Racism, and not just against blacks, has been a cancer on American society since Jamestown. It is not only morally wrong, it is a severe handicap to both social and economic progress. Until whites as a whole, and others, recognize how stupid racism is, it will continue to plague America.
Should whites feel guilty? If they fail to recognize their inherent privilege in American society, then yes, at least a little bit. If they contribute to the prejudice themselves, then yes, a lot.
It will take a seismic change in attitude which may actually be coming with the younger generations, who seem to be ridding themselves of many of the old hatreds. Good luck, kids.
This from a 72yo white man whose best man, and best friend at the time, was a black man when I married my Filipina bride over 40 years ago.
People need to see people as individuals rather than members of a group.
9
"Trump’s narrative is: We real Americans (white) have to protect our culture from the alien (brown) who would weaken it."
Isn't that word "white" YOUR insertion? Does Trump really thinks that Ben Carson and Nikki Haley are not "real Americans"?
I am not pretending that nothing is wrong with Trump. He is surely the rudest man on the planet. But a recent target of his rudeness is John McCain, a white male and a Republican. I suspect that the majority of targets of his rudeness have been white males.
Anti-Trump distortions sell here at the New York Times. But they do prevent us from thinking.
For me the real problem with Trump is his alliance with Saudi Arabia, his hostility to Iran, his neglect of global warming and not "his racism" which is largely the invention of Democrats.
And Democrats, just because you believe it does not mean it is true.
6
The “opposing” narrative is true; the “Ben Franklin” narrative is false. We wiped out an entire continent of human beings, took their land and resources, and then exploited those resources with slave labor. This is the basis of American prosperity.
You bet there needs to be a reckoning.
Here is what must happen, at the very least:
All Native Americans, as well as blacks who can show that their families have been in America for 60 years or more should be given free college education at major universities or training at first-rate trade programs. They should all be guaranteed lifetime employment at at least triple the minimum wage. Not free money, free education and guaranteed employment.
This is the least we can do. These survivors (that is what they are, survivors of a Holocaust) should also be given counseling, therapy, addiction rehabilitation, and housing credits.
We European whites have perpetrated a vast atrocity. It was begun by our forebears, and we benefit from it today. Even if we are second generation immigrants ourselves, we still live the benefits of this atrocity and enjoy the plunder (to use Ta Nahisi Coates’ word) and we must atone for it. It is our primary responsibility as a society.
If we fail to pay it, we will regret it, as certainly as a bottle thrown in the air will crash to the street in a thousand pieces.
9
Multiculturalism is an excellent way to start a civil war or at least civil strife: India/Pakistan, China/Tibet, Iraq, Syria, Israel/Palestine are just a few recent examples.
It just doesn't work, or, more precisely, there is a significant chance it will end in bloodshed.
Do you think we Americans are any better? If so, bless your pure little heart. And say hello to Santa when you see him.
9
Kudos to David Brooks for talking about race and managing to completely omit/ignore/forget the fact that the current occupier of the Oval Office questioned the birth certificate (!!!!!!) of his two-term predecessor - elected, by the way, without direct help from the Russian govt and some of its people. Next time we talk about assigning guilt to groups, I think you might want to remember that the painfully large group of idiots/racists/sycophants (and Republicans? is that the same thing?) who helped legitimize the current president by pushing that blatant lie.
7
The story doesn’t have to be one or the other... David Brooks should go see “Hamilton”:
https://www.allmusicals.com/lyrics/hamilton/alexanderhamilton.amp.htm
" Trump’s narrative is: We real Americans (white) have to protect our culture from the alien (brown) who would weaken it."
This is exactly correct. Trump has emboldened racists and white supremacists across the country. Racial hatred and violence spiked when Trump took office.
It is unbelievable that anyone who calls themselves "Christian" would support this type of behavior
3
If we can transition from the 'white christian' melting pot ( such an oxymoron) to a brown multi-cultural humanist melting pot then there is a chance.
The anchor we need to shed now is the beliefs the followers of the Trump greed and exploitation and racism. It is an evil, banal yes, but present and destructive.
I’m haunted by that sentence in Lincoln’s second inaugural: “And the war came.” Nobody wanted it, but it came.
YOU'RE kidding, right, David? Big joke?
Lots of people wanted the war. Slaveholders, weapons manufacturers, cotton merchants, angry white men and women who wanted to oppress blacks- they all wanted war. Had they succeeded, they would have gotten exactly what they wanted- many long years living under a slave economy.
Come on, NYT, you can do better than this.
2
The discussion is confused because people relentlessly conflate guilt and shame. Guilt should be felt only by the guilty, but all who take pride in America's ideals and aspirations--and some of its achievements--should be deeply ashamed of its racist past, which is not dead. It's not even past.
That most Americans are ignorant of the degree to which historically its economic prosperity was built on racist foundations is shameful. If you recall or have seen pictures of the hateful, vitriolic opposition to civil rights marches in the 1960's by countrymen of the marchers and don't feel shame, there's something wrong with your idea of patriotism. And if you think a mere half century has buried racist feelings, you are a fool.
9
You make an excellent point when you confront the down side of our own form of civic Calvinism (which for you secular types has nothing to do with jeans).If we say that we are all stricken with the original sin of slavery and racism, and need racial reconciliation, is there a danger of painting entire groups with inherent negative immutable qualities?
Do we wrongly attribute the worst aspects of Trump's core to all or most white Americans, even those of us who abhor everything he is and stands for? History gives us the answer and it is horrifying. Yes, David negative and illiberal things happen (as you wrote) fast even if they do not go to Holocaust/Inquisition/ethnic cleansing levels. Attributing immutable negative characteristics to entire ethnic or racial groups must never be allowed to happen.
Your friend Eric sounds as if he has his work cut out for him. A reconciling loving temperament is the antidote to Trumpism but it won't be a short or easy slog.
2
This is peanuts!
There is a bigger conflagration that will destroy our democracy—and that fire is raging by anti-Semitic statements made in Halls of Congress for first time since the beginning of America.
Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and others have opened the Pandora's Box of anti-Semitism with their denigration of American Jews.
Their "tropes" have spread to the nation with anti-Semitic hate crimes up 57% in New York alone.
This is how the slippery slope eventually leading to "The Final Solution" begins.
Yes, "someone did something" and the American way of life is being diminished by them as well.
6
"Trump’s narrative is: We real Americans (white) have to protect our culture from the alien (brown) who would weaken it."
No, Mr. Brooks, actually, the above is not "Trump's narrative," no more than Planned Parenthood' s narrative is "Let's kill a newborn baby today."
I know you are the "house conservative," and you must get along every night with Shields, but you do not have to demonize Trump for the benefit of the NYT.
For me, as opposed to when I voted for Barack Obama twice, Trump represents a slightly looney billionaire who actually keeps his campaign promises and can right this ship of state before the next professional politician, like a Hillary or Joe, takes over and does the same ole mouthing platitudes and doing absolutely nothing to make things better.
"Making things better" does not mean focusing right now on "transgender bathrooms" or banning plastic shopping bags from Chinese restaurants.
"Making things better," if not "great again," also does not involve "white privilege," or the other banal expressions of political contempt for Trump voters or for a sizable portion of the populace which are people of no color.
"Making things better" is keeping commitments around the globe, moving our embassy to Jerusalem. As promised by a dozen presidents and never done. Like the promise to bring jobs to the inner city, which Trump does every day. Or going after the opioids, giving hope to factory towns, and taking care of vets.
That's Trump's "real narrative."
6
Many commenters have taken umbrage at Brooks’ use of the word “but” in describing Eric Liu as a progressive with a conciliatory temperament. They need look no further for the appropriateness than here in the numerous ad hominem, rude, insulting, dismissive and, yes, racist comments. The humanitarian goals of the progressive agenda do not excuse this intolerance and verbal abuse by too many of its fiercest advocates.
5
Yes, Trump has changed the narrative on immigration, and it is about the only thing I agree with him on-----the subject, not his methods.
First, let me say that I despise Trump, the goons he hires, and all he stands for. BUT he did bring an issue to the forefront that has been swept under the rug for years.
Now may be a great time for Democrats to "do a deal" with Trump and the Republicans on immigration reform.
4
"An enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament"? As opposed to the usual enlightened Seattle progressives with their divisive, hateful temperaments? SOMEBODY has a lot reconciling to do, all right.
1
David is infuriating - he's smart, educated, has influence, knows better, yet with every column he continues to contort himself like a pretzel to avoid acknowledging the obvious fact that his cherished Republican Party has brought us to this. David, this is a national emergency and you can make a difference - put your country ahead of loyalty to a party that no longer exists.
3
It is doubtful that America will ever come to grips with AN AMERICAN DILEMMA.
I thought this was going to be a pretty good article until Brooks, once again, started telling me what he thought liberals believed, and spun a tale that didn’t resemble what I thought at all.
2
Our divided nation stirred up by racist Trump is why Putin supported Trump to be president. Trump is a white supremacist and has been all his adult life. Trump led the Birtherism campaign claiming Obama was not born in the USA and was not a legally president. Trump admires Putin, Xi and Kim brutal dictators as he yearns to be one and Barr wants to help in that endeavor. Xi and Putin are now uniting to push America down on the world stage and Trump is no doubt calling to apologize for our military and reassuring Kim of his devotion . The biggest enemy our democracy faces his Trump/Barr and their "Imperial Presidency" aka dictatorship light.
4
We are all hyphenated Americans. Unfortunately, though, in recent times people have come to view the adjective before the hyphen as their primary identity rather than the proper noun, American. Unless we have a consensus on what it should mean to be an American in the present, there is no way we can equalize and advance the status and opportunities of all the modifier identities.
The past is certainly relevant to the present, and it is in the present that we envision the future. However, all views of the past are subject to the Rashomon effect, and the present these days has most people viewing it as a big Rorschach blot. Meanwhile, the future is always aspirational.
Brooks' description of the Franklin narrative, appended to include all the adjectives describing hyphenated-Americans, is a worthy aspirational goal, one that can only be obtained by an honest understanding of what the past was, how it evolved into the present, and then having an honest discussion about the best way forward, not by having a competition of aggregated IOUs.
I am glad Brooks noted Original Sin, a concept of stultifying oppression whether used in a religious or political context. I am sure many readers have personal experience with the former. Charles Blow's column, "It’s All Rooted in White Panic" is an excellent example of the latter. As the aforementioned Benjamin Franklin keenly observed, "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."
8
The road to redemption a path sometimes difficult to find impossible to follow. Share the hope.
2
If Mr. Brooks is haunted by one line of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, he should be inspired by another: “With firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us go forward together to bind up the nation’s wounds.”
1
“Moreover, he is always pushing toward an American creed that moves beyond both the white monoculture and the fracturing multiculturalism. He is always pushing toward a national story large enough to contain all the hybrid voices.”
What, pray tell, is the distinction between “the … multiculturalism” and “the hybrid voices?”
For that matter, hybrid of what predecessors?
Mr. Brooks is increasingly the author of feel-good word salads.
3
"Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive BUT (emphasis mine) with a reconciling, loving temperament."
"Brooks is a conservative columnist, BUT with a distinctly unoppressive approach to race relationships."
That little, unnecessary three-letter word...all by its lonesome self... is the distillation of why Brooks' conversion feels false to so many of us. Because - he pre-damns the large majority of progressives, who generally have a reconciling temperament. As I did most conservatives - who are not necessarily white supremacists, for the record.
3
Let me address those who claim innocence:
It's in the small print.
And most of you know it.
So quit your bellyaching
And Suck It Up
Nice column Mr, Brooks
1
David,
It's good that young David read about Benjamin Franklin.
Did young David ever read Jefferson? " I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever."
Did young David ever read Lincoln: "If God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'"
The story has always been in plain view, for those with eyes to see it.
2
"Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament."
Why the qualifier "but?" It is not that unusual to be both an enlightened progressive and have a reconciling, loving temperament at the same time.
I know many people who fit that description.
6
Thanks for this lovely column, David. I have a lot of hope when I listen to our wonderful young people who are stepping forward as leaders. I look forward to searching out Eric Liu's sermons.
3
At age 75, I am SO tired of being told that I should feel guilty about everything I was taught and have known in my life. To see our Founding Fathers as "oppressors". Of seeing everything though some sort of the vision of the "Cult of the Victim".
This kind of thinking is toxic and does NO ONE any good.
14
Even if the truth hurts, it can still set you free.
2
Immigration is making America whiter.
Most immigrants are Hispanic. Hispanic Americans can be of any race or mixture of races but most are white. Census Bureau data shows 26.7 million of the nation’s 50.5 million Hispanics are white.
Intermarriage between non-Hispanic whites and Hispanic whites is so common that it is unlikely a distinction will be based between the two ethnic groups by 2060.
In Texas, no one speaks of whites vs. Hispanics because most Hispanic Texans are white. Even federal courts in Texas refer to “Anglos” and “Hispanics.” (The term Anglo is applied to all non-Hispanic white Texans, regardless of ancestry.)
Table 6: Hispanic or Latino Population by Type of Origins and Race: 2010
https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-04.pdf
Census Bureau data shows the United States is currently 76.6 percent white, up from 75.1 percent in 2000.
The Census Bureau projects that whites will make up 77.5 percent of the U.S. population in 2060, but this is based on an expected influx of immigrants from Asia that may or may not take place due to immigration reforms. If the anticipated Asian influx does not occur, whites will be an even larger percent of the population in 2060.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045217
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p25-1143.pdf
9
William, unfortunately, you make sense and, thus, no one will pay attention, because your observations/analysis can't be reduced to a bumper sticker.
6
What a crock.
The people who make race an issue are people like you, Brooks, who like to call anyone you disagree with "racist."
It's not racist to believe a nation needs to defend its borders.
6
BD, most people violating our immigration laws are overstaying their visas after flying in not breaching the southern border physically. if you truly cared about illegal immigration, you'd ask why is government failing to address that.
Meanwhile, Brooks did not even raise the topic of immigration. why did you!
2
The contemporary progressive liberal narrative of history is mostly unthinking parroting of critical theory. Mostly spread through liberal commentary in the media. How many opinion pieces have I read that used the term "the Other" in the past five years?
Look at some of the stuff the Times is even running today--like the piece advocating that the West open its doors to every backwater country because they were "exploited". When the fact is those places wouldn't even have electricity without the West (harsh, but true).
I personally see it as a false narrative, equivalent to propaganda. It's not quite as bad and obvious as Fox News, but it's qualitatively similar. And believe by pushing this narrative, the media is harming the unity of the nation.
That's why I don't mind the Trump rallying cry of "Fake News". I'm actually glad he's pointing out--however crudely--the liberal media bias.
11
I don't think so; not now or in the immediate or in the long term future. American conservatism and racism run so deep within our nation that as Malcolm X said of Kennedy's assassination, "The chickens are coming home to roost." It's great to be a pollyanna but a measure of realism denies its validity. As Donald Trump our leader would say, "Sad!".
3
To borrow a phrase, "Have you no sense of history, Mr. Brooks"
Beginning with the Dixiecrats (today's southern Republicans...) and continuing through Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, et al. Republican politics has featured racism/bigotry as its modus operandi. How many of these Republicans have you endorsed, praised?
Trump is just a logical extension...
2
It's easy to say I'm not a racist and look at what Trump's stirred up. You could spend your entire life believing you aren't a racist and condemning those who you think are--like Brook condemning Trump and others. Until a situation arises which tests you, you will never know for certain whether you are or aren't a racist. Even then, you could find ways to remain in denial.
Racism is based upon a belief about others and it can be so subtle that is is not recognized. I thought my father had gotten over his racism until his step-granddaughter married a black man. Nothing I could say could convince him that his disapproval was wrong.
1
America doesn't need "a moment of racial reconciliation." It's a process, a long, multi-generational process, not a miraculous Road-To-Damascus conversion experience. What America needs to that end are fewer overt racists -- push them out of the public square and back under their rocks -- and a President and right wing media that stop incessantly validating them for votes and ratings. We need to call out not each other's inevitable failings but deliberate race-baiting opportunism. Absent that, the rest of us can bumble along, making progress just fine, reconciling racial misconceptions and mistakes with our shared American ideals, without being told, left and right, how to think about each other and ourselves each step of the way.
4
For years, demographers have predicted the decline of the traditional white male power structure in America. Those predictions are now reality. And the rise of white supremacist hate speech is the sound of a group losing its grip on vast powers amassed over hundreds of years. Many on the right would rather destroy our country than cede that power. Trump and the new GOP are but grotesque symptoms of a dying old order.
4
The thing that bothers me in this article is the subtle inference that the story of multiculturalism is less than an ideal 'myth' of being an American.
The truth, unvarnished, is that America is a nation created by tough founders of an age where slavery and murder and displacement of Native Americans was OK. It is an original sin. However, this original sin does not make America less great. Just more real. Multiculturalists are not 'antiamerican'. To understand the real history, warts and all, does not make one less of an American.
7
I am glad Brooks noted Original Sin, a concept of stultifying oppression whether used in a religious or political sense.
We are all hyphenated Americans. Unfortunately, though, in recent times people have come to view the adjective before the hyphen as their primary identity rather than the proper noun, American. Unless we have a consensus on what it should mean to be an American in the present, there is no way we can equalize and advance the status and opportunities of all the modifier identities.
The past is certainly relevant to the present, and it is in the present that we envision the future. However, all views of the past are subject to the Rashomon effect, and the present these days has most people viewing it as a big Rorschach blot. Meanwhile, the future is always aspirational.
Brooks' description of the Franklin narrative, appended to include all the adjectives describing hyphenated-Americans, is a worthy aspirational goal, one that can only be obtained by an honest understanding of what the past was, how it evolved into the present, and then having an honest discussion about the best way forward, not by having a competition of aggregated IOUs.
2
I hope that other people, made curious as I have been by its now common use in writings about reparations, will investigate the theological doctrine of ‘original sin.’ They will learn some interesting and weird things. Nothing quite so weird, though, as the notion that it has relevance to the present discussion.
1
We don't have time for this. We don't have time for culture wars and racism and sexism and religious intolerance and nationalism. We don't have time for politicians who use and magnify our divisions for their own benefit.
The human race is facing potential devastation because of the climate emergency and associated environmental collapse. If civilization, even the human species, is going to survive it will require a degree of rationality and cooperation that goes beyond anything our species has ever demonstrated.
We like to call ourselves the greatest nation. That's arguable. But if we have one national accomplishment that might justify a claim to be a city on a hill, it is that we are a nation of peoples whose ancestors often fought to the death in the old world and came here and built a nation together. And that should be a model for the world as humanity tries to survive.
And with Trump and his allies in power, it isn't.
2
The myth Young David was taught was not, as he claims, "a unifying national story." It was a myth that many saw through, not least because they didn't experience it. That he believed it without question is about him, and should not be hung on the rest of the nation as something we all believed. Yes, many benefitted from the myth and many experienced it, but it was something millions and millions of Americans saw, even when David was a boy, as a lie. So glad the scales fell from his eyes, but he should not look back wistfully on that era, nor should he attribute the idea that it was unifying.
96
@JP
This is absolutely true. I am a white woman now in her 70s who went to elementary school in a tiny town in Minn mostly populated by Finns (at that time Finland had no cache for its culture or achievements--- we were looked down on by Germans and Swedes). In school we heard the "melting pot" strory of America. We also were taught how Xmas was celebrated in other countries. Britain was never an "other country"......in the 4th grade it dawned on me that the story of America historically was to make all of us Englishmen--- but only of course if we were white (and male). Realizing the truth about our history and treatment of Native Americans, Blacks, Chinese, Irish, Germans, Japanese----and women----has not dimmed my love for my country. It has made me more determined to fight for equality for all people.
