couldn't understand the anger and hatred that was palpable in the air. We lived in a small wood frame house close to the "quarters" where the blacks of our towns lived. I learned that it was called the "quarters" from back in the slave days. I had many black friends and played at their houses and they played at mine. My mother was ahead of her time as far as being "liberal"! She was so wise. She explained to me that people were scared of change and that what was happening was a big change. As I grew older and learned more, I understood what so many black Americans have to endure every single day of their lives. The unfairness and just plain hate makes my skin crawl. At this point in my life, I can relate with the struggles that Black people have endured for so long. I struggle constantly to make ends meet living on a very fixed income. But there is hope in my soul because I know that if all of us stagnating down here on the bottom rungs of the ladder came together and began to fight for the America that Martin Luther King, John Lewis, John F. Kennedy, Harvey Milk, Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and so many others spoke so eloquently and powerfully about, you would see the America that stands around the world as a beacon of freedom, equality and acceptance for everyone.
"Meanwhile, white people at or near the top have gained so much wealth they’ve been able to effectively secede from the rest of America into wealthy enclaves. They don’t any longer see the struggles of the bottom half. Being rich in America today means not coming across anyone who isn’t."
I remember growing up in the 50's/60's in a small town in western PA where doctors, lawyers, and millworkers all lived in the same neighborhood, which was all white. Now, the wealthy white people have moved into "gated communities", but many lower class neighborhoods have become more integrated, at least slightly.
I think the suburban, car-driven landscape of America has done a lot to socially disintegrate America. Your observation is right on.
I heartily agree with most everything Robert laid out.... EXCEPT this paragraph: "The average income of Black households, after growing through the 1960s and 1970s, seemed to hit a ceiling. It is now around 65 percent of that of white households, where it’s been for some 40 years." The way this reads, it sounds like Black households are being deliberately targeted to stagnate their incomes. But in that same 40 years, the wages of blue collar workers -- and many lower echelon white collar workers as well, have had their wages stagnating (when adjusted for inflation).. That is, pretty much below Wealthy have about same buying power that they had 40 years ago.
I was fortunate to attend college when it was actually affordable. (1970-75) Tuition was less than $300 per semester. These days, the only way most students can "afford" to attend college is to bury themselves in debt that will take _decades_ to pay off. With few assurances that their degree **will** land them a better-paying job. In this regard, "getting a better Education" has been stripped away from most anyone that is NOT Wealthy.
Looking back over the years, and comparing them to NOW, superficially is seems like We are doing better than We were doing 20-30-40 years ago. Now We have computers, game consoles, cell phones, cable-TV, nicer cars that aren't all rusted out, longer life expectancy, and rarely do most of Us ever have to go to bed hungry because rent was due and Mom had to skimp on the groceries. But it's an illusion, a deliberate one, made to make Us complacent and less likely to start building barricades. (The old political phrase is "bread and circuses". Keep Us entertained and fewer people will turn out for the protests. So _some_ things ARE cheap. But the things that matter? Robert mentioned the difference in household savings between Blacks and Whites. But what he didn't mention is just how much debt those households are simultaneously carrying. Theoretically, 67.4% of households occupy their own homes. But when you factor in the mortgages they're still paying off..... Added to the debt for Higher Education. And if there is a major Medical catastrophe... The #1 reason for declaring bankruptcy is because of major Medical bills from traumatic injuries or lingering diseases. And remember just how many millions of Americans had their homes foreclosed during the Great Recession.
"The more things Change, the more they stay the same." Our lives have been given a nice shiny coat of paint. But underneath that paint, We still find the same old crap that has always been there. For EVERYONE who isn't Wealthy.
I am going to say in the 1970s and 1980s the big lie was told by the oligarchs that Americans did not want jobs in convenience stores or construction jobs. And some of the big manufacturing companies they wouldn't even hire black American engineers or black American technicians. I know this for a fact because I saw it happen and I was in those industries as a woman trying to get work as a technician. Before I finish school becoming a technician I tried to get a job while I had a little baby girl at a convenience store. I passed the interview but I did not get hired because I'm an American. And the person that was the father of my child was also trying to get a job as a convenience store worker and he was a Vietnam veteran. I want people to read what I said because I want you to understand that this is not just black and white this has a lot to do with the lie that we've all been told and so many people believe that BS. It is the people who run these companies and who are managers who do this crap to all of us. It is wrong and it has to stop and if the American people don't stand up and understand about what's going on here then we will lose and that's what's happening because we're allowing ourselves to vote for these creeps.
