The Racism That's Emerged In This Latest Presidential Campaign (Charlie Rose)

I woke up this Friday morning and caught a bit of the end of the Charlie Rose show.  There I saw Doris Kearns-Goodwin, Cokie Roberts, Walter Isaacson and Kurt Anderson discuss with Charlie Rose what might be taken away from this election.  Some excellent points were made.  Others not so excellent.

The best was that we, today, are in a technology revolution.   The effects of this revolution are no less profound than were those of the industrial revolution; especially, on how it impacts American workers and, in fact, workers throughout the world.  Not all good paying jobs went overseas.  But, undoubtedly some of the worst jobs did go overseas.  Just as agriculture, in Andrew Jackson's day, accounted for roughly 80% of our GDP, the industrial jobs in time began to made up a large  portion of our GDP.  These jobs are now giving way to service jobs and jobs in healthcare.

The effect of this on America's workers is almost as awful as the as the industrial revolution was on workers of that day.  Ultimately, these revolution greatly improve the quality of everyone's lives, but they are hell on the workers when they are in the process of taking place.

What do we tell our workers?  That we are going to retrain them?  Do you really expect to retrain workers in their late 40's and early 50's.  We must find and establish programs to help these workers, but it is not the intention of this blog posting to make such suggestions here and now.  Rather it is to point out what happens when such changes take place.

Racism and anti-Semitism  (closely allied phenomena) are likely to arise.  People find it convenient to scape goat someone, or some group, for their unhappiness.  After the Civil War, these unworthy people, the blacks -- unworthy in the eyes of the lower class -- were taking away their livelihood.  It wasn't fair.  Who were these blacks to strive for jobs that weren't available even to whites?  Add to that,  blacks could go to a college and generally get a scholarship through affirmative action. These routes to a higher education are generally unavailable to whites.  Turn on your TV and what do you see?   You see more black people reading the weather reports and commenting on news channels.  And, what of the black kids from the family of a wealthy automobile distributor, or from the family of a successful liquor distributor.  Aren't they also getting scholarships simply because their color?  And, then you have the Jews, people who always seem able to push their way to the head of the line.

What I find surprising is that while we have both racism and anti-Semitism.  They are currently at  a low level.  Nevertheless, exceptions exist.  College campuses are one such exception.  Here you can now find rampant anti-Semitism.  This, however, is fueled largely by pro-Palestinian activists and left oriented instructors and students.  Such campus activists are often well funded and can make life pretty awful for Jewish students.

Blacks, on the other hand find relatively few on-campus displays of racist hostility on American campuses.  Nevertheless, among some students, anti-black sentiments do exist.

Is there racism?  Of course, but not nearly what it once was.   As regards anti-Semitism, this has reemerged.

Some would dispute what was noted above.  Such dissenters are likely to include protesters who have met in large cities for the last three nights to break store window and set cars afire.