26
Let's be perfectly clear.. Trump didn't change anything about race relations in America! Trump uncovered what was already here ... We can either turn a blind eye to avoid it - or confront it head on - No doubt the man is a racist, fascist but I thank him for allowing us to see through the dark cloud that has been with us since we started this silly little experiment called Democracy.
2
This article’s title, “The Racial Reckoning,” sounds like reparations to me.
Reparations for slavery are untenable because:
1. Slavery ended in 1865 and most non-black Americans are descended from immigrants who arrived after 1865 and were not slave-holders, thus do not owe reparations.
2. Many blacks are descended from Africans who came here after 1865 and thus are not owed reparations.
3. Many blacks are of mixed race; will their payments be pro-rated on the percentage of black/slave ancestry? How will such ancestry be measured? DNA? Historic/genealogical records?
4. Will blacks descended from African tribes that captured members of other tribes and sold them into slavery receive reparations?
5. Do all taxpayers have to pay into a reparations fund, or only non-blacks?
6. Will rich blacks (e.g., the Obamas) receive reparations or will there be a cap on recipients' income?
7. Will illegal aliens receive or pay reparations?
8. Will payments to blacks be reduced by amounts paid for welfare, affirmative action and other benefits they and their ancestors received since 1865?
9. Will reparations end of affirmative action for blacks?
10. What about reparations for Native Americans, who lost so much land and so many lives?
11. Poor blacks are far outnumbered by poor whites, Hispanics, Native Americans; shouldn’t all poor people get payouts?
If reparations and guaranteed incomes are planks in the 2020 Democratic platform Trump will be re-elected.
7
Mon Ray, unfortunately, you make sense and, thus, no one will pay attention, because your observations/analysis can't be reduced to a bumper sticker.
3
@Mon Ray The articles title speaks for itself. If The words "Racial reckoning" sounds like reparations to you I strongly suggest you get your eyes and ears checked. Mr. Brooks is a conservative who to my knowledge has never advocated for reparations for any group.Slavery went on in this country for more than 2 Centuries. During this period Black Americans were considered property and not people. They were worked 7 days a week 365 days a year from can't see to can't see. There children were regularly harvested (taken) and sold off for profit or to pay debts. Wages were NEVER paid. After slavery there was racial terrorism,Jim Crow,segregation,redlining,etc...Although immigrants have had a difficult time in this country the experience of the Black man and woman in America is a spectacular example of brutal tyranny,violence,injustice,greed and immoral wage theft based on one thing. The color of their skin. Your many questions or points are simply an attempt to avoid or dissemble on the harsh realities of this country's racial and racist history. I strongly suggest you take the time to read the essay in The Atlantic by Ta Nehisi Coates titled "The Case for Reparations". You appear to have much to learn but then don't we all?
2
"Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament." BUT ?? Can you not be enlightened and progressive AND loving?
3
@Birdphotographer I'm glad someone else saw that. I commented on it, as well.
2
Mr. Brooks really needs to re-read Lincoln's Second Inaugural again. He quotes a line "and the war came" in a context that misses the point of the speech. Its typical of Mr. Brooks' writing but is embarrassing.
1
As a Canadian, I read this insightful piece but was left with a sense that something was missing. I believe it is the predatory behavior of the United States on the rest of world for the entirety of its existence. The war of 1812-14 waged on this country for no good reason is but one example. Several attempted military invasions replete with the burning of civilian homes and public facilities is not something easily put aside. Nor are the unjustified political and/or overtly military attacks on other countries: Vietnam, the Philllippines, Iran, Chile, Iraq, the central american states, and the hits keep on coming. Yes, indeed, the US has deep internal social solidarity problems in spades. But it also has world imperialist problems of a different sort which have not been seriously addressed at their point of origin since the late 1960s.
2
I read the article and skimmed a lot of comments but did not see much addressing the issue from the experience of post civil war immigrants. Most of them came to America because they were almost starving in the old countries where there never were slaves or slave traffic. There are a lot of issues about opportunity and income inequality but I don't see how any of my blood ancestors ever participated or benefited in the slightest from slavery. You could even argue that Midwestern immigrant manufacturing forces were injured by descendants of slavery and had a net loss because the descendants of slaves were used as strikebreakers and messed up immigrant unionization and worker owned businesses. Maybe the rich people who stayed behind in the old country should pay the descendants of those who emigrated. Only the poor left the old country that my grandparents came from. I feel bad for other people but I don't want to take on extra burdens.
3
I can’t really grasp what bothers David Brooks more, the racism and incivility of Trump and his mob, or a guy in Seattle who calls it out. It seems that the guy in Seattle is the multicultural villain because he won’t dismiss Trump and his mob as an aberration.
The history of racial hatred in the US is not a mere aberration. It defined a major part of the functioning of the nation and government for most of its history. The fact that Donald Trump can harness it to gain the highest office speak to its enduring power, so let’s stop blaming the victims.
If there is one thing I’d like to hear from the Democratic candidate in 2020, it’s to have him or her stop being polite to Donald Trump to paper over the destruction he represents. I want to hear that candidate call out not just Donald Trump but his mob and the voters in this country who are in denial. His destructive populism needs to be rejected and he needs to be dressed down publicly along with those who tolerate it. Policy debate is not what has been going on, so trying to engage him on policy is a waste of time.
60
@Jazz Paw I listened with delight to Elizabeth Warren last night.... I'd like to see her and Trump in a debate. I'd love to hear him attempt one of his nickname maneuvers on her! she would surely hand him his head on a platter! It amazed me that the Republican candidates 3 years ago tolerated him.... Elizabeth definitely would bowl him over. I don't care much which Democrat wins--but I want one with guts and brains. So far, it's Lizzy for me.
10
Remember what happened to Hillary Clinton when she dared call them the "basket of deplorables?" The media had much to answer.
4
I have no idea what Eric Liu’s experiences have been. I can speak only to mine. I’m a brown-skinned immigrant. America has been extraordinarily good to me. I came here with no connections or inherited privilege. But from the day I arrived, I have been treated with respect and given the opportunity to prove myself. In my almost 35 years here, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that I have been subjected to overt bias.
My experience is not unique. Across America, citizens of any color, sex or sexual orientation are more likely to be hit by lightning than be the victim of a bias crime.
Charlottesville was a horrible event. But I ask everyone to remember that the following year, the White supremacist group that was the catalyst for the events could muster only about 20 supporters. They were vastly outnumbered by the people who gathered to protest the bigotry of this silly little group.
I have observed the divisiveness of identity politics. Just today in the NYT Charles M. Blow accused all White Americans of panic and fear of losing their power in a screed that would rightly have been called out as racist if “White” were replaced with “Black” throughout his diatribe.
A good friend, a liberal White woman, just told me how much it pains her when people accuse White men of irredeemable racism. They are speaking of her father and brothers.
I will become more hopeful only when identity politics is dead and buried.
302
@Shiv
This country was founded on White Identity Politics. Specifically White Male as normative. So as soon as white people stop using their skin color and supposed superiority to keep everyone else - women included - down, Identity Politics will be dead and buried.
It may pain your liberal White female friend to hear white men be accused of irredeemable racism - but maybe that's because she hasn't reconciled with the pervasive stereotypes we all absorb from infancy on to see the places she and her male relatives need to come clean. I think that we all are racist to some degree and the only answer is genuine self-examination and concerted striving to become anti-racist.
40
@Shiv Certainly not all white people--probably not close to a majority of white people--support extremes of white privilege and white racism.
But the thing is, institutional racism remains a thing--a big thing. The white perspective and white control dominates economic institutions, governmental institutions, educational institutions, legal institutions, the press, entertainment, literature, the arts, museums--you name it.
38
@Shiv "Across America, citizens of any color, sex or sexual orientation are more likely to be hit by lightning than be the victim of a bias crime."
You'd have to provide a lot of detailed substantial documentation for me to believe this.
37
As a musician and writer, I have always been multicultural, cosmopolitan in my outlook. The blues is in my blood, and so is Western classical music and literature. Growing up in California with a Mexican nanny, Latino culture held no fear for me, I always felt at home. Our story, with all the genocide, racism and war, is still a story of cultural mixing. For artists it comes naturally. I never understood the fear some have of other people, their language, their culture. Never a threat, always an invitation to the dance.
1
I don't think most of America was quite as aware of racial disparities until the Black Live Matter movement started. While the group hasn't had many legislative or political victories they have been quite effective at opening up people's eyes to the ways that POC are discriminated against and systemic issues.
The racial reckoning has already started. This current chapter is a period of backlash that was inevitable. For every advancement toward equality there will always be those who want to stay rooted in their comfort zone and maintain their privilege. The good news is that as the alt-right becomes more vocal, they are increasingly energizing once silent allies. The center of gravity in these conversations have shifted social norms dramatically to the left in a very short time period.
2
The Civil War, and our national disgrace of slavery, black peonage and racism didn't end in 1865. This issue clearly has legs and haunts us to this day. But I'd suggest that the success of Trump and Trumpists with respect to this issue is largely attributable to the overreach of the multiculturalists and moral relativists who demand equality of results and not just equality under the law.
3
You know the outrages at the southern border are the same outrages that occurred when Obama was president. John Calhoun argued slavery was a good thing and urged succession from the union. I dont recall Trump arguing any of that. Not to mention how "We real Americans have to protect out culture from the alien who would weaken it," is Trump's narrative since he never said this or anything similar to it. Aristotle outlined the nature of the rhetoric and how to make a persuasive argument. Good thing Aristotle is dead because this article would have killed him.
3
DBrooks wrote: "Once you start assigning guilt to groups, rather than to individuals, bad, illiberal things are likely to happen. There’s a lot of over-generalized group accusation in both these narratives."
There would not be any "assigning guilt" if there were "accepting responsibility."
I simply want us - America, to account for our sins - past and present. Sure, we admit slavery was bad, then quickly brush it aside as a thing of the past; but then quickly relish in our past glories as if they occurred yesterday.
Moreover, why do so many whites need the benefit of hindsight - of history, to see racism? It's like some people can only see racism in their rearview mirror, but never in real-time. Is there absolution in thinking that racism only occurs in the past?
Stop pretending we're "all that!"
Man-up! Or more accurately: America-up!
2
Oh Mr. Brooks, how I wish I had your optimism! Over fifty per cent of your fellow Republicans love Trump and all he represents.
My country, I cry for you. The grand experiment is over.
3
The story of racial reckoning is pretty straightforward, if you think about it.
It's about white supremacy basically permeating every corner of the culture, up until that time where whites no longer, or can envision becoming, less than the dominant group in the country.
And in view of that coming change, you start to see how empty the credos of American life truly are; that concepts of freedom, rule of law, individual merit, being judged on one's character, equality, etc., are flimsy ideas masquerading the greater truths of tribalism and dominance that people revert to when faced with actually living up to their stated ideals.
Maybe our better angels will prevail. But given the number of unrepentant Trump voters out there, it seems there will be a lot of conflict on the road to resolution.
3
There are a whole bunch of us in the middle on this question. We are repelled by Trump and his populist / "my white culture" supporters but also disagree with the advocates of the "original sin, so pay-up" position. We centrists / globalists need to keep building the country while also promoting US engagement with the world.
53
@DCM It would be good to separate out global exploitation from global fairness. The powerful have always exploited, from Charlemagne to the Crusades to the Colonizers. It is time that fairness and sustainability and livability take center stage. Those will happen when we get reconcile our white history of stealing from the natives and importing slaves.
5
@DCM So well said. Thank you for bringing your ideas to this global comments forum. I would like to ad that after meeting a young man from southern China who wishes to immigrate to the U.S. (He is presently working here in tech and visiting Disneyland) and finding out that he shares many of the ideals of our western nation, that the Chinese people are not our enemy. They have as strong a desire for engagement with the world as our younger generations do with the rest of the world. His point was both the U.S. and China can be eschewed into being prejudiced about the other. But this is a false attitude and only the populations of all nations can keep this attitude from morphing into conflict. His message to us is avoid politically motivated agendas through idea exchange engagement, not through war. I would like to second Mr. Brook's column by saying tolerance of culturally different peoples can be achieved in our lifetime.
1
We can always count on David Brooks for his presumption-filled statements like this: "This was a unifying national story."
It's mind-boggling, really, his relentless clinging to the notion that our nation has ever had a story that unified everyone.
And then he tops it off with the complete historical whitewashing regarding the Civil War: "Nobody wanted it, but it came." As though it were some sort of amorphous thief in the night, as opposed to actual human people on both sides who had been stoking the furnace of armed conflict.
Increasingly, David Brooks reads like an idealistic 6th grader whose introduction to the actual history of our nation hasn't yet tarnished or dented his sunny white idealism.
7
America probably came closest to a monoculture in
the two decades after World War II.
When the Draft ended it should have been replaced
by two years of National Service and the a N.S. Bill
to help pay for college/technical training. This would have
allowed all young Americans to experience parts of the
country they never lived in and meet people they never met
and might never meet.
As for Immigration, can someone please explain how
Immigration helps the Poor of America and African Americans
who are being pushed out of the cities where they used to live
by un-documented immigrants.
We need a national job bank and if an employer can show
that no citizen wants to work at that position for a fair wage
and safe working conditions, then a Work Visa card can
be issued for one year and then the job must be re-listed.
Working via the Work Visa would be a path toward citizenship.
Too many Progressives want to feel good about themselves
and want un-documented Immigrants to be their Nannies,
Maids, Gardeners and pay them un-fair wages and treat
them as slaves, while forgetting their fellow citizens who
would take the job, but because they are Poor they are
automatically suspect in the eyes of the Elites.
If you wish to see the continue Balkanization of America
open the borders wide.
5
What is most difficult is that Americans are going through a transition period where white monoculture as you call it, is having to contend with other versions of what it means to be American. Moving beyond Trump will take time as so many that have lived primarily in the monoculture have to reconcile a new more inclusive reality. Demographic change is making it impossible to live in hermetically sealed segregated communities. Even old line rural communities are having to contend with largely Hispanic farm workers that are propping up their economy and keeping small towns from disappearing altogether. The global economy has also added another layer of difficulty to remaining in an all white reality. The larger problem we face after Trump is how to heal the scars of a presidency that has left us so polarized. We will also need to heal the deep wounds inflicted on our relations with the rest of the world. Going forward my hope is the the younger generations will be able to come together and forge a broader more inclusive polity that will restore peace and harmony to all of humanity.
2
The past is certainly relevant to the present, and it is in the present that we envision the future. However, all views of the past are subject to the Rashomon effect, and the present by most people viewing it as a big Rorschach blot. Meanwhile, the future is always aspirational.
Brooks' description of the Franklin narrative is a worthy aspirational goal, one that can only be obtained by an honest understanding of what the past was, how it evolved into the present, and then having an honest discussion, not a competition of aggregated IOUs, about the best way forward.
I am glad Brooks noted Original Sin, a concept of stultifying oppression whether used in a religious or political sense.
2
"Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive, but with a reconciling, loving temperament" ... presumably meaning or implying that progressives don't normally have a reconciling, loving temperament. I guess this gives us Mr Brooks perspective.
I don't see a whole lot of reconciling loving temperaments in Mr Brook's GOP, or am I missing something?
"African Americans are actually less progressive on these issues than white liberals" Perhaps this is needed in an era where the GOP has all but Gerrymandered away the black vote.
I understand the rich white folks are fearful of loosing what they thought was their birthright. But perhaps what they thought was a birthright was wrong.
2
Mr. Brooks. thank you. I don't always agree with you but I'm always hoping you'll get it right. The Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Fair Housing Act, Brown vs. Board of Education and Miranda were big steps in the right direction. But not the end of the story.
The benefits created by legal racism did not disappear when better laws replaced bad laws. Those evils are fading, but equal opportunity is still an aspiration. There is a 20 year difference in life-expectancy between zip-codes that are both 20 minute drives from my home. It will take generations, but maybe less than centuries, to make reality match the ideals I was raised on. Not a lot of diversity in those photos of soldiers gathered around Earnie Pyle.
The issue of race in the US has not only been politicized, it has been weaponized. It is no longer used to promote social justice. It is now used almost exclusively to assassinate political opponents, to harass strangers in the streets, and to obtain material goods that are otherwise impossible to obtain in a free market economy.
4
Being a naturalized citizen who immigrated to the USA in my early 20's, I can share my own American racism experiences. From 1974 through 2016, I was aware of some of the racial tensions in the country, but, I never had to personally confront racism in my work or personal lives. However, since the election of Trump, race-based random violence has become closer, and I would say, too close for comfort. We are all Homo sapiens, sharing the same genetic code. Racism is a cultural, social construct. The people of this country, we, have the opportunity, the capacity and the responsibility to build a new moral, cultural and social code that treats all Homo sapiens as one race.
1
Brooks says, "America began with a crime — stealing the land from Native Americans."
My recent readings about Jamestown, VA report that before and during English colonization, Native American tribes of the Atlantic Coast were constantly warring with each other and engaging in rape, slavery, torture, economic exploitation, and taking control of other tribes' territories.
This suggests that taking other people's lands and treating the "other" as less than worthy of full societal status is not unique to Euro-Americans (who may have simply been more successful at it). I don't know enough about the extent to which tribal warfare in Africa abetted the local or intercontinental slave trade.
So, we must not in anyway deny the historic injustices suffered by all dominated peoples. Meanwhile, how do we identify and eliminate the ways that people today are denied access to opportunity for success without creating a new wave of grudges for behaviors that seems to have been exhibited by multiple "civilizations" over millennia?
5
I am a white female born in 1956 to US Air Force parents. We were in the lower middle class. My dad and mom had a successful marriage that allowed them to have a middle, middle-class life by the time they retired. I was raped 3 times by the time I was 11 and almost died on the 3rd rape. The rapist was let go because the judge said I was preternaturally seductive. My parents refused to speak of this event for the rest of their lives. The immigrants from Europe to the US who took this land from its original inhabitants and the immigrants from Europe who bought black people and enslaved them have refused to speak of these events in any realistic manner, but they are why we have the culture we have now. Though my parents never discussed our private agonies, I sought counsel from good folk and I have healed a lot of my damage. What our ancestors did to blacks and Native Americans were atrocities that are completely consistent with what we know about European cultural practices extending back to Greco-Roman times. It really is time to talk about our past, to heal our wounds, to make appropriate reparations to the abused: women, children, blacks, Native peoples, and others who were harmed to build our culture. I was taught US people are innovative, persistent, creative, and interested in justice for all. Let's prove it now. We can do better. We must.
4
“Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament.”
That’s an odd way to put it. I suppose Brooks means to emphasize the difference between Eric Liu, with his “reconciling, loving temperament,” and your bog-standard enlightened Seattle progressive, who is presumably divisive and consumed with hatred.
6
The late St. John Paul II
said that capitalism without morals would destroy itself. I think we're well on the way for a number of reasons. Morality? Our president doesn't seem to know the truth from a lie among a plethora of foibles that are known all too well. So, the question is: how does society become moral again? I' m afraid the answer is pain of one soft or another.
1
The promise of America is meaningless and has no future unless it applies to all our citizens.
3
Why, as someone who makes a living with words, do you write: "Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive BUT with a reconciling, loving temperament." No need for that "but" other than to imply that progressives are known to be bitter and hateful? Yes, indeed, "There’s a lot of over-generalized group accusation ..."
3
"“And the war came.” Nobody wanted it, but it came, as well it has to come again - or this "experiment" is finally doomed.
I can't help but roll my eyes at this. So typical of this writer to conflate any attempt at a racial accounting with a "holy war". When exactly, pray tell, has America ever overreached in attempting to redress injustice against its most vulnerable citizens?
5
As the Very Rev’d Kelly Brown Douglas argues in her book “Stand Your Ground,” we of this nation are in dire need of a new narrative to replace the one of “exceptionalism” that we have been dominated by ... that has dominated us in its lie ... from colonial time. It’s not a matter of “making America great again,” but making her great in the first place. To truly civilized people, that ought now to be highly evident.