The fear of a revolution must be felt indeed by the oligarchs. Why not acknowledge that prosperity shared is prosperity secured for all. Clinging on to power and wealth will become more difficult in the end and the solutions will become more dramatic
I once heard a man say 3 words, not sure if they were his words or someone else's, but they were so profound I haven't forgotten them, " Awareness precedes unity.". For me, his words meant learning about the suffering of others is the awareness which awakens us to our common cause. I absolutely agree Dr. Reich that unity tremendously scares the big rascals, however I would add that, therefore the necessary preceding awareness does also. They purge books, curriculums. academics, liberals, etc because they are afraid that we might identify with the suffering of each other, help one another locate the origin of it, and unite in great numbers to change it, which the big rascals' big egos perceive as the greatest threat to their power.
“One of my mother’s friends, visiting at the time, called Dr. King a ‘troublemaker.’ That was the last I ever saw of her.
“He was a troublemaker, in the sense that the late civil rights leader and Congressman John Lewis used the term: He was a maker of ‘good trouble.’”
The writer Peter Finley Dunne wrote of journalists that their job was to “comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.” I’d argue that it’s every good citizen’s job. Dr King surely saw it as his.
I take it that "a multiracial, multiethnic political coalition" means a pressure group for fairer wealth distribution. That may be a good idea, but I would suggest that the priority in the next 18 months is to save American democracy itself, given that any political force that could split the Democrat vote could also enable Trump to return to power.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke 60 years ago and a country listened. The world was a troubled place back then and to me it has only gotten worse. Great men were being killed in threes. It was a time of mourning for hope itself lay bleeding in our streets. Have we learned anything since that period so filled with sorrow, I wonder.
I can definitely relate to this sentiment. Although I was five years old during the March on Washington, I've heard stories about it from my family and learned about it in school. It's interesting to think about how different things were back then and how far we've come since then. However, as you mentioned, it's clear that there is still much work to be done when it comes to achieving true equality and justice. It can be discouraging at times, but it's important to keep trying and pushing for change. I hope that someday we can create a society where everyone is truly valued and treated with respect.
"With wealth and power now more concentrated at the top of America than at any time in the last 60 years, the only way the bottom half can advance is if the poor and working class join together with what’s left of the middle class in a multiracial, multiethnic political coalition."
Even that will not suffice. What is needed is doing so across borders - something MLK Jr could barely hope to dream of 60 years ago, but in these days where our worlds flow around the world faster than they do across our own towns - we MAY be able to achieve...if we keep daring and dreaming.
I need my Black sisters and brothers to prosper. I need my Mexican and Canadian sisters and brothers to prosper. If we do not prosper together, an American power broker can exploit and arbitrage every opportunity that emerges - and if none do emerge here, do so with China, or Africa, or any other corner of the world anywhere. Every piece of poverty makes me poorer. Every person starving elsewhere is a chance for avarice to enslave and abuse.
Martin Luther King Jr had the right dream for the 20th century. But our 21st century dreams must build on the biggest pieces of his dreams - labor unions that cross language groups, activism that honors utterly distinct contexts - identities that stretch and expand to cover experiences.
The example of the "ladder" with too many people trying to get on at the bottom and too many of the middle rungs missing; we can see how black people and other minorities are impacted by this lack of social mobility more even than formerly middle class whites. It's truly a shame. However, social mobility is at least partially economic mobility. What we should all remember is that Corporations are the functional arms of global capitalism. Trump knows this but his base does not. What they need to realize is that every time a corporation exports a good job to a person in a low-labor-cost venue overseas, they effectively import a bad job (or no job) into one of our heartland communities. I wish the MAGA types could get enough sense to penetrate the media hype that blames it all on people coming here. Get real folks - it's not the people coming here that are taking away jobs! It's the jobs being taken away by corporations, and your favorite uncle Trump is behind the cover story that blinds his base to the reality that they are being taken to the cleaners by the same people they are voting into power!
How about HEALTH CARE FOR ALL? This is often the reason people seek work. As we age, we fear dying in poverty, because ALL will be taken from us, no matter how wealthy! Sad commentary on a once great country!
I agree with everything said in the article. However, you make no mention of how immigration of people from other cultures legally and illegally has profoundly affected wages and job opportunities for both white and black workers.
“many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.” This is the concept that the GOP is fighting so hard to obfuscate for the Republican voter. If enough people understand this it will destroy the GOP. The GOP have no idea how to solve America’s problems, they are stuck in the last century.
Their base is aging out of the electorate and soon there will not be enough Republican voters to support them.
That will be a good day.
