White America’s ‘Broken Heart’ by Charles M. Blow

[kpete]

................

America has a gauzy, romanticized version of its history that is largely fiction. According to that mythology, America rose to greatness by sheer ruggedness, ingenuity and hard work. It ignores or sidelines the tremendous human suffering of African slaves that fueled that financial growth, and the blood spilled and dubious treaties signed with Native Americans that fueled its geographic growth. It ignores that the prosperity of some Americans always hinged on the oppression of other Americans.

Much of America’s past is the story of white people benefiting from a system that white people designed and maintained, which increased their chances of success as it suppressed those same chances in other groups. Those systems persist to this day in some disturbing ways, but the current, vociferous naming and challenging of those systems, the placing of the lamp of truth near the seesaw of privilege and oppression, has provoked a profound sense of discomfort and even anger.

...........

Indeed, the current urgency about inequality as an issue is really about how some white Americans are coming to live an experience that many minorities in this country have long lived — structural inequity has leapt the racial barrier — and that the legacy to which they fully assumed they were heirs is increasingly beyond their grasp.

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the rest:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/opinion/white-americas-broken-heart.html?_r=0

[annabanana]

1. These people can't remember much before the 50's and most have

little interest in finding out how aberrant those years were. These white people (my folks among them) were in clover.

Post WWII, every other major manufacturing base had been destroyed, so the US (except for Pearl Harbor..untouched) was the shopkeeper for the world. There was a bloated job market, so the returning GI's (bolstered by the G.I. Bill) found work that paid enough for the single family home, white picket fence, at-home Mom and a vacation once a year.

Thinking that this was the norm, and the very picture of the American Dream.. now they ache for days that were dearly bought and that will not return.

[Mr Dixon]

4. also

Not to mention, that a whole hell of a lot of non-whites served in the same war and we’re denied the same benefits that they had earned. This was not a local problem this was a national level event that was written out of history.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[lunasun]

3. US Whites may fear they will be treated the way they treated others for so long .Not only a broken

heart,,but perhaps a scared soul thinking it can come back on them now.

All the reactions to equality and changing demographics may be based on how they always viewed the others and not thinking others could focus on inclusion more than in the past

Or maybe they are just like spoiled little tots who dont play well with others . Had the ball too long not going to pass it to the next kid no way its in their hand so its their ball which is more important than the sport being played and don't care how the score or game end as long as they can keep the ball.

either way the reaction is a hindrance to our country's future