As a white man several years older than Brooks, and who writes frequently about race, I have to say I don't share his negative meta-narrative about America's narrative. Accepting our full history, instead of some glorified mythic story, is a big step forward for all of us and a prerequisite to achieving the national unity Brooks longs for. Systemic racism is real, but Brooks argues against it with hand-wringing over the unfairness of "shared guilt" rather than any actual analysis.
For Brooks (and to be fair, for many whites) the discussion about centuries of racism focuses on how whites feel about it, rather than on the effects on the actual victims of that racism.
Brooks denies that racism pervades all our institutions, because, ironically, he's a pessimist. His argument seems to be that if racism is as baked into the system as some (like me) say, than we're doomed. I'm not afraid of recognizing the history and prevalence of racism in America, because I know that that's the first step in rooting it out. I know that because I've seen it happen. CP Ellis, the former Exalted Cyclops of the Durham, NC, KKK, was a friend, and his journey from virulent racist to fierce anti-racist quickens the soul. The path isn't easy, but when did we begin to be so frightened of challenges? We need to move ahead, and we can. Dismantling racism is our work, and we white people should welcome it. That struggle will set all of us free.
4
“We happy few,” we Americans are enamored by constant distraction. We see yet we don’t seek to understand. Take culture, and our current culture war which is, “much ado about nothing.” We think that we are somehow unique in our multiculturalism and somehow even further bifurcate ourselves by race when the reality is that we are Americans. All complex advanced societies have varying cultures within them, yes even those such as Norway and Sweden which are vastly one so-called race. We allow ourselves to be distracted by shiny objects without noticing whom is really proffering those objects at us all. Over my sixty one years I have lived in entirely minority communities and conversely been the only black family within very affluent white communities. I have learned a great deal about people in this country and they all have basically the same concerns and aspiration and dignity, kindness and compassion. Intolerance of what Trump represents and voting him out or impeaching him out of office may put a foot forward as we have gone two steps back. We have a lot of work to do.
This seems quite the distortion of what multiculturalism is all about. More than casting blame and assigning guilt, it's about accepting responsibility and place and understanding that in broader when we are born on some social third base, we did not hit a triple.
3
Once again , in th end, Brooks bows to his beloved Republican Party and asks that you spare "groups" harsh judgment. He hides behind the generic rather than confront his own responsible group (and lose all those speaker's fees) which has a name: the Republican Party. Trump is its leader and its nominee for president.
4
I live in a hyper-progressive city and I am witness to the folly of "confront the national sin, have a racial reckoning and then seek reconciliation." Good luck with that, amigo.
Somehow this cleansing process gets stuck on the "reckoning" part--mainly because there is too much power (and its handmaiden, money) to be gained from this first step by various aggrieved "people of color." We have a city council member who has repeatedly taken refuge in the "I'm black and I'm therefore right and you're not and you aren't" argument that hardly moves the needle toward "reconciliation." It serves her interests, in fact, to keep that needle from moving.
Reconciliation will end this pol's power, take away her trump-card (no pun intended) and, quite possibly, cost her a well-paying job, not to mention the fortunes of the allies that ride her slipstream into various "activist" organizations, consultancies and jobs in the bureaucracy.
This, as it happens, is a very old pattern in American local politics--think the Kennedy Machine in Boston. It will not be derailed by the preaching of well-intended sermons that always end with "you're guilty, we're not" as the subtext.
Next silver bullet, if you please Mr. Brooks!
4
Why is there a 'but' in this sentence and not just an 'and'?
Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament.
I find it very strange. Are Seattle progressives typically non-reconciling with un-loving temperaments? It's almost as though he falls into the group profiling he indicates is not healthy.
2
"For most of the latter half of the 20th century, for example, about 10 percent of white liberals supported increased immigration; now it’s 50 percent." This concerns me. My wife is an Asian immigrant, my grandparents were immigrants. I love the diversity that immigration brings. More immigrants and fewer MAGA hat wearing knuckle draggers would be great. However, I do not want want more immigrants to the US. Not because they come from non-European countries or are poor. Why? Because we have too many people in this country as it it. There are 50% more people in the US now than when I was in High School. I do not want the same for my high school aged children. Over 50% of the population growth in the last 50 years was from immigrants and their children. The negative environmental and quality of life impacts of this kind of population growth are extreme. The quality of life here is at a tipping point - I can't imagine what it would be like with another 100 million people in this country.
4
Our European ancestors did unspeakable things to both indigenous peoples and the "immigrants" brought here unwillingly from Africa, i.e., slaves. Is it even possible to forgive those ancestors?
We need to forgive them IF there's hope of moving past that history. Before we can forgive them, however, we need to own, collectively, what those ancestors actually did. White guilt for our ancestors' "sins" when unacknowledged morphs into racism and xenophobia. Yes, we the living of those European ancestors carry that guilt at an unconscious level; its in our collective DNA, as it were. It needs to be brought into the light of day and cleansed by us who are still living. WE NEED TO MAKE AMENDS for the evil that was, lest it continue into the future.
Thank you, David Brooks for this enlightening op-ed piece.
1
The U.S. is evolving. Our national mythology will gradually embrace more ancient roots, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, &c. (St. George of the Cherry Tree, St. Benjamin of the Lightening Bolt, and St. Thomas of the Ladies, even St. Abraham of Unity, have not yet reached divinity.)
America's original sin is slavery. Convictions ran strong in the South and the spirit permeates politics to this day. Discrimination against native Americans, Mexicans and guest workers came later, with the same discourse. Ben Frankin is the myth of who we would like to be. In reality we are and always were Don Trump. That is the genie that you want to put baxk in the bottle. Good luck.
1
“And the war came.” Nobody wanted it, but it came."
I never understood how civil wars could happen, how people could get so hateful of their co-citizens they would go to war against them.
Now I do. Most people don't want it, but it comes anyway, because there are enough people on each side who welcome it, are even eager to have it. Their self-concept depends on feeling self-righteous about defending their view of how the world should be, that "the enemy" becomes some dehumanized monster deserving to be killed.
And it is happening here, now.
3
To borrow a phrase, "Have you no sense of decency, Mr. Brooks"
Beginning with the Dixiecrats, today's southern Republicans, and continuing through Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, et al. Republican politics has featured racism/bigotry as its modus operandi. How many of these Republicans have you endorsed, praised?
Trump is just a logical extension...
3
It's not only the constitution, as it is now interpreted,that is not up to task of of healing the divide.It is also the religious institutions in this country with their "prosperity theology" and overt discrimination toward certain sub-groups that have played a negative role.This was not the church I grew up with.
It is also not the culture I grew up with.I was raised in a large eastern urban area.Twenty % of my high school class were African American,20% were Polish,20%were Italian.In those days fraternizing with any of those groups was frowned upon by the "educated" cultural group my parents belonged to.White and northern European.Over the next forty years when I visited my parents back there,I noticed a change.Those groups that had been looked down upon had become the doctors,lawyers,politicians and business owners.A good African American high school friend of mine became a very successful lawyer.Intercultural marriage was commonplace, not even noticed.The only group that held onto the old discriminatory fictions were those whites who had not succeeded economically.
Racism persists where there is a lack of contact with minorities.Where members of minority groups can't afford an education and are therefore economically disadvantaged.Where evangelical Christianity has overtaken the culture.I'm talking about the deep south and the midwest.I'm sorry,I can't respect their culture.If they won't move into the future ..we'll have to drag them there.... kicking and screaming.
2
You or I are no more responsible for the atrocities of slavery in the U.S. than we are responsible for the enslavement of the Jews by the Egyptians or the enslavement of indigenous tribes by the Aztecs or Mayans. It's not that we are meant to forget these things - we shouldn't. But we also shouldn't see the world of today through the mistakes of prior generations. Even if I was a descendant of a slave owner (which I am not) I wouldn't be responsible his his or her actions. Our endless efforts to apply today's morals and today's justice to practices, views and perspectives of the past is beyond futile.
7
Race, race, race. Stop it. That dialog masks the universal flaw and at the same time strength in human society: tribalism and fear of the "other". Tribalism begets the nation-state and fear begets institutional religion. "Racism" sits on top of both these realities and dialog about racism masks the true issue. As long as my tribe is Better than yours, as long as my God is Better than yours, race discussions are irrelevant.
A way forward would be to embrace the reality of tribes but to reimagine them without the driving force of the "other". Eliminate the fear through knowledge of the other. If I know my neighbor I don't fear her.
Religion is difficult because it is not rational or based on reality. A loving God is a good thing but if it is better than your God problems arise. And mixing religion and the nation state is, as the founding fathers understood, a disaster.
But, religions that embrace the reality that differences exist and that living with other ways of defining behavior is reasonable and proper could be a way forward.
But not in my lifetime....
1
I'm perfectly willing to assign guilt to groups. For example, slaveowners, as a group, are collectively culpable for slavery. While they aren't solely responsible-- there's some room for blame for the indirect beneficiaries of slavery who choose to look the other way-- I think its safe to say that collectively slaveowners are worthy of blame.
I also assign guilt to GOP voters in the 2016 cycle for violence the nation has committed to those attempting to immigrate to our country. That was exactly what they voted for. They got it. The traumatized families and blood of dead children is on their hands (and, of course, on the hand of all GOP elected officials).
I also assign guilt to conservative columnists who have for years buried their heads in the sand about the virulent racism, sexism, xenophobia, war mongering, and corruption that has characterized the GOP for my entire life.
1
"In an age of accelerating over-population, of accelerating over-organization and ever more efficient means of mass communication, how can we preserve the integrity and reassert the value of the human individual...The kingdom of heaven is within the mind of a person, not within the collective mindlessness of a crowd." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited 1958
1
It is time to rephrase the narrative from "white supremacy" as Brooks writes, "Trump is no longer seen as a historic aberration, but the embodiment of white supremacy that has always been near the core of the American experience.", to "Christian white supremacy". White Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists were and are not included among the "white supremacists" -- a good measure being the members of the KKK.
America was the land of opportunity long time ago. After the 2007-2009 crisis, America was the land of the survivors. Now, America is country with a unstable present and gloomy future.
I keep wondering when the realization will dawn that the populism and racism are symptoms of humans sensing scarcity. Humankind deals with scarcity by seeking solutions, the populists and racists are applying their solutions.
Brooks says Trump's not an aberration. That's true; He's the quintessential embodiment of what the GOP has always been. He just puts in the open, loudly and sometimes coherently that he's a racist, misogynist, xenophobe and a close-minded, uneducated bully and he's proud of it. His mesmerized mob is ecstatic to have one of their own speaking for them.
Brooks says "Once you start assigning guilt to groups, rather than to individuals, bad, illiberal things are likely to happen." Well, Trump didn't get where he is by himself. It took a lot of bad people to put him there. That includes all of the GOP, not just Trump's mob, and the party should be blamed forever for what they have inflicted on this country.
Brooks says that men, through "ingenuity and dogged self-improvement could create...a new sort of person and a new sort of country."
Of course, this outrageous myth entirely excludes women. Half the population is not only in shadow, it isn't even in the room with the superior white guys doing all that creating and self-improving.
So racism and misogyny are nothing new. Some of us mistakenly thought that this country had moved away from such hateful Stone-Age views. That's what the myth does to you: it clouds your thinking and makes you believe in America as a magic land when it is not. And never has been.
1
There is no moral equivalence between .....
"Trump’s narrative ... We real Americans (white) have to protect our culture from the alien (brown) who would weaken it."
-and-
"The opposing narrative is something like this: America began with a crime — stealing the land from Native Americans. It continued with an atrocity, slavery. ..... The essential American struggle is to confront the national sin, have a racial reckoning and then seek reconciliation.
You might not agree with the message of the latter, but it is factual. Trump's message is just racist. It's the very definition of racism.
So, can we please stop with the false equivalencies and call Trump for what he is? A racist.
Why is it so difficult for a Conservative columnist to utter those words?
The Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1, 1863. While African Americans were allowed to join the Union army and navy they were initially only to be used for manual labor and not as military combat troops. Black soldiers were paid a lower wage than white troops. The Tuskegee Airmen made up the first group of African American pilots to serve in the United States military. Just a handful of the original 355 pilots are still around. The birth of the Tuskegee airmen was started by the war department due to pressure to create the first all-African American fighter squadron. The 99th pursuit squadron would be the answers to the war department and was started in 1941. Today only 3 percent of white officers report racial discrimination in the military, compared to 27 percent of Black officers. According to a 2011 PBS article, a congressionally charted commission reported that while non-Hispanic whites make up 66 percent of the U.S. population, they comprise 77 percent of active-duty officers. Additionally, while Blacks account for 13 percent of the U.S. population, they only represent just over 8 percent of active-duty officers. In 2014, among the Army’s main combat units, there was not a single Black colonel among all 25 brigades, according to a September 2014 USA Today article. When we read the Jackie Robinson life story or read the Martin Luther King Jr. life story without any human emotion, we become shadows to escape the light of Jesus our Savior.
So how do we get beyond all the grievances accumulated over all the years of this nation's history? How do we reimagine and realize the promise of this nation? The founding principles are still the things that make this place exceptional and worth building on. Much of what I read in the comments below is why I too believe that launching a national dialog centering on the concept of reconciliation is a key to moving forward. Many have grievances. Acknowledging the past injustices and committing to be better going forward is worth it to me. How about you?
Great thoughts, David. But you insist, as usual, in blaming both sides in equal measure for the ruination of our civic life. The reality is very asymmetric... so you column might do more good for the Fox News crowd. President Obama went to great pains to treat conservative America with love, kindness, and an assumption of good faith. Conservative America responded with venom, hate, and racism. What are we supposed to do??
2
America didn’t steal land from Native Americans. It acquired the Northwest Territory from Great Britain. America purchased the the Louisiana Territory from France. The Republic of Texas voted to join the United States. Mexico ceded California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona, about half of New Mexico, about a quarter of Colorado, and a small section of Wyoming to America. America purchased Alaska from Russia.
Slavery was not America’s original sin. Slavery thrived in the Americas thousands of years before the arrival of the Europeans. The largest slave market that ever existed in the Americans was the pre-Columbian Aztec slave market at Tenochtitlan. In 1866, America ended slavery in U.S. territory by negotiating separate treaties with the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creeks and Seminoles.
America ended incessant warfare between Native American tribes and between the tribes and white settlers by treaty negotiations and by settling nomadic tribes on reservation.
16
@William Case
...and, therefore, it worked out well for all concerned. Oh, dear folks, see here the rationalizations and misrepresentations of the intentions and the consequences of oppression, greed, deceit oligarchy, dictatorship and white supremacy.
4
@William Case
Thank you for pointing out that slavery, colonization, displacement and sin existed long before America became America. Humans have been killing and enslaving other humans for thousands of years.
4
@John
What we referred to as "advanced civilization" was slave -based. Today, everyone deplore slavery, but it was the short-cut humans took between hunter-gatherer species and advance civilization. Modern industrial societies may have evolve without slavery, but it would taken many more centuries to reach today's level of industrial and commercial development.
Of course one could argue that hunter-gather societies were better societies.
3
Several days late and about $1,000 short, Mr. Brooks. But hey, at least you made it to the table!! Because there's not a thing in this piece that hasn't been obvious for many, many years to close readers of American culture. Which isn't to say that I'm not somewhere between thrilled and relieved to see that people are finally starting to put it together.
1
If you live in a closed community with little opportunity to interact with those who have a different background, there is precious little likelihood that differences will be understood, much less accepted. How much of America lives within its own closed communities?
Watching my grandchildren interact with those of their age group does in fact give me some sense of hope, but at least in part, this is because they are exposed to those with a different backgrounds through their schooling and, in particular, through sports. But once they are past that phase of life, what sorts of communities will they settle in -- and will they increasingly lose their sense of openness to those who are different?
Reconciliation can be a tricky business, but recognition of our condition is a lot less problematic as long as one has a willingness to keep her or his mind open. We won't ever reconcile until we as a nation recognize where we came from, how we got here, and what our responsibilities now and into the future are.
I've read a lot of these comments, and haven't seen many which refer to the heavily armed nature of this country, as opposed to other more sensible societies. If and when, probably when, the economy takes a severe downturn, those people who feel disenfranchised may well explode, and set off a severe uprising or revolt. Guns plus frustration is a bad mix. Bad.
It is not necessary to accept Original Sin doctrine, yet still have a commitment to affirmative action as a way to greater equality and justice for all.
Good or bad, no one has any control over the circumstances they are born into, nor the circumstances they live in for their first 10-15 years. Trump didn't ask, or deserve, to be born into the opulence that allowed him to flourish. Nor did the opioid baby, born behind the 8-ball. Can't choose your neighborhoods, schools, or the pool from whom your circle of first friends will be drawn.
We all need to recommit to a proposition. Every neighbor's child deserves the best chance to get off on the right foot as much as our own. For the greater good, we need to bring up the base level of our lowest places much more than we need higher peaks for our best. This includes both rural Alabama and inner city Baltimore.
The Brooks' of the world need to accept that this requires the spending and scale that only government can provide - churches and neighborhood associations are inadequate to the enormity of the task. They have a role, potentially important. But it's not all, or even mostly, on them.
Recommit to improving our public schools, and our support structures for early childhood. Not tax credits. Start at the bottom, not the top.
A level playing field heading to adulthood is the only way to address "some people are more equal than others" problem we are perpetuating right now.
4
As others have pointed out, Slavery is not an American creation. It has existed as long as people have. The Mayan and Aztec civilizations were built entirely on the backs of slaves. You could say the same thing about the Egyptians. Should the current Egyptian people compensate Jews because of their enslavement? Hopefully you get the point. All this America bashing and original sin talk is nonsensical.
3
@John
couldn't agree more - time to stop blaming a people who had nothing to do with slavery - most people's ancestors now were not even in this country at that ime -
to me it is a money grab
3
@John True, slavery is as old as civilization itself. But those cultures were not built on the concept of 'inalienable rights endowed by their creator'. Ours is, presumably, and we can certainly do better to live up to our ideals.
1
For those of us playing Logical Fallacy Bingo, today's David Brooks piece employs #4 False Dilemma/False Dichotomy (why not learn about both Ben Franklin and multiculturalism?) as well as #7 False Generalization (Multiculturalists complaining about Ben Franklin's whiteness, apparently).
https://thebestschools.org/magazine/15-logical-fallacies-know/
2
Recently had several occasions to sing "America the Beautiful" with my choir, all four verses. Over the past few years I've been thinking about the 2nd verse: "O beautiful for pilgrim feet, whose stern, impassioned stress, a thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness." I feel conflicted singing that line, and I think about the truth it hides behind stirring language - it wasn't a wilderness to those living there. And with stern, impassioned will and violence we beat a thoroughfare and took all these lands. None of us can undo this history. Migrations happen and advanced technologies overwhelm peoples who don't have those technologies, and up till recently most Americans were taught to believe and say "Well, that's progress." I'm proud to be an American, and one of the things I'm proud of is that we are beginning to, and perhaps more and more willing to, apply a true moral compass to our heritage, take off our blinders and speak the truth to each other and succeeding generations, and not be cowed by those who call us traitors for standing up and speaking the truth. I'm not guilty of destroying the Native Americans and I don't feel that guilt, or for slavery--but my European ancestors were guilty of both, and I benefit from their actions. All Americans who are descendants of the 17th-19th migrations benefit, and I believe it is a truth we need the courage to understand and communicate, to prevent false legends from supplanting the truth.
4
@Brian Moore
Recall also the following lines, which I have been using for my e-mail sig in these parlous times:
America, America, God mend thine every flaw:
Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law!