The best post this year, Professor Reich. I remember the March on Washington, Dr, King's inspirational speech, his voice ringing across the Nation, I was already engaged in the Civil Rights movement, getting out the vote, registering voters, marching, and anything I could do. I remember the pride and elation we felt when the Voting Right Act passed. When all my fellow students could be accepted as Americans. Then came the Vietnam War Protests. We tried to stay involved in both but as the war raged and male students would disappear from classes, protesting the war seemed more important than what we thought we'd already won. I've often wondered if Johnson and Nixon increased the war to hold back the Civil Rights wins. The damned war was illegitimate as much as the Iraqi War. Our own government lied to us and the press in both wars. But the bleating sheep always listened and insisted it was their patriotic duty to fight wars - legitimate or shameful. Now I worry about my dark skinned, beautiful granddaughter and her delightful family. We should have kept on fighting for civil rights and never stopped.
"I look forward to the day when my children will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character". Those words resonate with me. I was young when Martin Luther King made that speech. I watched it on television. I also watched what happened at the Selma Street Bridge. When our school was integrated, I remember moms of my friends with signs standing along the bus route that brought the first black students to our school. I couldn't understand the anger and hatred that was palpable in the air. We lived in a small wood frame house close to the "quarters" where the blacks of our towns lived. I learned that it was called the "quarters" from back in the slave days. I had many black friends and played at their houses and they played at mine. My mother was ahead of her time as far as being "liberal"! She was so wise. She explained to me that people were scared of change and that what was happening was a big change. As I grew older and learned more, I understood what so many black Americans have to endure every single day of their lives. The unfairness and just plain hate makes my skin crawl. At this point in my life, I can relate with the struggles that Black people have endured for so long. I struggle constantly to make ends meet living on a very fixed income. But there is hope in my soul because I know that if all of us stagnating down here on the bottom rungs of the ladder came together and began to fight for the America that Martin Luther King, John Lewis, John F. Kennedy, Harvey Milk, Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and so many others spoke so eloquently and powerfully about, you would see the America that stands around the world as a beacon of freedom, equality and acceptance for everyone.
"Meanwhile, white people at or near the top have gained so much wealth they’ve been able to effectively secede from the rest of America into wealthy enclaves. They don’t any longer see the struggles of the bottom half. Being rich in America today means not coming across anyone who isn’t."
I remember growing up in the 50's/60's in a small town in western PA where doctors, lawyers, and millworkers all lived in the same neighborhood, which was all white. Now, the wealthy white people have moved into "gated communities", but many lower class neighborhoods have become more integrated, at least slightly.
I think the suburban, car-driven landscape of America has done a lot to socially disintegrate America. Your observation is right on.
I heartily agree with most everything Robert laid out.... EXCEPT this paragraph: "The average income of Black households, after growing through the 1960s and 1970s, seemed to hit a ceiling. It is now around 65 percent of that of white households, where it’s been for some 40 years." The way this reads, it sounds like Black households are being deliberately targeted to stagnate their incomes. But in that same 40 years, the wages of blue collar workers -- and many lower echelon white collar workers as well, have had their wages stagnating (when adjusted for inflation).. That is, pretty much below Wealthy have about same buying power that they had 40 years ago.
I was fortunate to attend college when it was actually affordable. (1970-75) Tuition was less than $300 per semester. These days, the only way most students can "afford" to attend college is to bury themselves in debt that will take _decades_ to pay off. With few assurances that their degree **will** land them a better-paying job. In this regard, "getting a better Education" has been stripped away from most anyone that is NOT Wealthy.
Looking back over the years, and comparing them to NOW, superficially is seems like We are doing better than We were doing 20-30-40 years ago. Now We have computers, game consoles, cell phones, cable-TV, nicer cars that aren't all rusted out, longer life expectancy, and rarely do most of Us ever have to go to bed hungry because rent was due and Mom had to skimp on the groceries. But it's an illusion, a deliberate one, made to make Us complacent and less likely to start building barricades. (The old political phrase is "bread and circuses". Keep Us entertained and fewer people will turn out for the protests. So _some_ things ARE cheap. But the things that matter? Robert mentioned the difference in household savings between Blacks and Whites. But what he didn't mention is just how much debt those households are simultaneously carrying. Theoretically, 67.4% of households occupy their own homes. But when you factor in the mortgages they're still paying off..... Added to the debt for Higher Education. And if there is a major Medical catastrophe... The #1 reason for declaring bankruptcy is because of major Medical bills from traumatic injuries or lingering diseases. And remember just how many millions of Americans had their homes foreclosed during the Great Recession.
"The more things Change, the more they stay the same." Our lives have been given a nice shiny coat of paint. But underneath that paint, We still find the same old crap that has always been there. For EVERYONE who isn't Wealthy.
