Our White Grandfathers
By Leo Brown
The Iraq War is over, and many troops will become veterans after years of fighting. President Obama points out that his grandfather's generation returned from World War II "to form the backbone of the largest middle class in history." But why would we expect this to happen today?
65 years ago, America stood tall upon the shoulders of the disenfranchised and silenced. Schools across the nation were segregated. The women who sustained our industry during the war were hustled back to the kitchen. Jackie Robinson had yet to break Major League Baseball's color barrier. Japanese internment camps were just shutting their doors.
While inequality, inequity and institutional cronyism still plague our society, we have made some progress. However, this progress has left us facing a pickle that many have yet to acknowledge, let alone swallow. Because while greater opportunity has expanded America's overall potential, when you divide up our output somewhat equally, there is less for the formerly privileged. Even releasing the income of the super-rich would not change this, though it would surely help, if you factor in the bill that's about to slam our Social Security coffers.
Our higher education system is a telling case of the changes America has seen. The GI bill was crucial to the success of our grandfathers' generation, and current GI initiatives provide veterans with needed educational opportunities. But armed with bachelor's degrees, will these young men and women contribute more than the millions of unemployed college graduates? Only as a result of tax incentives for hiring veterans. And today, because college degrees are available to so many students instead of only the lucky few, a ticket to the middle class costs thousands. No longer do complimentary high school degrees pave the way to a reliable job and enough income to support a family. Many Americans can borrow to afford a BA, but we know where this strategy tends to leaves them.
We cannot realistically hold ourselves to our white grandfathers' standards, and nor should we aspire to them. If we hope to achieve a culture of equal opportunity, we'll have to give up some of the prizes enjoyed by the bullies of generations past. This means that an average white kid college graduate, the sort that might have grown up to pull the strings of society, will be lucky to get a job as a secretary.
This is equality.
I just saw this on fb yesterday, and this post made me think back to it immediately.
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Scary and sad.
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