1
Just incredible that Brooks and the NYTs editors and many readers believe we've just now arrived at a racial awakening not to mention the choice of B. Franklin to mark a supposed earlier era of welcoming and openness. Franklin, btw, had his own racial reckoning: "The English make the principal body of white people on the face of the earth. I could wish their numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, scouring our planet, by clearing America of woods, and so making this side of our globe reflect a brighter light…why should we in the sight of superior beings, darken its people? Why increase the sons of Africa, by planting them in America, where we have so fair an opportunity, by excluding all blacks and tawneys, of increasing the lovely white and red?" (Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind (1751))
2
Your black and white approach is not helpful. It is simply not true that those of us on the left have abandoned the Benjamin Franklin story. That's precisely why we support, rather than stupidly oppose, immigration. And, many of us know intimately about the fantastic story of so many refugees from Southeast Asia--nearly all of whom are openly loyal to America, although, like Viet Thanh Nguyen, fully cognizant of America's duplicity and failures. It is, first of all, white resentment, then, the Republican Party's adoption of segregationism/bigotry in the middle 1960's, then the emergence of Trump and his white nationalists with which we have to deal. But, in a sense you are right. The puzzle is why in the world American people so easily buy in to all of this destructive stuff and all of the lies that support it.
4
Immigration is making America whiter.
Hispanic Americans can be of any race or mixture of races but most are white. Census Bureau data shows 26.7 million of the nation’s 50.5 million Hispanics are white.
Intermarriage between non-Hispanic whites and Hispanic whites is so common that it is unlikely a distinction will be based between the two ethnic groups by 2060.
In Texas, even federal courts refer to non-Hispanic whites as “Anglos” to distinguish them from Hispanics because most Hispanic Texans are also white.
Table 6: Hispanic or Latino Population by Type of Origins and Race: 2010
https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-04.pdf
Census Bureau data shows the United States is currently 76.6 percent white, up from 75.1 percent in 2000.
The Census Bureau projects that whites will make up 77.5 percent of the U.S. population in 2060, but this is based on an expected influx of immigrants from Asia that may or may not take place due to immigration reforms. If the anticipated Asian influx does not occur, whites will be an even larger percent of the population in 2060.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045217
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p25-1143.pdf
1
Original sins need to be dealt with? Many of my ancestors were killed in the Saint Bartholomew Day Massacre almost 500yrs ago. Where do I go to demand that be fixed?.. if I'm expected to be held in account for genocide and slavery. Perhaps all of us should be grateful for what we have,not conjure up ever more grievances.
2
Conversations are good, and we need it, but after 50 years on the planet, I have come to believe that nothing will truly change unless the makeup of the power structure changes. Only by having a wide mixture of people in our government and private-sector power positions will different voices and mentalities be able to effect new ways of doing things, and for other kinds of leaders to emerge. I see it germinating among my teenage kids' friends, and it gives me hope.
1
One thing is for sure: the United States is never going back to the "whites on top, and everyone else below them" paradigm that Trump and his wrecking crew are pushing. They are opposing history, and that never works. Let them all play "little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike". Their hour on the stage is, I think, almost over.
1
The American Civic Religion (whether you believe it exists literally or not) and race are not as correlated as typically thought. The Right's majority moral panic is focused on biological race rather than culture, because it's simpler to understand, if not to measure. This obsession leads them to flawed thinking about the "future of the country" because it IS just biology. Boy meets girl, boom. Steve King tried to draw an equivalent between culture and race, but failed to convince anyone. All he was talking about was race and it all came down to the now-famous babies.
Those who see everything through the lens of race tend to lump all pale-skinned people together as "white".
The Jews that came in the late 1800s, the Irish in the 1860s, the Italians in the early 1900s, all experienced virulent racism...and were considered at the time non-white. And importantly had nothing to do with the conquest of the continent, the importation of slaves, the mistreatment of Chinese workers...and on and on...
Oddly, the talk of "reparations" never deals with this reality. In its own way, it is every bit as racist as the crimes for which it seeks justice.
7
“Once you start assigning guilt to groups rather than individuals, bad, illiberal things are going to happen.” How does, “We real Americans (white) have to protect our culture from the alien (brown) who would weaken it”, fit into that?
1
@Back Up
It doesn't...but, David is only restating Trump's implicit arguments
1
"Eric’s great contribution is to show how to mix conviction on racial matters with humility and gentleness."
Neo-Nazis cannot be defeated with "humility and gentleness".
2
“Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament.”
Whaddya mean, “but”? You mean his reconciling, loving temperament is exceptional in some way, not what one would typically expect of an enlightened progressive? Just what are you implying with that word “but”?
6
@Stephen Chernicoff
Thanks Stephen. I too was offended by that single word.
1
"Trump’s narrative is: We real Americans (white) have to protect our culture from the alien (brown) who would weaken it." Who will protect us from the self-appointed "protectors?"
1
When I.F. Stone was once asked about coming to terms with past atrocities our nation has visited upon Native Americans, the American Negro (former usage), etc. he said "we all have our Indians." Insensitive? Or an acknowledgement that we all have historical baggage, that guilt-tripping is ultimately divisive, and that we should keep trying for that "more perfect union."
2
Maybe we could start by not saying there are good people on both sides of the neo Nazi debate.
@RPU
Trump said no such thing. This is a deliberate misquote that the left leaning media gleefully loves to trumpet. What he actually said was there were "very fine people" on "both sides" of the issue of whether it is appropriate to display Confederate monuments in pubic locations, NOT in regards to neo-Nazis. Talk about misleading in order to fit the left liberal agenda!
2
Whose country this is depends on when we say history starts.
Humility and greatness is contingent upon wisdom and compassion.
Our greatest danger now is not Trump, not even the Republican Congress, but the Republican people with a culture of thoughtlessness, ignorance and short shortsightedness.
When we do not have clarity of our own reality, and do not care to find out, and are content to being told what it is, all is lost. "Alternate reality" seems such benign expression, but in my view, it's our deepest divider. What words or persuasion can cut through an alternate reality?
Half our people are 100% convinced they are right in thinking Trump is a great president, a great guy, despite his many public misdeeds and lies. It's as if they are bewitched!
As such, Brooks's musing, though accurate in many aspects, seems irrelevant. Those who really need to hear him have already dismissed him.
1
The biggest flaw here is the concept of "a moment of racial reconciliation." Like so many things in our current society, it didn't become such a mess in a moment, and it won't be fixed in a moment. These are things that play out over generations. We might be frustrated at the slow pace, but still we have to acknowledge that real progress has been made. My grandparents knew people who had lived under slavery, where it was perfectly legal and acceptable to own another human being. In my own youth, it was not legal to marry a person of a different race. You never saw a black person as a character in TV, or in any advertisements. I t was legal to deny mortgages and to deny all kinds of ordinary services to black people. Have we now completely reconciled? Far from it. But looking back realistically on the progress that has been made, there is every reason to hope that, over time, things will get better. If you are impatient, do your best to lead by example, and refrain from preaching.
2
Obama was that young artist and sought to bridge the gaps and heal the divide -- by defining America as an imperfect union, striving toward perfection along the arc of justice. He personally embodied that narrative and arc and was met a refusal to give him anything he could call a victory, birtherism, etc. Now we have Trump and regression. Lincoln offered the South compromise, but they wouldn't take it. Sometimes an ideology must be beaten into a pulp.
6
David, opening up a conversation about race in our country is a good and important thing to do, so thank you for this. In doing so, it's important to recognize one's own position in the conversation. As a White male who also has a highly visible perch (New York Times, PBS, NPR) in which to converse, you enter the conversation from a powerful and privileged position. Most others--certainly those who are poor, and many of whom are also non-White--do not occupy the same perch, and haven't the luxury of choosing how to converse (to say nothing of setting the rules for such a conversation). Their position in such conversations is forced upon them, if they are included at all. There are many for whom being subjected to overtly or covertly racist acts is a frequent experience, and many who experience racism in the policies and practices of social and governmental agencies, to say nothing of the police. Having endured same (for generations), it is not illogical to experience anger. In the face of inaction and regression regarding racism and its harmful effects--including the loss of life--the stance of humility that you recommend conversants maintain is at best glib and incomplete. David, people are fighting for their lives because of racism, and we have been doing so for hundreds of years--gentility will get us nowhere.
2
The very thing that Brooks, and many others, thinks is needed is the central value and core message of the Democratic Party. And Elizabeth Warren, in particular, understands what structural reforms are needed to codify the broader, more inclusive reality of the American experience. How Brooks can still, at any level, embrace the Republican Party is a journalistic mystery or reckoning on its own.
4
I was very pleased that David Brooks provided his thoughtful article on the crises we face. His calling attention to the work of Eric Liu and his wife in creating the 'Citizen University' and 'Civic Saturdays', provides a powerful example of the 'Action' that Roxane Gay called for in her urgent piece 'The Case Against Hope' also in today's paper. My thanks to both, and to the NYT, for continued focus on the dangers and problems we face , and the responsibilities we must accept as citizens.
2
A central problem in composing a new story is getting the complications of the original story right. It is not true that "the Ben Franklin narrative" is one that is opposed by Trumpists. Franklin put race at the center, describing Germans as 'swarthy' compared to Anglo-Saxons; part (at least) of his founding gesture was a theory that Anglo-Saxons are the only 'race' capable of self-governance. "White" supremacy is actually a broadening to include others in this select group. When Jeff Sessions referred to our "Anglo-Saxon traditions," this is the tradition he is referring to. Maybe the racism of Trumpism keeps coming back because it's further down in the roots and will thus take more digging to be dislodged than Brooks seems to realize.
2
A central problem in composing a new story is getting the complications of the original story right. It is not true that "the Ben Franklin narrative" is one that is opposed by Trumpists. Franklin put race at the center, describing Germans as 'swarthy' compared to Anglo-Saxons; part (at least) of his founding gesture was a theory that Anglo-Saxons are the only 'race' capable of self-governance. "White" supremacy is actually a broadening to include others in this select group. When Jeff Sessions referred to our "Anglo-Saxon traditions," this is the tradition he is referring to. Maybe the racism of Trumpism keeps coming back because it's further down in the roots and will thus take more digging to be dislodged than Brooks seems to realize.
Mr. Brooks writes as if these two narratives -- the hopeful America as a land of opportunity, and the shameful America as a land of white supremacy -- cannot be held at the same time. We are complex creatures who can hold multiple narratives at once, understand ourselves through many different lenses at once. History, after all, is not a transcript but a series of interpretations and stories and narratives.
As a young person, I take tremendous pride in America as the birthplace of modern democracy, the haven for all nations, and a grand experiment in human capacity for self-governance. I also detest America's long history of oppression against many different groups in many different ways. I see no contradiction in this: the ideal of America is beautiful, the execution of that idea is flawed, but we only get closer to that ideal by working and trying to make it better.
6
Seriously? Ignoring other Americans voices is a fix for a better America?
1
"Trump’s narrative is: We real Americans (white) have to protect our culture from the alien (brown) who would weaken it."
When he worked for William F. Buckley Jr. David Brooks would have written something like this instead:
Trump's narrative is: All Americans have to protect our immigration laws and national sovereignty from those of any color who would disrespect them. The fact that many though not all such people are brown is an accident of geography, not a matter of discrimination.
5
The multicultural narrative seeks to turn the tables of the ethnicities in this country. Those of the European ethnicity are at fault for enslaving those of African ethnicity, or stealing from those of native American ethnicity, (all humans are the same race, thus one can't be "racist" against members of their same race). I see now why Trump will win again. It's become now a no sum game in the battle for resources among the ethnicities in this country. Each one now appears to have their own "ethnotribal warriors" These are folks who say they are fighting for everyone else but are in fact fighting primarily for their own ethnotribe.
6
What also astonishes me is that when the Pope condemned Trump's separation policies; Paul Ryan, as well as Republican Catholics in the Senate, i.e., Mike Braun, John Hoeven, Lisa Murkowski, Jim Risch, Mike Rounds, Marco Rubio, Dan Sullivan, Thom Tillis, and Pat Toomey chose to side with Little Lord Trumpen-Furor instead.
The Republican party was already on shaky ground when it came to a "moral framework" while they chose to play their game of conducting a war against former President Obama.
It's been extremely difficult to come to some sort of accord with Trump's avid loyalists since Charlottesville - especially when it comes to those so-called "public" servants who are in office and display an insipid servility to Trump.
AT this juncture, they have no moral framework, their Trump toadyism is indefensible.
Vote them out of office.
3
I wonder what did Brooks have in mind when he wrote the following:
"Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament." Why the word BUT between progressive and the rest of the sentence. Can't enlightened Seattle progressives be also of a reconciling, loving temperament?
6
@semmfan
I was just getting ready to post this same observation.
I am regularly struck by how Brooks consistently, sneakily slips snide put-downs into his columns that subtly reveal his anti-progressive, pro-conservative history and biases.
You'd think by now he would have picked up on how many times he's called out by readers for these thinly veiled jabs, and modify his writing to either admit where is heart and mind truly are, or try a bit harder to master subterfuge.
2
@semmfan. The “but” is exactly appropriate. The fiercest rhetoric of insult comes from the left against any mention of Trump, Republicans, Trump voters, Mitch O’Connell, etc. Words like “racists,” neo-nazis, kkkers, Aryans, white supremicists, etc., come rolling off the tongues of many, but not all, progressives. That “enlightened” progressives ignore this rhetoric, instead of opposing it with “reconciling, loving temperament” justifies Brooke’s “but.”
1
Is it too much to ask to put the story of African American, Native American, Chinese Americans, et al and their contributions to building this country without which, there would be no United States of America?
How about we just tell the truth. Tell the stories of all peoples and in so doing, it would show just how great a contribution non-Europeans made to building America. Those contributions created great wealth without which the United States could not have been born as a country, nor could many other great accomplishments made.
2
“But we Americans are not at our best when we launch off on holy wars. “ Certainly the fight over a women’s responsibility and care taking of her body has escalated into a “holy” war which contradicts separation of church and state.
Eric Lieu is helping us reconcile a diverse and divisive national history. It’s a good thing to understand our history as a nation and the current situation of racial tension, rooted in history and sparked by a racist president who ingnites fear of “other” among whites.
If we look closer, we see a society where interracial marriage and offspring are common. This “melting pot” is where we live and is our future evolution. Nothing to be afraid of. Change and impermanence are universal laws and affect human evolution as everything else. Just look back a long ways back; human races and civilizations come and go and will continue to do so.
An honest accounting of President Trump and his supporters would understand that the narrative is actually:
We real Americans (citizens both born and assimilated legal immigrants) have to protect our culture from the alien (illegal and unassimilated) who would weaken it.
5
@I want another option you need to complete your sentence: how would "they" weaken the country?
2
This article is flawed in so many ways. There is no white conspiracy. There is no collective guilt. There is nothing unique about the American origin story - humans have colonized, brutalized and displaced each other since we first learned to walk upright. While there is nothing right or good about these events, they are part of the past that has helped us evolve as a species and as a nation. To suggest that all white people are racist or bear some permanent shame for the transgressions of past generations is really kind of silly.
10
This is such extraordinary drivel.
If the past three years had exposed nothing else they have made it abundantly clear that ours is a nation poisoned by race hatred. It always has been and the only thing that will ease, reduce, change that primordial fact about the United States is that 25 years from now we will be at most 50% white and that Milenials, Gen Z and then their children, at least outside the south, will have come into adult life with far different views on race.
And that is the view of an older white man.
Mr. Brooks' columns about the U.S. are fairy tales.
6
How ironic is it that a few days after German soldiers thanked American D-Day veterans for rescuing their country from Hitler – a vivid display that Germany has reconciled with its past sins - Brooks says we can’t go around assigning guilt for America’s sins because we are too fragile to handle the truth.
This is a pathetic, cowardly column. Brooks can’t let go of the “unifying national story” he was indoctrinated with as a youth. It’s decay and demise has shaken his world. For years he has argued that we need to turn back the clock and recapture the story’s fundamental values – and if we did that, magic would happen; every day would be the 4th of July.
But now Brooks begrudgingly admits that “our story” wasn’t everyone’s story and so “America needs to have a moment of racial reconciliation. History has thrown this task upon us.”
But wait! Brooks says American isn’t capable of doing that – so we need to assign blame on both sides. The reality of multiculturalism is apparently as bad as the illusion of monoculture.
What a cop-out, a moral cave-in – a spineless position.
Until we reconcile with our past sins, America will never be unified. Failure to do so is an admission that the sins live on and that we don’t want them to die. To claim that America is too fragile to look in the mirror and acknowledge the truth, and so must be handled with “humility and gentleness,” is a cynical statement about who we are.
How can we tell our story? Start with the truth.
2
@Michael The problem is that no one really knows what "reconciliation" looks like and how to apply a metric that will tell us we've achieved this utopian goal. This is where the endless search for equity breaks down--who decides what's "equal," how to measure it, how to achieve it without the state--the most dangerous beast of all--ramming it down the individual's throat.
Solve those little problems and then we can talk.
1
@richard cheverton "the most dangerous beast of all's" job is to provide for the common good (or so it says in the Constitution.) This is an issue that is dividing the country and destroying that common good. Claiming we don't have a metric is just kicking the can down the alley and allowing the problem to fester. How did Germany decide on a metric? It wasn't easy but they did it - because it had to be done.
Brook's claim that multiculturalists and monoculturalists are both to blame is tantamount to Trump saying about the Charlottesville white supremacists that there are very good people on both sides.
1
Overt racism has been hiding under a worm-infested rock for years....Ah!, But now the freedom to stand up and shout hatred with no fear of condemnation from the White House!!!....aided, of course, by the faithful in Congress....Bless our twisted election rules !!!...Is there any hope?
1
Who are we? Who are they? Where do "we" come from? Who owns what? Who stole from whom? And then there's this just published in the journal nature.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/06/closest-known-ancestor-today-s-native-americans-found-siberia?utm_campaign=news_daily_2019-06-06&et_rid=34811930&et_cid=2850152
1
“A religion provides a moral framework for choice and an ethical standard for action,” Eric writes.
No it doesn't!
The Southern Whites, the Northern Trumpistas racists, the KKK, the Nazis, the evangelicals and the "Conservative Christians" all use religious to justify their oppression and hatred of all those who are not just like themselves.
2
It would help if people gave up their zero-sum beliefs about equality. Civil rights are not a fixed pie, whereby women's and minority's gains are White men's losses. This is a common misapprehension that speaks to historical ignorance. When the U.S. was born, only White male landowners had equality under the law. From then on, our history has reflected the struggle to stretch that circle to be more inclusive, cycling through periods of bloody, hard-fought expansion and reactionary contraction. It's as if we're on endless replay, though not without having made some progressive gains (we don't ever restart back at zero).
What I'm especially afraid of during this particular retraction is the reactionary Right's dogged effort to dial us back to at least the 1950s for good. At the same time, we are living through a second Gilded Age, this time on steroids. I don't think the two are unrelated. But we are fighting different narratives with different villains. For the right, the culprits are those pushing on MKL's arc to bend it toward it justice (i.e., those with relatively no power). For the left, the evil resides in the wealthy and powerful special interests who have hijacked our democracy for greed. It's the difference between kicking down versus kicking up. While it's much easier to kick down, it's delusional and won't fix what ails us.
2
Actual history is not an opinion. What has developed is the myth that America was built by honest self-made men who created a document exposing laws, which only pertained to those with power. The revolution that is known as the American Revolution against the Brits was simply a rebellion of elites against elites. The elites here won, as they have in almost every country. Their conquest has resulted in a world where almost all is allowed for the sake of elites keeping their power. They in turn created armies for their personal protection, as a way to retain their power. In all wars soldiers die mostly for elites, and then the elites sit at a grand table toasting champagne glasses to "peace" while the common soldier just lies dead in a commemorative grave site, while the same elites thank them for their service and give their bereaved medals and folder flags as consolation. Many ex-soldiers are homeless in the streets. They elites divide and conquer and that policy works for war as it does for the creation of social systems, including racial divisions. Trump used divide and conquer by posing as a friend of poor and middle class white people, who he declared were becoming extinct. Make America Great Again is just another elite scheme to retain power for the super rich and their elite cronies. If the race card does the job of keeping the Americans disunited so be it. But regardless of history and elite schemes, diversity is nature's way.
