Anonymous wrote:I think that some of these things seem useless, but you just never know who you are reaching. For example, I’d previously taken the attitude that I would never change the minds of older generations because they were raised a certain way and it was just too late for them. However, I have been able to have productive conversations with a family member in their 60s over the past few years and I do think she has opened her eyes and mind more than she would have. I’m not sure if that will actually translate to anything tangible, but if we could educate more and more people, than some of everyday, not-so-blatant racism that occurs may start to lessen.
In terms of politics, I think voting can/will make a difference. So many white Americans have justified voting conservative (fiscal conservative/social liberal!) because we no longer have laws that are overtly racist as we did before the Civil Rights movement. Therefore we told ourselves racism was on it’s way out, and maybe an older white lady clutched her purse when she walked by a black man, but that wasn’t something we could fix. What these past few years have shown us with cops killing black men and women is that we HAVE to fix it because it’s costing lives.
For a variety of reasons, we believed that racism wasn’t as big of a problem as we are seeing now. Education isn’t just a buzzword. This is like AA, where admitting you have a problem is the first step. How many years have we denied there was a problem? So what you can do as a white person is 1) stop denying it and 2) examine your own life and how you might need to change it. It might not be the same answer for everyone. It might be raising your kids differently, or being more conscious of your social interactions, or correcting situations you encounter. It might be voting differently. It might be donating to causes you didn’t know existed. It might be admitting that you yourself have done racist things before and vowing to be better.
You can’t fix this overnight. But don’t just give up because of that.
people need good jobs that pay a living wage.
african americans, along with other US workers, have been screwed by the educated elite who mandate overwhelming immigration of low skilled workers. wages have been flat for a generation.
liberals need to go back to focusing on US workers first.
if we cannot control illegal immigration, we cannot sustain our national interest in legal immigration. Those who come here illegally, and those who hire them, will destroy the credibility of our immigration policies and their implementation. In the course of that, I fear, they will destroy our commitment to immigration itself.
Barbara Jordan. when democrats were the party of the US worker.