I am going to say in the 1970s and 1980s the big lie was told by the oligarchs that Americans did not want jobs in convenience stores or construction jobs. And some of the big manufacturing companies they wouldn't even hire black American engineers or black American technicians. I know this for a fact because I saw it happen and I was in those industries as a woman trying to get work as a technician. Before I finish school becoming a technician I tried to get a job while I had a little baby girl at a convenience store. I passed the interview but I did not get hired because I'm an American. And the person that was the father of my child was also trying to get a job as a convenience store worker and he was a Vietnam veteran. I want people to read what I said because I want you to understand that this is not just black and white this has a lot to do with the lie that we've all been told and so many people believe that BS. It is the people who run these companies and who are managers who do this crap to all of us. It is wrong and it has to stop and if the American people don't stand up and understand about what's going on here then we will lose and that's what's happening because we're allowing ourselves to vote for these creeps.
The fear of a revolution must be felt indeed by the oligarchs. Why not acknowledge that prosperity shared is prosperity secured for all. Clinging on to power and wealth will become more difficult in the end and the solutions will become more dramatic
I once heard a man say 3 words, not sure if they were his words or someone else's, but they were so profound I haven't forgotten them, " Awareness precedes unity.". For me, his words meant learning about the suffering of others is the awareness which awakens us to our common cause. I absolutely agree Dr. Reich that unity tremendously scares the big rascals, however I would add that, therefore the necessary preceding awareness does also. They purge books, curriculums. academics, liberals, etc because they are afraid that we might identify with the suffering of each other, help one another locate the origin of it, and unite in great numbers to change it, which the big rascals' big egos perceive as the greatest threat to their power.
“One of my mother’s friends, visiting at the time, called Dr. King a ‘troublemaker.’ That was the last I ever saw of her.
“He was a troublemaker, in the sense that the late civil rights leader and Congressman John Lewis used the term: He was a maker of ‘good trouble.’”
The writer Peter Finley Dunne wrote of journalists that their job was to “comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.” I’d argue that it’s every good citizen’s job. Dr King surely saw it as his.
I take it that "a multiracial, multiethnic political coalition" means a pressure group for fairer wealth distribution. That may be a good idea, but I would suggest that the priority in the next 18 months is to save American democracy itself, given that any political force that could split the Democrat vote could also enable Trump to return to power.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke 60 years ago and a country listened. The world was a troubled place back then and to me it has only gotten worse. Great men were being killed in threes. It was a time of mourning for hope itself lay bleeding in our streets. Have we learned anything since that period so filled with sorrow, I wonder.
I can definitely relate to this sentiment. Although I was five years old during the March on Washington, I've heard stories about it from my family and learned about it in school. It's interesting to think about how different things were back then and how far we've come since then. However, as you mentioned, it's clear that there is still much work to be done when it comes to achieving true equality and justice. It can be discouraging at times, but it's important to keep trying and pushing for change. I hope that someday we can create a society where everyone is truly valued and treated with respect.
"With wealth and power now more concentrated at the top of America than at any time in the last 60 years, the only way the bottom half can advance is if the poor and working class join together with what’s left of the middle class in a multiracial, multiethnic political coalition."
Even that will not suffice. What is needed is doing so across borders - something MLK Jr could barely hope to dream of 60 years ago, but in these days where our worlds flow around the world faster than they do across our own towns - we MAY be able to achieve...if we keep daring and dreaming.
I need my Black sisters and brothers to prosper. I need my Mexican and Canadian sisters and brothers to prosper. If we do not prosper together, an American power broker can exploit and arbitrage every opportunity that emerges - and if none do emerge here, do so with China, or Africa, or any other corner of the world anywhere. Every piece of poverty makes me poorer. Every person starving elsewhere is a chance for avarice to enslave and abuse.
Martin Luther King Jr had the right dream for the 20th century. But our 21st century dreams must build on the biggest pieces of his dreams - labor unions that cross language groups, activism that honors utterly distinct contexts - identities that stretch and expand to cover experiences.
The example of the "ladder" with too many people trying to get on at the bottom and too many of the middle rungs missing; we can see how black people and other minorities are impacted by this lack of social mobility more even than formerly middle class whites. It's truly a shame. However, social mobility is at least partially economic mobility. What we should all remember is that Corporations are the functional arms of global capitalism. Trump knows this but his base does not. What they need to realize is that every time a corporation exports a good job to a person in a low-labor-cost venue overseas, they effectively import a bad job (or no job) into one of our heartland communities. I wish the MAGA types could get enough sense to penetrate the media hype that blames it all on people coming here. Get real folks - it's not the people coming here that are taking away jobs! It's the jobs being taken away by corporations, and your favorite uncle Trump is behind the cover story that blinds his base to the reality that they are being taken to the cleaners by the same people they are voting into power!
How about HEALTH CARE FOR ALL? This is often the reason people seek work. As we age, we fear dying in poverty, because ALL will be taken from us, no matter how wealthy! Sad commentary on a once great country!
I agree with everything said in the article. However, you make no mention of how immigration of people from other cultures legally and illegally has profoundly affected wages and job opportunities for both white and black workers.