4
"...the outrages at the southern border." Yes. What exactly is the "outrage" at the southern border? Is it hundreds of thousands of people entering the U.S. in direct violation of our laws? What about those who claim asylum and then never appear for a hearing, knowing full well that the bureaucracy can't keep up? Without a border, we have no country. THESE are the outrages at the southern border.
11
Outrage at the southern border: FOURTEEN HUNDRED and SEVENTY FIVE children LOST by the TRUMP administration! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!
3
@c smith Unfortunately it seems a majority of readers of this paper don't want to see that truth
3
Interesting. How do we unite when our leaders, including Mr Lui, divide us into groups, and then tell us to cross over? Respecting or common humanity need have nothing to do with race, religion or anything else. Quite a few years ago, Rodney King said it best, to paraphrase, "Can't we all just get along?"
3
The Museum of the New South in Charlotte NC features a permanent exhibit about Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement. Included are a functional pair of water fountains labeled White and Colored. These almost new appliances were stored in the basement of a government building in a neighboring county with hope for a time when they could be legally restored. The story goes that an old janitor outed the artifacts and promoted their use for educational purposes.
A popular destination for school outings, the museum uncovers some of the redactions in the history books approved in Texas and fed to Southern children for decades. Sadly, a question often asked by young visitors and even a few of their teachers, is “What color was the water?”. We have a long way to go toward racial justice. Also, remember that the label “colored” included Native Americans, brownish immigrants, and even white servants who “knew their place”.
4
The most harrowing part of the recent book "How Democracies Die" is its conclusion: the world has never seen an enduring multi-ethnic, multi-racial pluralistic democracy.
But before America, the world had never really seen an enduring democracy of any kind. I share the view that the crime of land seizure (and genocide) against indigenous Americans, and the atrocity of slavery imposed upon African-Americans was the foundation of our power and prominence. Yet, the Civil War and the Second Reconstruction (civil rights movement) proved we were capable of transcending those abominations.
As a progressive, I cannot imagine anything more worth fighting for than to build that unprecedented society--to fulfill the promise of America for every American.
5
The Apache and the Navajo wiped out the ancient Chaco Culture in what is now New Mexico. Europeans were not the first group to displace, fight with, eradicate the people who were there before them.
Slavery wasn't invented by Europeans moving to the New World. Why does no one talk about the 'original sin' of the Romans or the Greeks? Heaven help us, the Egyptians had slaves???
My ancestors were held in bondage for hundreds of years. My ancestors probably participated in pogroms against the Jews. I don't expect anyone to apologize for my ancestors' bondage, nor will I apologize for their hateful bigotry.
This is still the country that billions of people want to move to. Millions of immigrants are still hugely successful in this country. We elected a Black man to be president, twice! No other country has done anything comparable to that, ever. We are not a perfect country, but by God we are pretty damn good.
If we are going to have a 'conversation about race,' it has to include why so many people, Black, Asian, Hispanic, Middle-Eastern, are able to be so successful here. Why are Asian-Americans more successful than Caucasian-Americans? We need to look at what brings success, not solely focus on why one group's failure to succeed is some other group's fault.
10
"pushing toward a national story large enough to contain all the hybrid voices."...exactly. Yes, American DNA includes (a) the slow-motion holocaust for Native Americans, (b) the national sin of slavery, (c) atoned for, at least in part, by the salvation of civilization from Nazis and Communists as (d) wave after wave of immigrants building a better life in America than they ever would be able to in their native lands.
We landed on the moon simultaneously with 50,000 of our citizens, and a million Vietnamese being killed in Viet Nam.
There is something magnificent in the internal contradictions of this country.
3
So glad to hear of Eric's work. So many of my liberal friends have just turned Trump, the bully, off; they just tune out to keep their peace. This of course is just what a bully tries to do; wear you down to the point of exhaustion, where your only relief comes from not listening. But this country has a unique role, in the power it has assigned to the individual working cooperatively and collectively. Our country has an entity called We the People. This is who, as one current and very prominent example, Mueller, has appealed to, to save the day. But if conservatives see and hear only the devil in the above words, 'collectively, or 'cooperatively,' then their is no hope. Likewise, if liberals hear only evil in the assertions of individual achievers, then their is no hope. It is time for We the People to hold to their ideals even though they can be different than others, and come to together to find solutions to current everyday problems. This is after all, what We the People do, everyday; we work with a diverse set of people to get the job done; not to muse over distinct theoretical concerns. Now we must recognize that this pragmatism is what has worked in many areas of our shared life, and is what makes us a great nation. We still have the leisure and time to give input to the political process, input that demands that politicians do their jobs, and not just be a billboard for curious ideologies. If we do not, their are other countries ready to fill the gap we left unfilled.
1
In 2018, there is still 20% of people in the US who believe that mixed marriages are "morally wrong." That's not just an "individual" belief, but a group belief.
The laws being enacted to harm black and brown people are 100% coming not from one or two people but a GROUP of people.
This isn't "over-generalization." This is something that can be discerned. Just like the Nazis weren't just an individual. They were a GROUP that had the power to enact laws. That's what made them so dangerous.
It was our current president speaking to his “base” (or GROUP) who willingly was untruthful about the country of origin of our sitting president. A majority of whites voted for him despite of this racist behavior..
It is a GROUP of people attempting to remove medical privacy from women. It is a GROUP of people. So we get to call out not just the individual but the group when it is acting collectively to harm “the other.”
3
I don't even know what this means: "[Liu] is always pushing toward an American creed that moves beyond both the white monoculture and the fracturing multiculturalism. He is always pushing toward a national story large enough to contain all the hybrid voices."
Shorter David Brooks: I don't know what the heck is going on; let's hope somebody out there does.
1
To me this is a beautiful piece of writing. We do need a new language for the future unifying ideal. One example that I have been struck by is the term, microaggression. I grew up thinking that courage was defined by the movie hero who risks all in a single dramatic, violent shootout. I have come to believe that courage is a muscle that needs regular exercise to prevent atrophy. When I see someone butt in the line, say something. When I notice the absence of color among the people with whom I live, try to do something, beginning by learning about it. Thank you .
"The essential American struggle is to confront the national sin, have a racial reckoning and then seek reconciliation."
I never would have imagined, even ten years ago, that America would be described as being very much like South Africa before its time of national racial reckoning.
Yet it does seem accurate now: trump makes that clear.
3
In one shocking, heinous public policy choice, the depraved separation of children from their parents at our border, this country forfeited its claim to any international moral leadership. Unless and until that crime against humanity is fully addressed in a completely public forum, and those responsible for it are fully held to account, this country should rightfully be considered as an uncivilized pariah.
2
The Democrats long for the multi-cultural society that we have already become. They’ll catch up eventually.
Yet, they can’t quite grasp the concept that telling multi-racial persons, like my children, that half of theirselves should hate the other half is kind of a stupid thing to say.
The overwhelming focus the Democrats have on identifying, as narrowly as possible, specific groups that need to be griping for one reason or another doesn’t work when one is all of them at the same time.
3
Multiculturalism properly understood does not call for zero-sum thinking -- the myth that in order to be proud of one culture, one must denigrate the others.
It's a recognition that we consist of many different peoples, each with their own history, values, and goals. We succeed by finding the commonalities among them and encouraging all to prosper.
I think of the HR director who pressed us to judge staff by the quality of their work, not whether the person wore pants or a dress, spoke with a strange accent, had children or not, had a different skin color, .... We should be open to the reality that these differences bring a variety of perspectives to the office that can lead to better products.
This is so different from the workplace of the 50's where we expected everyone to look the same, dress the same, talk the same. Success came from minimizing or hiding your background and culture.
I for certain can unambiguously state that when I was a young boy I did NOT perceive behavioral and cognitive difference by ethnicity. I was a clean slate.
The perniciousness of race is that it is a characteristic easily identifiable by the naked eye. As we grow up and go through the collective experience of reading, seeing, being educated, etc. we are seduced to generalization based on easy identifiable characteristics.
The slope is slippery - to generalization, ten stereotype, then prejudice, then bias, then fear, and then even hatred.
It takes active mediation as individuals and strong leadership for not falling into this trap. When leadership encourages division, it is even easier to fall into this trap.
The recognition of joint morality and humanity is the solution and it starts with leadership. Obama for example had it, Trump no so much.
2
Seems that David Brooks is struggling to find some middle ground between the latest racists and those horrible multiculturists who aren't willing to accept Brooks' own idealized vision of America. There's a middle ground between racists and people who think slavery is a horrible legacy of this country?
2
Around 100,000 members of the UK Conservative party are going to choose a new leader who is to be automatically the next PM. If I was a British citizen, I would join the party and vote for anybody but Boris Johnson.
A lot religious fundamentalists, pro gun, pro life and extreme right wing people have joined the Republican Party. In my humble opinion as a dumb Canuck, if a lot of more reasonable people would join that party, they could bring it back to a right of center party.
The present political situation is not sustainable. In other words, if five millions Afro-Americans join the Republicans, maybe they could change things.
Read as the second half of your last column, which elucidated the reckoning that the Republican Party faces having fully embraced a narrow view of what it means to be American, not to mention Trumpist racism (the Coming GOP Apocalypse), this is perhaps the most important column you have ever written.
I am a 65 year old, white, immigrant. I try to instill these ideas of diversity and inclusion, a pan-Americanism, into my young daughter. I don't have to try too hard - she is there already, as are her friends and school mates. They are 'woke'. The rest of us are catching up. Bravo for articulating this so clearly.
As an aside, your retreat from the Right, over the last year or two, is quite radical, and has been gratifying to watch. Welcome to the Middle Ground. It's a strange world, maybe even a little dangerous. But it is a welcoming one. We need, urgently, to restore its ranks.
1
I grew up in 50s and 60s Minnesota. We were taught that America is a "melting pot" of diverse cultures and nationalities. Of course, in Minnesota at that time, diverse cultures meant Lutherans, Presbyterians and Methodists or Swedes and Norwegians. Catholics, Jews and people of color were mysterious and beyond our ken.
But what we were taught was that our Founding celebrated not inherited privilege but tolerance for others, equal opportunity for all (well, except women, non-landowners and slaves) and welcoming of the "tired and poor." That ideal of America is what animates people around the world to love it, and for those on the Left to engage in our politics to realize it.
From my vantage point, those on the Right do not share this vision of America. But their limited view is far less powerful in the end.
1
As a black American I can honestly say that this regression we are currently undergoing is quite humbling. I thought we were progressing and moving to the future with a reluctant few (factions within the Republican Party), kicking and screaming for a U-turn back to the past. November 8, 2016 conveyed the reluctant few were actually an electoral majority. It took someone as loathsome as Trump to show us how far we have not gone and our seeming desire to erase the little progress we've made and trade it in for an extra helping of the past. In addition to making American's proud to "hate again", he has revealed the weakness and ineptness of the congressional check, a clear indication that the U.S. Constitution is not quite robust enough to perhap survive a single Trump term. If an aspiring artist is writing the path to a new and more perfect future for our union, she/he ought to ensure adequate amendments are enacted to preserve the integrity of the Constitution by protecting it against a future Trump.
857
@David
"how far we have not gone" - great phrase
53
@David. David, don’t forget that the electoral majority is only in power because the Trumplicans have rigged the electoral system with their gerrymandering and voter registration laws that seek to disenfranchise voters of color. The electoral “majority” is just as phony as Trump.
99
@David Yes, your point about the Constitution is well-taken. We need to use this Trump infection to inoculate our nation against the dangers of a smarter, more devious crook. We've always assumed a responsible adult would be elected President. We can no longer take that for granted.
38
I disagree with the notion that slavery is America's original sin. It is not a particularly helpful narrative, nor does it reflect the actual fact pattern.
1) Slavery had been a fact in world for all of recorded history.
2) Slavery began in the American colonies more than 150 years before the United States was founded.
3) Slavery was abolished about 75 years after the United States was founded.
Did this history unfold fast enough? No. Was it pretty? No. But we must acknowledge that the United States did not invent slavery. We must acknowledge the the founders of this country (whether they were perfect or not) set up the systems that led to the end of slavery. Has the aftermath been painless and fair just? No. But we have moved in the right direction.
We need to acknowledge progress and its foundations when we see them. On the issue of race we have come a long way. And much (if not all) of that progress can be traced to the values and institutions embedded in the liberal democracy set up by people like Franklin. Where we are today was not a foregone conclusion. We could be living in a country with less freedom, less opportunity and less optimism. In history and around the world, those outcomes are actually more likely. So let's acknowledge the progress we've made along with the people and institutions that supported that progress. And let's stop trying to blow up a project that, while still a work in progress, has been successful.
9
This is a flawed argument that unreasonably asks those who have been historically wronged— and who still are being wronged— to be “gentle”.
Brooks also seems to blame “multi-culturalism” by annoying white people for insisting that those historically deemed invisible be seen and heard.
3
If you assign guilt to groups based on immutable properties, or non existent properties like race, then that's a problem. If you assign guilt based on what people do, such as steal the land from the native Americans, or steal the fruit of workers labor from the workers, than that's fine. Hating Mr. Brooks because he's Jewish is wrong, hating him because he thinks its OK to steal from the workers is fine.
1
I grew up on Long Island, NY, in a town which was one of the original "planned communities." What that meant was, that the town was designed for white, anglo saxon protestants. There was an actual "gentlemen's agreement" in place to see that this town stayed that way. In the early 1920's and 1930's, the town grudgingly allowed some Irish and Italiams (ie, Catholic) folks in, and in the later 1930's and 1940's, a very few Jews were allowed to move in. The first synagogue in the town was swastica-ed. I knew of several Jewish neighbors who moved out of the town because of what their children faced in school. The town (with a population of about 25,000) had about 5 country clubs - none of which admitted Jews. While I do not know for sure, having not been there in years, I will bet that to this day, there is not a single black family in that town...at least not one with any children of school age. I do hope I am wrong. Remember - this is NY - not the South.
2
"Once you start assigning guilt to groups, rather than to individuals, bad, illiberal things are likely to happen."
This is an apologia for white supremacists. "Aw, don't hold it against them that they want to suppress and exploit "the other." If you take them to task, why, you might become illiberal."
Wow. Talk about telling all of us "others" - native peoples, African Americans, all those brown people, women, Jews, Muslims, etc. - to just sit down and shut up.
1
So, Mr. Brooks, does this mean that the truth is winning? That is my fervent prayer. This land does NOT belong to just white people, "Christians,"and conquerors. It should be multi-cultural and secular, and a majority of Americans agree with me. If you're a racist, a "nativist" (hardly possible considering white people stole this land,) or a xenophobe, I'm happy to announce that your days are numbered. We will drive you back into your holes.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/americas-tipping-point-most-u-s-now-multicultural-says-group-n186206
This son of poor immigrants is tired of America being portrayed as unfair and racist. Go out and see the rest of the world. Then come back here and thank your lucky stars for living in the world's greatest and most open meritocracy. And tell complainers to get out more.
5
After Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the election, I purposefully sought out a "Trump voter" to find out why. He HATES Hillary Clinton, deep from the "fake news" stream of Mr. Trump. He is also from the NRA's "over my dead body" gun ownership camp. He wants to know why Bill Clinton gets a pass from #MeToo . I practiced Quakerism for 5 years, and I believe we should try to live like 300 years of humanity is watching, and taking notes. So I started a small business with this person (motorcross and bike repair, West Va.). He put Trump stickers on all the equipment and all the bikes. Every month I pay all the financing. He has a family member who lives on Social Security, but he can't see that Social Security IS socialism! I still have my Obama/Biden and Hillary 2016 bumper stickers on my truck. (As an aside, I just found out today that Biden is a "devout Catholic." Our Supreme Court has 6 Catholics out of 9 - what is this? 23.9% of the USA identify as Catholic. Don't Catholics put "God" before Country?) I refuse to let a racist-Fascist Trump break our country apart. At the very least, we will out live Trump, and the Mitch McConnell nightmare, too. I will be here to pick up the pieces. I will be on the other side of this nightmare, still refusing to hate.
2
How about quoting more than just four words, completely out of context, from Lincoln's second inaugural speech?
"If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'"
Abraham Lincoln very clearly stood on the "original sin" side of this argument.
2
Growing up I knew a family of racists. One of their daughters married a black man and produced 3 beautiful mixed-race grandchildren. Guess what? That's right, after the first born they became "born-again-love-your-neighbor" people. Hopefully, the coming generation already knows this and will teach us all a lesson on brotherhood, and one day the Republican Party will look back in horror at what they inflicted on America for four awful years, and "real" Conservatives can come out of hiding.
1
Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament.
Mr. Brooks, I hope you'll remove the word "but" from this sentence.
7
Those who advocate separation and putting migrant children in Concentration Camps shouldn't be confronted with humility and gentleness, any more than the Nazis who persecuted Jews. Our national story has no place for this kind of sociopathy, David. We have prisons for crimes against humanity ... that's the accomodation we should offer Trumpists, not love and kisses. The problem is, how do you deal with the ~70 million others whom applaud him?
4
@JH
Forgiveness is more powerful than punishment. So also is seeing everyone else as we see ourself more able to yield acceptance and compassion for all, regardless of the others social evolution. Cheers.
1
@dmbones
"Forgive them, for they know no what they do?"
No, forgiveness comes later .. maybe .. after you've put a stop to the inhumanity.
1
First, leadership counts. Germany in the mid 20th century would not have been the source of evil were it not for Adolf Hitler. Yet, as a 70 something Jew, I do not hold the vast majority of today's German citizens responsible for what happened to my relatives. That was then. This is now. Sadly, we have Donald Trump who empowers the few racists and anti-semites among us.
Second, the Democratic Party depends heavily of minorities for electoral success. The strategy has been to generate outrage among minorities for wrongs committed decades or hundreds of years ago.
There are racists among us, but they are few in number. Let's not give them agency they do not deserve. At the same time, we should be careful to not see every slight as motivated by racism.
3
I have attended several of Eric Liu's Citizen University events and they have been truely amazing. The speakers are luminary and the group events are community building.
I think our national dysfunction is in part due to the ideology of the South. The Confederates lost the war but are winning the battles now. The plantation of owners of the past are now the business elite who put profits above all else and shamelessly stroke the national undertone of resentment felt by poor whites - well at least you are not black and they are steeling your stuff. And it is just not blacks but lazy liberals and immigrants.
McConnell is an example of the continuation of the plantation nation. Party and power above country. Money is speech and corporations are people.
1
"We real Americans (white) have to protect our culture from the alien (brown) who would weaken it."
I have to laugh when white supremacists talk about their "culture". I once found a will written by a slaveowner. It was signed with an X. He was so illiterate that he couldn't write his own name. Why bother learning to read and write when you can get rich parasiting off of slaves? White supremacists were and are barbarians. And have people heard the story about the barbaric southern slaveowner who attacked a senator with a club in the Capitol while the other barbarians cheered him on?
I am white, but my culture is American democracy. Not white supremacist barbarism.
2
I find Brooks magical opinions unintelligible so I dont read his stuff. My friends share this view. Why can’t he speak in a way that is more down to earth and realistic. His dreamland is silly.
2
It's interesting how often I've read articles like this where slavery is considered America's "original sin" but there's no mention ever of gender. None. It's not even close to being included. This makes me believe that how the issue of race is conceived in America is really about white men vs black men. And women of each race just go along for the ride but a gender hierarchy exists within each race. The systematic, ingrained injustices against women (way before 1609) hide out of sight in every discussion about race. Basically, discussions about race in America are opportunities for while men to take their guilt for a walk. But their consciousness never expands to gender. Never.
1
"Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament."
Why the "but"? There is no enlightenment without love. There is no progress without love. The defining characteristic of political and social reactionaries is the inability, if not the downright refusal, to honor the connectedness of all our fellow humans on Spaceship Earth. The wall that the current president and his admirers demand begins in the mind. And in the heart.
1
When I flew home to Washington D.C. for spring break in 1968, Martin Luther King had just been assassinated, the city was in flames, my street was blocked off by the National Guard and I had to show I.D. to get home. A bloody incomprehensible war was raging, and the country was divided into dirty communist Cong-loving drug-crazed hippie traitor peaceniks bent on destroying the moral fiber that made this country great and crew-cut gun-collecting TV-watching Silent Majority cogs in the Man's racist fascist sexist misogynist Neo-colonial murder machine. In another eight weeks, Robert Kennedy would be shot dead. I think we will weather a stupid, racist, incompetent president and his times. LBJ was none of those things, and he did much worse.
1
New news, the USS John McCain is again tarpaulined, to please the Kaiser, this time, in Japan.
I'm wondering. Did any reporter ask Donald about World War II, and were there 'nice people on both sides-- both sides!!'?
After all, the 'other side' at Charlottesville were led by the Swastika. These questions are not just rhetorical.
3
Malcolm X had it right. The biggest impediment to progress in the black community was white liberals.
2
@Dady
Malcom spoke to the same America that Dr. King addressed and saw white liberals as dishonest for not being the "white devils" trope he used to build black identity and cohesion. It wasn't until Malcolm left America and lived in a Muslim culture that he realized skin color hatred was not a real thing and unproductive. For this change of heart Malcolm was killed by those who he had empowered with hatred. Dr. King's universal human values remain a bedrock of American liberalism.
1
No, Mr. Brooks, the cure for the racist, greedy plutocratic aspect of America is for Republicans (like you) to become enlightened and abandon their now-fascist party until the residue can be drowned in a very tiny bathtub.
4
The first thing that needs to happen is to agree on horrible truths: We are a nation built on conquering lands and slaughtering the indigenous people and treating the survivors as lesser humans; and the wealth of this nation was largely derived from enslaving people of another continent and forcing them to labor at our behest. The next thing is to make everyone understand that nobody living today actually engaged in the genocide or the slavery, but we must as a society contend with these serious crimes against humanity.
There is a knee jerk reaction by many who feel that they are being held responsible by virtue of their heredity. This is furthered by the belief that they will be forced to suffer for the sins of their ancestors if any attempt at reparations are undertaken. It is again because we frame our discussions solely in an individualistic universe instead of a societal one which is where these problems need to be addressed. If we, as a society, can get to a place where we understand that we will end up stronger having dealt with these transgression then we may possibly be clearer in our thinking regarding many aspects of our civil lives.
The greatest obstacle is the Right Wing Media who will paint these noble actions as perverted and discriminatory and another attempt of liberals to steal your money to give it to the undeserving. Maybe with David's new found awareness he can call out the sources of this dissent as the short- sighted selfish entities they are.
2
What often brings warring groups together is a common enemy. In the 1940's we had one (Hitler), in the 1950's we had the Red Menace, in the 1960's that began to wear thin and more enemies were sought. At first it was the welfare queens, then the drug lords, and then, thanks to our constant thirst for oil, the Muslims. That is working for about 30-40%.
As soon as the Republicans and the idiot in the White House figure out how to start a war we will have a great surge of patriotic togetherness.
And don't expect that any members of the first family will go to fight that war, but I expect they will profit greatly.
2
The contrast between the "America, the land of opportunity story" and the "multicultural quilt" story appeared before the 1984 political convention viewers. At the 1984 Democratic Convention, Rev. Jesse Jackson, representing the Rainbow Coalition and Project Push, acknowledged, "(The Democratic Party) is not a perfect party. We are not a perfect people." The mission and the people he represented contrasts greatly with Ronald Reagan's constituency. Rev. Jackson said, "Our mission: to feed the hungry; to clothe the naked; to house the homeless; to teach the illiterate; to provide jobs for the jobless; and to choose the human race over the nuclear race." He went on to say, "My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected, and the despised. They are restless and seek relief." 1984 witnessed President Reagan winning re-election by overwhelming numbers. At the Republican Convention in New York City he ended his speech by making reference to the Statue of Liberty lifting up the welcoming torch to immigrants hinting at America being a land of opportunity. For the most part he dismissed the Democrats as the party of "pessimism, fear, and limits." He declared the Republicans govern by "hope, confidence, and growth." Much of his acceptance speech concerned taxes, inflation, shrinking the size of the Federal government, and modernizing the military. On America's diversity he recalled the Olympic Torch run, the runners and the sites they ran by.
Lincoln himself saw slavery precisely as sin which needed atoning. I have often been haunted by another line from the second inaugural,
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'"
Lincoln hoped and prayed the war was the atonement...alas no. The real question is why not?
The present moment is another opportunity for honesty about who we are and what we have done. That kind of radical honesty always works at well. As Jesus taught, if there is a "no" in the heart, let ther be a "no', on the lips.
“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard, “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. “Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
The "beauty" of Trump is he forces an honest reckoning. I hope we use it.
1
Another article that failed to differentiate between legal and illegal immigration. America has the most liberal immigration policy in the world. But the problem is that there are two types of immigrants: people that follow the rules and pay thousands of dollars and wait for years, and people who immigrate illegally. The Democrats and Republicans have so far failed to make a fairer system. Democrats have shamefully exploited Dreamers for years as a political issue. Blame Trump voters all you want David, but they can't fix it .
5
In order to better understand why it is important to assign guilt to groups rather than individuals I highly recommend “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo. All whites enjoy the benefits of “whiteness” in America whether we make intentional racist actions or unintentional ones. We are ingrained since birth with many societal biases and assumptions that we experience every day that won’t be removed without intense and careful reflection.
3
David, history of our country should not be crammed through our children's throats with one sided monolithic hyperbole.
We should let our children and adults alike feel the shame, guilt and the sorrows that were inflicted upon the indigenous people and the slaves brought here mainly from Africa.
The subject of forced separations of the land from the native Americans will teach my fellow citizens that a terrible crime was committed by our nation's forefathers who built this country on the land of the tribal warlords by violently evicting the settlers' landlords.
There cannot be any other crime that is more horrible than what our early settlers did to establish this greatest nation on earth.
Now as the talk of reparations, which is looming large on the current presidential campaigns led by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, has opened up a chapter in the history of our country which all the politicians, including Blacks and Hispanics were afraid to open up this Pandora's box.
What I feel appropriate is,instead of gerrymandering their districts,Republicans should ask their personal Gods and let the people chose their true representatives for the congress, that includes our state Capitols and the one in Washington to make them totally diverse.
If the current G.O.P. members of the congress look for any guidance from their Lord Jesus or Abraham or any other, they'll find one answer : Do the Right Thing.
And the "Right Thing" right now is : Share the power with everyone.
1
Brooks' obsession with occupying the hallowed middle ground, and associating that middle ground with all things good - God, morality, reason, moderation, the family, tolerance, etc. is oppressive. People like Brooks preached "moderation" to civil rights protesters in the 1950s. These anodyne homilies about the virtues of being neither this nor that get us nowhere.
4
Don’t over analyze this stuff. It’s basically good vs evil/bad. I don’t care what you look like, but I do really care whether you are good or bad. That’s all I’m concerned about in America!
The difference between the progressive narrative on white supremacy and "original sin" is that we can point to the evidence of genocide, slavery, economic exploitation and racial terror that stain our nation's history. This isn't a mythology -- it's real, and it has conditioned the way white privilege continues to be reproduced in our society. We either take it seriously and help dismantle it or we fight another Civil War.
1
This article is just one more descent into isn’t Trump terrible. Get over it. He’s going to sail into a second term, given the Democrats lack of any credible candidates.
1
David Brooks suggests it is wrong to admire the Ben Franklins of the US, the individuals who though their genius helped create the modern world.
Instead we should embark on a national expiation for our crime of taking the US away from the Indians who lived here prior to the arrival of Europeans.
Presumably the extension of this is acceptance of open borders.
Yet this position is strangely innumerate. Taken to its conclusion it would mean providing US citizenship to the 17 million residents of Guatemala, and the 1.2 billion of Africa.
Brooks seems to himself be converting to the open borders fantasy. I say fantasy because illegal immigration is already driving down living standards for America's poor.
Homelessness is increasing in the US. I see homeless camps just off the freeways in Olympia WA. I read news stories about the increase of homelessness in LA, where I once lived. And American cannot afford universal health care, in contrast with other countries which have a less severe immigration problem.
Liberals are in denial, along with David Brooks.
They cannot see that global warming is a consequence of population growth and might have been avoided if we had heeded the message of Paul Ehrlich's 1968 book, the Population Bomb.
For fifty years pundits like Brooks have held up Ehrlich for ridicule. Joe Biden.characterized the "one-child policy" of China as "repugnant."
And still politicians regard birth control as sinful, as population growth destroys our world.
2
@Jake Wagner
Sir:
please show me one quote - one - from anyone arguing for "open borders". and please don't cite Fox News as our source.
1
Brooks’ vision/version of the progressive mindset on race is unfortunately very narrow minded. He makes the mistake (like most journalists/analysts etc) of assuming the dominant opinion/motivation of a particular group is determined by what he sees/reads on Twitter. This is but a slice of a slice. He should follow Mr. Liu’s steps and go into the neighborhoods to see what black/brown folks actually have to say on the issue. It’s not to engage in some sort of existential holy war against white people.
2
One step at a time. We must first get rid of political propaganda and hate speech designed solely to polarize, we must somehow rid ourselves of its esteemed but nevertheless nefarious sources as they are criminal.
2
Eric Liu is fine, Mr. Brooks, but you might want to take a look at Jill Lepore's "These Truths".
Really growing tired of Brooks' journey into his long overdue self-awareness. Continuing to pontificate about social ills does not produce anything but obvious observations. He continues to ignore the pressing problem of today, our government's plunge into despotism and treason as evidenced by the executive branch. Examine that, Mr. Brooks.
3
Why doesn’t Mr. Brooks just say that there were fine people on both sides and be done with it? Obviously he considers racism just another point of view.
1
Brooks writes: "America began with a crime — stealing the land from Native Americans." Really? That's it? What about the fact that America enthusiastically slaughtered Native Americans in the process? Brooks is complicit in white-washing America's casual and systemic brutalization of North America's original inhabitants. And oh yes. He wants an America that includes everyone - just as long as we're not too different (E.g multicultural). God bless Brooks. A good, decent man. Nonetheless, still an Eisenhower Republican in the throes of Leave it to Beaver America.
The world is changing, and the center of technical innovation is slowly moving toward Asia. This trend was accelerated by the Bush administration when they encouraged companies to move jobs overseas, provided training for them to do so, and China rose for that reason, and because they were stealing a lot of our tech as well.
But the cat is out of the bad, the horse is out of the barn, all that. Trump can fight globalism all he wants, he (and we) will lose. Many of the rare earth metals not already mined are in China, or in Africa. You can't build many products, including weapons without them. And they aren't going to be selling them to racists who hate them.
@keith, President Clinton laid the groundwork for China's admission to WTO, which Bush then followed through on. It happened in December, 2001. Most of the work to get China admitted & move jobs to China was done during the Clinton administration, after Clinton and the DNC accepted illegal campaign finance dollars from the Chinese, via John Huang, for the 1996 federal elections. Mitch McConnell also has his arms up in it. His wife's family is Chinese and profited immensely. Owns shipping interests, that has shipped all those goods from China.
Anyway, a similar dynamic to Bush, Sr laying all the groundwork for NAFTA, and then Clinton actually followed through on finishing it and signing the dotted line.
2
Unlike you, David, I think one can respect the the Ben franklin narrative and the narrative that looks critically on what our forebears have done to those who are other — in the color of their skin or their gender or the religions they practice or their sexual orientation or their ethnicity — without needing to chose one over the other. Yes, our nation did start with a crime against native Americans. It didn’t have to be so. We could have found a way to coexist. We decided, instead, to dominate. And our wholesale importation of human beings to toil in our newly confiscated fields and our treatment of them as something less than human is, indeed, part of our origin story. But as true as these things are, it is also true that we are made up of generations of Ben franklins, and our history as a nation of striving immigrants is the key to our success as a nation. Not the enslavement is human beings. Not the extermination and subsequent mistreatment of the indigenous population. But the immigration of those who seek a better life. Your beef should not be with the “dueling” narratives. It should be with the casting by one party of a completely different narrative - one in which the dominators who were responsible for the original sins of our forebears return us to the narrative that, as enlightened people, we should remember, but reject as a means to forge a way forward.
1
When I was a young man, I too believed in this rosy version of American history. The truth, as it turns out, isn't as nice. The Great Recession onward to this current Trumpian era has opened my eyes to the flaws of a nation who thought itself great. I sometimes feel cheated; lied to by those who shaped my childhood notions of an America that may have existed, but only for a select few. I see my friends and contemporaries struggle to make ends meet. I see the Post-War order crumble like so many roads around us. America, to me, isn't so much a nation but an ideal. The founders, Franklin included, were flawed men that aspired to be something greater. We may never reach that ideal, but that should not get in the way of wanting to create a more perfect union. The greatest obstacle to furthering America the ideal is the corrupting force of insatiable greed. I fear that we might not be up to the task, but nothing worth fighting for is easy. I finish with a quote from Abe Lincoln, who says what I feel better than I could: "It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us."
2
Progress is more likely to accelerate when so many of us who are white and middle class acknowledge the systemic advantages that have accrued to us simply because of those identity elements. Then we must become advocates and allies for making those systems more equitable and just for all Americans.
2
I am surprised you left out neuroscience. Much work is being done around us/them, in/out, right/wrong dichotomies tied to identifiable brain anatomy. When any human is raised in an entirely "same" or ethnically homogeneous community anyone beyond that community is "other" in very deep parts of the human brain. Given today's interconnected world if diverse digital storied, videos, etc. content is made publicly and easily available even young children can see human diversity, which can let those new stories find a welcoming audience. In this discussion we need to face forward as we are truly in new cultural/national/human identity waters and times.
2
Another installment in the education of David Brooks, which I’ve been following with interest over the last several years. Mr. Brooks, if you haven’t yet I recommend a visit to the Whitney Plantation north of New Orleans, a museum that tells the story of slavery through the personal narratives of slaves. You’ll find it a chilling experience. After one visit you will only begin to comprehend the degree to which the “original sin” devastated a people, how it implicates all of us, and the enormity of the task ahead if we are ever going to have racial reconciliation. I think you underestimate what it will take.
4
@David Wallance - I realized after posting that my sentence construction “implicates all of us” contains implicit bias – which nicely illustrates the challenge.
There are positive approaches to racism and reconciliation. While recognition and acknowledgement of the problem are the first steps, guilt without planning for mutual actions with shared power as the goal does not work. My faith community has been and is still wrestling with this issue. And, in many ways, we are "ahead of the game." But there is still a long way to go. The community and school in Minnesota is taking the first step, but in the long run, learning how to live together is the key.
1
I think you put this nicely, David. I remember grappling with these problems in high school. My sophomore year, I looked at reparations for a research paper and didn't really know what to think of it. It was obvious to me that African-Americans were at a severe disadvantage, and that was because of the legacy of slavery. Yet everyone I talked to said reparations wouldn't be feasible or would cause more problems. (These days I think basic income could help solve economic insecurity.) Then I looked at multiculturalism through a speech on the speech team my senior year. I wondered why we put such emphasis on our own backgrounds instead of exploring others' backgrounds and what unites us. (Now I'm more in favor of this version of multiculturalism.) The change toward a non-racist society will be slow, like all great changes are. But I know we will get there.
I wish I could share your optimism Mr. Brooks. Trump has made it safe for people to openly and violently turn their fears into anger. This is not going away anytime soon as long as the politicians in power continue to foster policies that discourage unity. Even symbolic gestures toward recognition of our historical original sins are anathema to them: leaving Andrew Jackson's image on the $20 bill rather than redesigning it with Harriet Tubman's face? C'mon. Why do Trump and his pal Mnuchin need to spit in the faces of people for whom such a simple gesture is important? You don't mention it but the existential crisis facing us all is going to make division worse. As climate change worsens our weather patterns the divide will worsen between the haves and the have nots, between races and ethnicities, between city folks and country folks. With another four years of Trump we will never recover.
"Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament. " But? What underlying stereotype of progressives is Mr Brooks describing when he says "but"? that they have a terrible temperament?
Of course race is one of, if not the biggest, issues in our country. He exhibits right here how our stereotypes get in the way of dialogue.
2
Tell us, Mr. Brooks, what is bad and illiberal about assigning guilt to a group of Republican Senators who, like John Calhoun and Donald J. Trump, are interested only in across-the-board nullification of all that is good and decent? From a woman's right to choose her own life, to the planet-wide threat of climate change; from education to health care? And racism? I recently visited for the first time, Charleston, SC. Nullification there is in the form of denial of the atrocious underbelly history of slavery. The Slave Museum is not on the city's historic district map. Our 5th generation Charlestonian guide never mentioned it, neither did the hotel staff. We found Charleston's inhumane history on our own. Sorry, Mr. Brooks, but group guilt must be assigned to those who perpetuate enslavement of others, whether the Others are a half-million African people or a dozen children from Colombia.
3
Once global communication brought all of humanity face to face we could no longer think of our selves as only isolated individuals. As we saw great disparities of wealth and opportunity from every corner of the planet, and a warming climate destroyed subsistence farming, a great migration larger than nations roamed northward seeking survival, and we were no longer isolated nation states. We were melting, together, becoming the inhabitants of Earth, or we would not survive as a species.
America has a unique role to play in this human drama that is unfolding before us and will define the future of life on Earth. We are truly a microcosm of the test facing all of humanity. How we as a nation resolve our circumstantial sins against our common kin is the exigency of human history, a turning point toward collective evolution or the end of civilization.
What a time to be alive. For now, all that we have learned in this soul school of planet Earth will be called upon to rise up and embrace our better angels, to move our highest consciousness from our heads to our hearts, to love one another, if we are able. What we have become as individuals we must now become as one human organism, citizens of Earth.
The fire of this great test is upon us and will only burn more deeply until all that has been lost is surrendered, and the promise of peace on Earth achieved in all its glory. May it be so.
2
Interesting that you quote Lincoln’s address, highlighting the sentence “And the war came.”, only to follow the quote with your own take: No one wanted it. This Is a false statement. Lincoln himself said so in the sentence in he address immediately preceding your quote, when he said:
“Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.“
No, sir. One side made and waged war to see the Union fall. To now claim that neither side wanted war is a misrepresentation of the act and consequences of secession.
4
Actually, Calvin’s understanding of original sin is a bit more complicated than this popular understanding of it, but let’s go with it—it provides an excellent description of today’s “climate of opinion.” That “climate of opinion” is mistaken, but it is what it is. Indeed, this may be one of Mr. Brooks’ best columns and he’s generally excellent at discerning how the American people see their country and its history. They see it, especially today, through the lens of sin.
But carry this Calvinist popular misunderstanding still further. The Frenchman Calvin is also seen as a believer in predestination. This suspect notion has flooded the popular notion of science, where predestination is thought to rule the roost and science’s goal is seen as discerning those timeless laws that determine everything. If we could just discern how all those atoms, etc., affect each other throughout the universe we could predict everything. This misunderstanding—an infinite determinism—is too often true even in the popular understanding of the social sciences.
Fact is, that ain’t what science is about. Seeing both the country and the universe through a popular (and vulgarized) understanding of Calvinist ideas is simply not correct. Our “climate of opinion,” the common view of who we are and even what the universe is, is incorrect. We need to correct it.
Mr. Brooks’ message is an excellent one.
1
"'And the war came.' Nobody wanted it, but it came." As usual with Mr. Brooks' more nostalgic columns, this statement and this vision of America can only stand by blurring and distorting history. First of all, Southern Confederates did want a war. Second, many Black abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, had come to believe war was the only way to break enslavement. See Kelly Carter Jackson's new book "Force and Freedom."
Growing up in Texas I was taught a number of things that appear in or are implied by this article. There was unified American opportunity; nobody wanted a Civil War; it was all about States' Rights; all moral responsibility is individual, not collective (this especially from the evangelical part of my background). It's a lie. All of it. And I would rather know the truth, Mr. Brooks.
2
My ancestors were Germans who came to this country in the late 19th century. They had precious little to leave behind in Europe, so starting over was not unduly hard for them. An exchange was made: their ancestral home and ancient blood ties given up for American liberty. There are times I wish my family still had some connection to our homeland, but I would not trade back the freedom I enjoy presently, and given that no member of my family has deigned return to Germany except to visit, I think they feel the same.
Because of when my family immigrated to this country, we have no part of the ugly legacy of slavery. My family were not slave owners, were not conquerors or oppressors, they were peasants, farmers, and did not set foot on this continent until slavery was decades dead. Did they benefit from privilege? Perhaps, though Germans were not particularly welcome and hence formed their own communities in the American frontier, a legacy still seen to this day in the town in which I live, where nearly every street bears a German name and most of the families do as well. Farming was all they knew, so to farming they returned, but this time as free men and women.
The collective guilt that hangs over white America due to slavery has never settled on my shoulders, though because I am white people have expected me to at least pretend to be ashamed of what other white people did long before I was born or my family even lived here. It strikes me as a very backward way of thinking.
9
Our ancestors may not have been privileged, but they weren’t disadvantaged for simply breathing. If your ancestors were African American, chances are you would have had a poorer start in life. A lot of injustices only legally were addressed within the last 40 - 50 years.
Did America have to pass a voting and housing rights act for people of German heritage 50 years ago?
Were state governors giving hyperbolic speeches barring Germans from attending flagship universities? Did the National Guard have to be called for your grandparents to attend elementary school?
What was the German equivalent of Brown vs. Board or Plessey vs. Ferguson?
Did angry rioters burn down towns and villages of people of German heritage?
Were German Americans forced to use separate water fountains, rest rooms and seating areas on a bus?
Were German Americans denied mortgages for decent housing?
17
@Joel: I come from a similar background and feel more or less the way you do. But supposed you or I did descend from slave-owners? Should we then feel guilty about it, even though we didn't chose the family we were born into? And what about the children of murderers? Should they feel guilty because of what their parents did? I don't think so. I think the whole idea of inherited guilt is lunacy, plain and simple.
10
Why do people think that recognizing that our nation has the historical stain of racism and slavery and working to fix it implies that white people have to feel guilty? If you feel guilty, maybe that's your own personal issue.
169
Changing the American story from one of hope, unity and progress to guilt, separation and blame is a dangerous path that could lead to tribalism and hate. The American Dream is in trouble.
1
Brooks writes, "Once you start assigning guilt to groups, rather than to individuals, bad, illiberal things are likely to happen." Yet assigning guilt to groups is precisely what the God of the Hebrew Bible does through the prophets and it is what Brooks' hero, Reinhold Niebuhr, says must be done to save Christian revelation from being reduced to a screed against naughty individual sinners. Groups need to be accountable for their actions as groups. We are one nation, not single individuals, under God.
If true or approximately true, the destruction of our planet will make all these ideas unimportant. Talk what you want but these issues will be a mere echo of the ending of our history. And believe it or not we may be at the end of our story.
1
I think the problem is that we have become (at least) two different nations living within the same boundaries. This is something that I began to realize even before Trump entered politics and the assault on truth by the Right is indicative of this. Race is a big factor but not the only one.
Jon Meacham has said repeatedly that the story of America is the struggle between our better angels and our darker side.
1
David Brooks will be worth reading on the subject of race when he frankly admits that the party he has carried water for his whole career has, since the 1960s, pandered quite explicitly to racial hatred and fear and resentment in order to win elections. I've never met a Democrat who didn't own up to the racist past of our party: the party of southern whites who were angered by Reconstruction and for a hundred years after always voted for the party that had opposed it. Hardly a single Republican -- Max Boot is an exception -- who has denounced Trump's racism has admitted that he's merely the latest race-baiter in a long line, stretching back to the sixties.
6
I don't see the Trump supporter narrative being "real Americans (white) have to protect our culture from the alien (brown)." I hear them say that they want control over their borders and that we do that through immigration laws that need to be enforced in order to realize that control. I hear them say that they want immigration but immigrants need to come through the process WE set up just as THEIR ancestors did. It seems more on the left that we get diverted towards skin pigmentation; they seem to say that it what others are thinking but how do we really know. Group identity politics will tear this country apart. We are all part of the same source, there is a universal consciousness.
4
I agree with David's concern. It seems that the argument is getting more radical; that white people are to blame for everything.
This is just not true. Personal responsibility is not dead.
3
I often criticize Mr. Brooks. In today’s column I think he has it exactly right.
I am thoroughly American, a 10th-great grandson of William Bradford, the Pilgrim. I have always viewed America in the soft light of late afternoon — America as an ideal, imperfect but seeking a more perfect union, unified in the inalienable beliefs of our Declaration of Independence. I have always believed the arc of America’s universe bent toward inclusion and justice. I have always believed slavery was our original sin, but an original sin we could overcome.
My view was jolted when Dick Cheney instituted a torture regime and the Republican establishment applauded. My grandfathers fought and died in our wars. My uncle was killed in Vietnam. My father died in active service. I thought they fought and died to stop torture committed by other, less enlightened countries. Duty, Honor, Country.
Donald Trump has brought my disillusionment into sharper focus. Tens of millions of my fellow Americans do not view themselves primarily as Americans, at least in the way I’ve always understood what it means to be American, but as white people, with more in common with the white people in Russia than with me. The reaction of Republican leaders in Congress has been shocking.
And on the left, increasingly, I hear shrill voices of an an ignorant racism that mirrors the ignorant racism on the right.
All of which makes me wonder: who still cares about America? I do. I’m glad Mr. Brooks does, too.
3
Great piece from David Brooks. Nice work. I do think that the end attempts to create a “safe space” to allow whites to avoid personal, shared responsibility. Race, gender and class has placed each of us higher or lower on life’s ladder to good fortune. It’s the birth lottery. So the 1st step for whites is to recognize that and beat back an ego which says “I earned everything I have because I am special.”
1
White Americans committed great crimes in the past against non-Whites. The only reasonable atonement is to provide equality of opportunity to all Americans. Not lip-service to equality of opportunity but actual equality of opportunity. That means directing resources to education and health-care for the have-nots of America -- whatever their ethnicity.
1
Much of this conversation may be better understood by replacing "race" with "tribe." Tribal competitions and antagonisms are a hallmark of relatively unevolved groups. In order to rise above and exceed past conditions one must embrace commonality.
The United states is one of the wealthiest countries in the history of the world yet we are unwilling to provide free health care for our citizens, free collage education, birth to death security for our citizens so they do not fall into poverty and hunger..
The money is available for all these things and more if only we had the will to make them happen as many other western democracies have done for their citizens.
As long as the wealthy and the Republican party rule over the United States we will never be able to break the hold over the common wealth of our country for the betterment of all citizens.
3
David does his usual in this article, while acknowledging the basis of much of Trump's appeal to his supporters, he himself plays a Trump card (pun intended), in the form of "it is both sides", the way that Trump defended white supremacists and the like by talking about 'the violence of the left'.
To claim that multiculturalists are the mirror of the racists on the other side is a bit of a stretch. While there are those on the left who annoy me with their insistence nothing good ever came out of the US, who denigrate what the constitution was about, the contradictions of a country predicated on freedom that allowed slavery and Jim Crow, etc, they exist, most people who embrace multiculturalism simpy don't have a problem with people from other places and races and backgrounds and welcome changes they bring. The ones who see only evil have the same problem as those who see US history as some sort of God driven perfection you can't criticize, they see things in black and white, not shades of gray. Sorry, but most of Trump nation does want to make America White Again and refuses to see anything else, the numbers don't add up to equivocate.
Want to know what I say to both sides? That the US was founded by human beings, who make mistakes, some of them horrible, but the founders left a legacy of rule of law that also allowed for change; a country that once despised Irish and Italian immigrants came to accept them, same with Asians..lot of work to do with race, of course.
"Trump’s narrative is: We real Americans (white) have to protect our culture from the alien (brown) who would weaken it."
No citation here because, of course, there is none possible. This is Brooks' and his Progressive brethren forcing an interpretation based on their reflexive Trump Derangement Syndrome. These 'multi-culturalists' have their own narrative, which is that all cultures must be respected and preserved. Except, of course, for western culture, its literature, its art, and its institutions.
2
Lincoln was not interested in forcing the South to free its slaves, and said so. His primary purpose in fighting the Civil War was to preserve the union. His neglect to protect and better position the black population allowed the horrors of the reconstruction period and guaranteed their future impoverishment.
What we need in our country is not "humility and greatness" but knowledge. Our political leaders have seen to it that geography and history are ill-taught in public schools, or not taught at all, with consequent results.
148
@JFP
Lincoln became interested in the lives of black slaves as the War progressed, as the manpower needs of the Union Military under Grant’s War of Attrition continued to drain the youth of the North. His Second Inaugural Address expressed his wish for full citizenship rights for slaves, as well as a recognition of the evil injury of slavery to slaves as a people:
“‘Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’ If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?
“Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
33
@JFP Education yes. It's a necessary starting point. But in order to move the needle we must have "humility and greatness".
5
@JFP Knowledge without heart, without love, is the problem. History needs to be taught by embracing all of humanity, with God's love of all. Everybody, including our leaders, needs humility in order to receive God's love. And Lincoln's views on slavery were complicated--he always viewed slavery as unjust but he wasn't always clear on how to end it. It's more accurate to say that he evolved on the issue.
14
Hold on a sec though.
Racial oppression is a terrible legacy. It still exists. But it's not the only story.
The left undermines itself when well-meaning progressives try to eliminate academic merit as the sole criterion for schools like Stuyvesant.
The left dooms its own fight for fairness when it insists that every ill that plagues Africans and African-Americans has, as a root cause, *only* external factors.
If the battle to end racial oppression must be waged around the standard that all people are created equal in every way conceivable, then that battle is already lost, because the standard is nonsense, and people (left, right, and center) are allergic to nonsense.
When the end of racial oppression is built, rather, on the notion that all people should be equal in the opportunity to be excellent, and that differences -- even essential differences among people -- can be the basis of a stronger polity, THEN racial oppression (and hate, and bigotry, and Trump) might actually have an end in sight.
The lie of absolute sameness undermines everyone except those people who want the liberal experiment to fail.
1
Lincoln said:
“Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.”
That same one party that “ would make war rather than let the nation survive,” is still making war.
The only question is, will the other party that “would accept war rather than let it perish,” keep accepting such a war, to prevent the nation from perishing, or will it no longer accept war, which would mean giving up, which, in turn, means letting the nation perish.
What Lincoln understood, to the point of accepting the most lethal war per capita in our history, was that whenever a party makes war against the integrity and values of the nation, there is no choice but to accept that war, and fight it, yet again, over and over.
Democracy, then, means perpetual civil war — as the human genome has so much innate aggression in it, so many prone to dominate.
Now we see the government itself being hi-jacked by the war-makers, using it as a weapon against those who refuse to accept letting the nation perish.
Because it is not merely a nation in name only, defined by a geography, population, currency, economy and set of laws. Rather this Nation is a particular kind of nation:
“a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
And they fight back so “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
2
Beautifully written and elegantly stated. Sadly, I have come to hope for some sort of amicable divorce that might avoid the prospect of a bloodbath: you go your way with your delusional thinking and white supremacy, and we go our way rebuilding a nation dedicated to the rule of law and all the freedoms and protections gifted to us by our Founders. Perhaps this is my own form of delusional thinking.
Yes, it's hard to see the way forward someties. This is one thing I know for certain: Ignore the true believers. They always represent ruin. The only variable is which flavor of ruin.
Trump is only the frontman carnival barker for the coming show. The GOP has served one purpose during his time: they finally turned over the rock of racism and shined light on their truth. I’ve been thinking since Obama was elected president that the truth of the twin atrocities and sins of genocide of native Americans and enslavement of African Americans needs to be reconciled with them, for all of us. There are mechanisms to do this. We just need the wherewithal and leadership—and maybe through Trump and his gang’s vileness the majority of us can finally face our own without hiding and cringing. How else do we go on?
1
The only respect in which Trump is a departure is in uttering out loud the Republican dogwhistles that David Brooks has been ignoring for decades. Enabled by intellectual dishonesty and moral cowardice, Brooks continues to peddle a false equivalency narrative.
2
Blacks are less progressive on immigration because poor country, low skill immigration has reduced wages with endless surplus labor (both illegal and legal variety) and taken jobs that use to go to vulnerable Americans. Those vulnerable Americans, at the same time, watched NAFTA bleed take high wage work to low wage countries (contrary to what liberal economists said would happen.)
Republican business owners prefer serf labor. They pay them lower wages, and no benefits, and then toss them on the public welfare heap when they are used up or hurt.
American vulnerable have had their work culture broken for three generations, which adds to the reasons Republicans need to hire immigrants (and at low wages.)
Dems just want new poor bodies to feed and shelter and get their vote. They add to the poor, broken, Americans here -- who the Dems also break, feed, and get their grateful vote.
This is how Dems get control of the culture. And Republicans get their serf labor. Taken together, this is the Establishment.
This is why Blacks will gravitate towards the prosperity vision of the Trump agenda. Liberals need mass poverty to service (and get their vote), and Blacks know it.
3
Mr Brooks there is no opposing narrative it is not a story. The land was stolen. It was built by an atrocity. Sorry those are the facts to describe this nation in any other way disparages those that suffered
1
"...Moreover, he is always pushing toward an American creed that moves beyond both the white monoculture and the fracturing multiculturalism. He is always pushing toward a national story large enough to contain all the hybrid voices..."
That's right. That's exactly right.
1
Before Brooks lionizes his Franklin dream, he might want to read this:
"[W]hy should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.
[T]he Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. [W]hy increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind."
Benjamin Franklin, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind” (1751)
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@EW I hear you. It's awful. Franklin is expressing views that were popularly held at the time, and they're views we find abhorrent. He was appalled at the prospect of all those filthy "swarthy" Germans! It's a good thing he was long dead by the early 1900s, when immigration really heated up.
But what I've always loved about the American myth of self-creation is that it's flexible. As time goes on, we stretch the tent. Just as ambitious Franklin strode the streets of Philadelphia with his loaf of bread under his arm, I picture young ambitious people from all over walking our streets with a souvlaki stick, a taco, dosa, dumplings.... It's not what Franklin imagined, but it's a tasty image for today. We can reappropriate the myth and rejoice in the fact that it's there for the taking--anyone can use it to shape a new life in a new place. I've always found Franklin's story (and, yes, it's one that I'm sure he carefully shaped) hopeful and inspirational, and I hope that others continue to read it and learn from it.
So, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater: Franklin's curiosity, his civic participation, his industriousness, his wit, his self-described quest for self-perfection -- these are all laudable, regardless of his horrid (and very much of his time) views on race. Take the good stuff, confront and discuss the bad, and move on.
File this one under "why I am not an originalist."
I'm glad our wandering philosopher Brooks has brought this topic up. I appreciate the example of Eric Liu. But David should also give credit to Jim Wallis, author of America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America (Brazos Press, 2016). Wallis and his Sojourners group have been fighting the good fight for a while now; how about spreading word of their work, Mr. Brooks?
Say what you will, but when it comes to pursuing "life, liberty and happiness,” then providing each individual with the ”opportunity,” to do so amounts to precisely this:
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“…We the People give each aspirant one free pass, to pursue their destiny on our Great American Battleground, where it is mandated, that to achieve anything resembling success, one must fight, claw, and scratch one’s way to whatever outcome is within reach, for better or for worse…” [my caption]
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Furthermore, each aspirant must understand fully, that from beginning to end, "might is always regarded as right," and that the Laws of the Land always favor the winners.
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It doesn't take education or even insight, only experience, to teach us that all things "American," can be encapsulated in just twos simple axioms:
1. There are only winners, and losers.
2. Winners take all, losers get nothing.
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And that, in a nutshell, is exactly how things are working in America, for each of us, right now.
And do you know what? It's always been that way.
"There’s a lot of over-generalized group accusation in both these narratives."
There's a lot of over-generalized nonsense in this piece.
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The story of America I learned had two coequal and essential principles: America was a land of equal opportunity, and America was a meritocracy in which personal progress was based solely on merit.
Unfortunately, both of these principles are, at best, partial truths. First, if you live in a crime-ridden neighborhood and/or an area in which the schools are terrible you are severely handicapped, and for you America is obviously not a land of equal opportunity. Second, some well-meaning attempts (e.g., affirmative action, racial preferences, etc.) to remedy the blatant meritocracy inequalities of the past have made a significant number of Americans angry, resentful, and often Trump supporters.
So, is there any way America can move forward to become a land of equal opportunity and a true meritocracy? A feasible solution must include more careful spending on programs to improve schools, social conditions and healthcare in many neighborhoods, and eventually the elimination of artificial attempts to influence the meritocracy. Unfortunately, it seems very unlikely that in the current and near future political climate any significant progress will be made.
I am alternately entertained and frustrated by David Brooks's attempts to bring humanistic resolution to complex problems. I also prefer persuasion and compassion to violence. But slavery wouldn't have ended without violence, nor would the Nazis have been routed without bombing and boots on the ground. Racism is not a philosophical problem to be solved, and the necessary reckoning will not be accomplished solely in fellowship. People "on both sides" are angry whether rightly or wrongly and the settling of accounts is far from clear. The further our multiple perspectives on race and identity in the U.S. shore up their positions, the more likely it will end in bloodshed or loosening of our union. The latter would allow us to pursue reconciliation on a smaller scale.
A wise and compassionate column. I hope the habitual David-mockers will respectfully consider the direction he advocates.
I'm just not sure why multiculturalism needs to be equivocated so readily with fragmentation or the innate fracturing of social structure as a de facto proposition.
Moreover, can reconciliation really happen in the context of such zero-sum conditions? Do we think that the most aggrieved groups--whether they are indeed persecuted on the real on the ground or not--will inherently look at reconciliation as defeat?
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My hope is that more Americans will come to understand our history as the flawed yet most powerful human story yet: a group of men thought they could create a new way to govern themselves using reason and the consent of the govern... they would literally make up the rules and, remarkably they were stumbling on an idea that would ultimately create a possible way for people of all backgrounds to live together, this in spite of their own misgivings about certain groups, limited in their own knowledge of humankind, yet, they stumbled onto what has become our task— can we pursue this ideal thing of America? It’s the world’s best hope...
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Are we peaceful, compassionate, empathetic, loving of justice,
mercy, kindness, humility? Let this be our sense of self.
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I am always amused at David Brooks's epiphanies.
There really is a different narrative than the Pilgrims' arrival and My Country Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty?
I and thousands of others have known the lie of this narrative for decades. We have worked for racial justice and acknowledged our own white privilege. The truth of both racism and white privilege is right in front of our eyes, every day, unless we choose to be blind.
I suppose to Mr. Brooks I charitably say, "Better late than never."
But presenting this as an ah-ha moment is evidence of a very slow learner.
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"Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament. " It would have been enlightened and loving of David Brooks to replace his "but" with an "and". Progressives are not less reconciling and loving than any other political movement. Indeed it could be argued that universal health care, taxing the uber-wealthy and affordable college are motivated from love.
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That sentence caught my eye as well.
I can remember reading Brooks' tone deaf response to Ta-Nehisi Coates' several years back and thinking there was no hope for him on the topic of race in America, but this response is different and reflects intellectual growth. I really appreciate what Stacy Abrams has brought to the national conversation on race in her emphasis on being "seen." For the conservative white (mostly) men who resist what they see as "politically correct" multiculturalism, the real issue is that the can't see themselves in these multicultural depictions of America. What they don't seem to realize--and which is crucial--is that so many minorities here have lived their whole lives without being able to or even really expecting to see themselves in earlier, racially normative depictions of America. It's time for the white conservatives to acknowledge this--to reckon with the importance of being "seen" for everyone who is a part of American society. These white conservatives have a challenge in front of them, but it is not as they imagine it, to accept marginalization. It is instead to imagine themselves in a new way--as part of a plurality instead of as the only arbiters of cultural value, as they were in the past.
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@Jeremiah Crotser
You assume that white people care much more than they really do about this topic. Most white people are just going about their daily lives and don't engage in the type of white nationalism hysterics that seem to dominate arguments like this one. Seeing the world exclusively through a racial and/or identity politics lens is a losing proposition.
@John Of course there is humanity first and foremost--race is a category. But to imagine that you can go through life without the lens of race in America IS to exist in a fantasy of white nationalism.
Mr. Brooks,
There is another American story that all of us should be able to embrace. We are a nation based on a common philosophy, as embodied in the Constitution, rather than a common ethnic or religious heritage.
Of course there are contradictions and cases of hypocrisy throughout our history. But so long as we strive toward a more perfect union, we can be optimistic about the future.
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I never knew the real story until I went to college and studied the oppressed groups of folks living in America and the long oppression of the Native peoples by the white conquerors starting with dear ole Columbus. It was an eye opening experience but, mind you, this was the 70's when things began to be revealed. There were many leaders and ordinary people who began to question this whole idea of white supremacy and still cling to those ideas in a time of renunciation and downright lies about the past. We overcame those ideas then and moved to more enlightening times but now "they" are back trying to lead us down the path of hatred again. RESIST.
Dear David,
Your piece is well intended but woefully misinformed. The so called "multiculturalist" (I call them historians) have not argued for some grand narrative of national guilt.
What they argue is that the American ideal has always been bifurcated. Whether rich/poor, white/black, native/settler, male/female, we have historically proclaimed noble values, but failed to live by them.
National reconciliation begins with truth. Your wonderful Ben Franklin also supported the National Immigration Act of 1790 which proclaimed America as open only for European Christians.
(And they meant only northern Europeans)
The contribution of the Enlightenment helped create the structure of a Republican government and the Bill of Rights proclaimed the value of individual worth through individual liberty.
But the second great pillar of our democracy didn't occur until 1868 with the passage of the 14th Amendment. Equality was added to the American palet and we have been struggling for the last 150 years to realize that noble value rather than just praise it.
None of this is about divisions or guilt. It is our own, slow and often painful journey toward peace and reconciliation.
Nations have grand myths that hold them together and dark secrets that until given light threaten to tear them apart. Today our multiculturalists are simply shedding light of those secrets, so that we can all heal.
Be patient. This journey began 400 years ago and it will take time.
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There has been a tremendous effort over recent decades to convict current generations of American citizens of crimes or wrongs committed by their ancestors. We all have blood on our hands because of what they did? No. It would be wrong to say that we are all purely innocent but, having not been alive 300 years ago, how could we be convicted in absentia?
The use of the term "native Americans", apparently generated in academic circles in an attempt to show respect for people's misidentified as Indians, can be seen itself as a reverse putdown of European settlers. When would the descendants of white Americans get to be "native"? In fact, you are a native of the country you are born in no matter your race or ethic heritage. You have ever right to claim the country as your own. The past is prologue.
The Ben Franklyn narrative of America mentioned in this column is true, not fantasy. So are other narratives: the massacre of original Americans by settlers, yes. The massacre of white settlers by the original Americans, yes, too. The narrative of a people insensitive to human suffering by creating slavery for economic gain, yes. The social and economic imprisonment of black people by discrimination and brutal law enforcement, yes, too.
There is no one solution to coming to terms with our national story, but we must never forget the grand achievements and the constant struggle to live up to our highest ideals of active democracy and human rights embodied in the Constitution.
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Trump perhaps epitomises the lowest point of decline in what is described as the idea of America built around an exceptional blend of cultures and ethno-racial diversities working gard to realise their destinies without fear. However, all is not lost as the cycle is yet to come a full circle when the founding idea will start emerging with a new appeal and promise as even the darkness gives way to light under the command of the law of Nature.
Please don't call the stealing of land a crime: it required a genocide, the first original sin of the United States. Erasing that fact won't help us confront it now.
Mr. Brooks misunderstands the twin original sins of this country. The people who live today aren't responsible for them: they first happened centuries ago, and none of us were alive then. We are, instead, responsible for the ways they continue to happen today, because today we are failing to stop them.
The ways in which racism -- which is a structure of power, not an attitude -- continues to exist is well-documented: everywhere from prison populations to redlining to police brutality to a markedly higher mortality rate during childbirth and beyond.
And where racism exists for African-Americans, it also exists for Native Americans; but in addition there is also the unique issue of the missing and murdered Native American women, which is happening in Canada too and which a recent government study just called a "Canadian genocide."
I'm skipping a lot of nuance -- African-Americans face a number of unique challenges (including deadly ones: for example, the average age a black trans woman lives to is 45), and I haven't even mentioned environmental and land rights issues that predominantly affect Native Americans.
But I wanted to make clear that the two original sins of this country, INCLUDING the genocide of Native Americans, are alive and well today. Americans are responsible for continuing to allow that.
@Nate A
While we're at it lets make a list of all original sin going back to the first groups of hunter gatherers! Oh wait, all humans have been killing and enslaving each other for thousands of years, so perhaps we should stop this inane dialogue on past sins and focus on making the world a better place today.
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@John: Hunter-gatherers didn't talk about how all men were created equal and pat themselves on the back for their enlightened ideals. The founding fathers did.
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A fine piece about the central battle in our society. My big takeaway is that we are as much the victims of luck as we are the benefactors of just one amazing leader.
We need another Abe Lincoln - and fast.
Growing up in the 50s and 60s I read about Booker T Washington, Fredrick Douglas, Squanto, Sacajawea, and others that were not white males. Sadly, what a read about Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison and other American heroes was the sanitized versions. Later in life many of the warts were revealed. In many respects it made those remarkable people more human. We need to present a more realistic version of our history as a country and as a people. Most certainly as a country or a people we are not perfect. That should not prevent us from making things better. White Supremacism is a state of mind driven by fear and ignorance. It is exploited by some amongst us for political gain and power. Those people need to be exposed for what they are and made irrelevant by the truth. Sadly many are in positions of power to include the Oval Office for now. Additionally, too many Supremacists take refuge in religion, justifying their racism, superiority and bigotry as their "god's word". The annihilation of native peoples and slavery were justified in biblical terms, just as discrimination against the LGBT community is today. Criticism of the unsavory history in our nations past is not unpatriotic or disloyalty. Acknowledging the mistakes of the past and not repeating them is healthy for our country. We need to strive to be more inclusive but still allow various groups to maintain their cultural identities. We are all richer for it. We are getting there, it will take time.
as another older white mail, it seems that the progressive story is ( and should be) that America is the land of opportunity and progress, but that because we are imperfect , we must constantly strive to be as close to that ideal as possible. In order to do that we must recognize where we are not living up to it and try to do better. It is not about blaming someone for what has happened, but rather to recognize that it has and to strive to create a system that no longer skews the system towards those who have unfairly benefited by america's failures to live up to its promise.
"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.
As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must dis-enthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."
- Abraham Lincoln
True then, true now!
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I believe both of Brooks's narratives, and see no conflict between them -- not in the sense that if one is right, the other must be wrong. I believe that "a national story large enough to encompass all the hybrid voices" will incorporate both.
As for racism, I no longwe believe that were are likely to eliminate it within the lifetime of anyone yet born. But we can become a better, fairer, freer nation while we are still working to reach that goal.
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In recent years, I have often thought of that quote from Ann Frank: “ in spite of everything, I still believe people are good at heart.” This hopeful attitude about human nature is what made her diary immortal. However, she herself was mortal, and her hope did not protect her from the hate that killed her. Yes, of course we should look at each individual Republican, each Trump supporter, with benevolence, but we know history, and one cannot watch a MAGA rally without a making a visceral comparison to a lynch mob or the trail of tears.
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@James Steinberg
Comments like yours are why many who actually dislike Trump will vote for him anyhow.
But we try to view you with benevolence too.
@Ari This what I imagine. That people support him just to be vindictive towards those who hate him.
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This discussion needs more space to find out the cause of Trumpism - the role of liberal academics in social science. Most of the liberal institutions of America in later part of twentieth century focused on studying the fault lines of the society on the assumptions that the bottom up struggles of the different groups manifests the societal evolution. The major field of application of this knowledge is India and Western democracies. In case of India, the organization of RSS opposed these forces and countered the multicultural forces and finally succeeded through the election of Narendra Modi. The integrating forces of the RSS build the largest social organization larger than the Chinese Communist Party. America does not have similar organization to counter these forces and this fuels of the fault lines and created the today’s Democratic Party and CNN/MSNBC. This force is very strong and they are trying to redefine the American dream as a summation of fault-lines. America has to return to its deep culture of Christian ethos of Enlightenment. Let us understand that Trumpism is the reflection of that integrating force and to lead the country Republican Party has to build the structure like RSS. It took 90 years for RSS to get the current success. To compete in the New World the deep culture of Enlightenment is needed to face the cultural forces of China and India who are returning to their deep roots of Confucius and Vedanta.
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The RSS is the organization that gave us Gandhi’s murderer, the slaughter of Muslims, and the modern cow vigilante gangs that roam the streets looking for people to murder over the (assumed) posession of a cow corpse. They may say they are a social services group, but they have sown more ethnic and religious divide than the US has seen since the “bad old days”. I wouldn’t hold them up as a shining beacon of hope.
I admire the hopefulness. In a world where history offers us no examples of power peacefully giving up control, it takes a lot of philosophical and moral strength to adopt a hopeful stance toward the immediate future.
While the positive scenarios are certainly within the realm of possibility, it seems likely that inborn human racism will continue to overpower enlightened attempts to individually and collectively fight against those impulses.
Among leaders, this goes double or triple. The sort of personality that enters the intense competition for political leadership does not lend itself toward empathy and moral strength, but rather toward ideology and a strong ego--and a lust for power. Power corrupts, and the powerless suffer from that corruption.
If I could just be pointed toward an example, a historical era or time and place where the analysis above does not obtain, I might share the more hopeful stance. Perhaps human society can change in the future, but there is no evidence so far that it can or will.
Cite, if you will, the abolition of slavery, and I will argue that that form of racism has simply been replaced by the current forms, where mass incarceration and capitalist economic servitude enslave many more black people than slavery did at its apex. Cite, if you will, expansion of the franchise, and I will point to today's results of the century-old bi-partisan attack on voting rights.
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"Somewhere in America a young artist is writing that story." No David, "somewhere in America" an artist, we don't know how old they are, is "writing that story" because the beauty of America, when it works right, is anybody can contribute, anybody can become, whatever their heart sets out to be, at any age.
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While Liu is doing something, and Brooks is making a larger audience aware of it, neither mention the tool that might mitigate some of the self-inflicted suffering in which America fails "to ensure domestic tranquility," one of the four goals of the Preamble. America needs a Truth and Reconciliation Commissions which engages from the bottom up in society.
Over 30 nations have used this vehicle to mitigate social conflict. Not perfect, but it seeks to engage a wider, larger portion of the population in conversation and action.
Unfortunately, there is no movement here to get this wheel moving. We don't need to invent it as use it.
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"I don’t know about you, but I walk into this next chapter of American life with a sense of hopefulness and yet great fear." Me too, but there are small glimmers of hope. A black man is head of our county's Republican Party.(!) A mixed-race family attends a (formerly) white family reunion: they are cousins. Tomorrow I plan to attend the 150th anniversary of a black Baptist Church, at which Alabama's governor will say a few words (she's not why I am going and I'll try to avoid her). A year ago February a cousin and I along with 2 out-of town guests attended a Black History Month celebration at a local black church where an old family friend was making a speech: you would be amazed at how the congregation made us feel welcome, both at the service and at the dinner afterwards. I am assisting a northern historian writing about a local white plantation family and was able to introduce him to black descendants of same: next weekend he, 2 research assistants, and I are invited to dine with some of those descendants. I count our black probate judge and sheriff among my friends. All tiny steps, but still steps in the right direction. The great fear is that the monster in the White House and his inflaming of his supporters will sweep over us all and make it all for naught.
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This stuff has always existed. We never really got rid of it, it just wasn't as socially acceptable so we heard less about it. But It didn't just spring up again from nowhere.
I'm in GA. Right now one of our cities has a situation where the mayor declined to forward a black candidate for city mgr because she said the city "wasn't ready"for a black city mgr. A councilman then said the races should be "kept pure", stated he was a good Christian and said interracial marriage made his "blood boil". Wisely the candidate withdrew from consideration. The residents of the city, all different nationalities are asking them to resign, or face recall. You have to wonder if these people have been living under a rock.
With Trump in office they were emboldened again, more comfortable speaking up Now there's a sense of pride to talk about "reclaiming" or "restoring" what used to be. Make America Great Again. The way it used to be.
I'm frustrated by Trump. So much ignorance on display daily. But trying to look for the positive = if you aren't aware of it you can't work towards eradicating it.
We got lulled into complacency during the Obama years. Now during Trump's reign of terror it's back out,on full display. Radical Trumpers don't even try to deny it. The moderate Trumpers try to dress it up, like he does every he slips something in, then denys saying it or tries to justify or explain it away. But it's there.
The next steps are up to us.
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Solid reporting, Ann.
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I was excited when DB began here that a moderate was going to have a column. A liberal I know well reflexively described him to me as a right-wing extremist b/c he was Republican. Brooks himself has written that he faced hatred from the left when he began here. But, ala Scarborough, he seems to have been re-educated.
Trump can do that to people. He says stupid things. But, I have never seen such hysteria over a president before and that includes Nixon, Reagan, Bush II or Obama. I don't like Trump either and have said insulting things about him for years. But, my dislike has been erased by the hyperbole of the "resistance."
After the many failed attempts to take Trump down, including the investigation, are we back to - he's a white supremacist. And, though it seems to me that Trump has some bigotry, as does almost everyone on both sides, the idea that he is a white supremacist is unsupported. Though, undoubtedly, some White Supremacist make up a part of his base, the left embraces BLM and Antifa. Despite a Jewish daughter/son-in-law and being Israel's bff, Trump is also called anti-semitic.
Like Brooks, I too fear for America. That instead of continuing to improve on racism, as we have over the decades (ask Obama, who has so stated that here and now is the best time ever for minorities), we will succumb to a movement which seeks to undo MLK's dream to focus on character and instead make it all about race.
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The only thing that I can credit Trump with is making me finally confront the true nature of the US.
It is a country stolen from the indigenous population, who we still marginalize and abuse to this day. It was built upon the backs of people held in bondage both by race and their financial position. It is a country benefiting primarily a few families with white skin and great wealth. When the middle class raises it is a side effect of enriching those who are already wealthy and not the product of our vaunted exceptionalism.
If you are born with brown skin or to a poor family that dream is simply a lie and it can almost never be attained. I was told by me dear sweet Grandmother that I could be proud that our family was not tainted by mingling with darker, southern Europeans, let alone people of non European descent. Much of the white population remains deeply racist and the only thing that has changed today is that they no longer feel the need to hide that fact.
I too was indoctrinated with the same foundation story and it has taken me a long time and a vile president to finally understand the reality of this country. I personally don't see a solution or a path forward for a deeply divided and troubled nation but I admire those who are still willing to try to move forward toward a better future. I wish them luck.
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As an African-American man, now on the eve of my 70th birthday, I have recently been challenged by the eroding hope that was the fact of my teen years when we began to emerge from America's legalized apartheid. I naively assumed limitless possibility as I thought I saw an America embracing the demolition of its racial caste system. Then came the wars in which blacks disproportionately fought, followed by the sudden invasion of crack cocaine and the destruction of civility and safety in what had been safe and nurturing black communities. Reagan conservatism appeared, and I was and remain perplexed by the continued nostalgia for his "aw-shucks" brand of white supremacy. Obama signaled hope and permitted my patriotism I'd never known. And yes, there has been progress and achievement, but seemingly in spite of white resentment that they paid for it with their shrinking opportunities. Today, I have no hope.
I have read today's Roxane Gay column on hope as a companion to this David Brooks acknowledgement of the seemingly intractable white fear that shockingly exposed the fearsome truth that is Trump and his white supremacist troops. I have begun to assume that racial bigotry and oppression borne of fear is a human constant -- unchanging -- baked-in to who we are and will always be. I have little faith that Ms. Gay's exhortation to seizing agency as an antidote to hopelessness will produce any fundamental change.
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"For most of the latter half of the 20th century, for example, about 10 percent of white liberals supported increased immigration; now it’s 50 percent. As Goldberg writes, African-Americans are actually less progressive on these issues than white liberals."
Very noteworthy. Why is that? What are African Americans concerned about with respect to immigration, and what do white liberals want to see?
Are African Americans doubtful their futures will be secured in a more multi-cultural America as more and more ethnic groups compete for scare resources? Are they afraid their ongoing concerns will be ignored? See the recent NYT discussions about selective high schools in New York City.
Perhaps white liberals believe their futures will be secured regardless, or they are willing sacrifice and give up more and more? Altruism? White guilt?
Does all this--rising progressivism--explain the growing socialist trends? Apparently that is the case.
But not all Americans, regardless of race or ethnic background, are willing to go down that path.
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“Once you start assigning guilt to groups, rather than to individuals, bad, illiberal things are likely to happen."
I've several observations about our racial divide relating to that line:
First and foremost, it and our current dilemma never seem to take into account the endless, ongoing, multi-generational hatred and oppression suffered by those targeted by race hatred. On what planet are they supposed to wait, for yet another generation, for what should plainly be their birthright as Americans while we attempt to calm those who won't accept it?
Second, to the extent we DON'T properly assign guilt and truth-telling to our sordid racial history we get the country we have today: One where a shockingly large number of people still deny realiities spawned by our 150-year-old Civil War, and its very real ongoing effects.
Yes, asking people to face truth could generate turmoil. But asking those victimized by our history to wait, yet again, perpetuates massive injustice. When I read that most of today's self-identified Republicans believe blacks have more privileges than them, the disconnect makes me almost literally sick.
A new generation is rising. It is demanding its fully-earned share of the American birthright they've done so much to build - and yes that even includes recent immigrants.
Germany faced its past. And Japan. South Africa had its Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
It's past time to come to terms with our past here - and move beyond it. Everyone will win.
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Yes, let's all gather together in an orgiastic display of self-loathing. Meanwhile, while we're debating whether or not to pass reparations, or how wealth should be redistributed, less reflective and more energetic societies like China will come eat our lunch, and then invite us to feast on the crumbs.
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It isn't race, it is the domination of the wealthy that is the primary driving force for our disunity.
The national narrative has always been to hide the power of the great bank accounts behind religion and politics. The wealthy have always owned the media, and for the most part, have been successful in keeping the poor at bay.
Racial reckoning would involve repatriation by the slave states, leading with Virginia. But here is Trump, leading the charge to once again hide the power of the 1% by putting up a smokescreen of blather and support of the white power nationalists, who will make it look like the war is a racial one, when in truth it is an economic one.
Deal with income inequality, and you will see where the true national narrative goes, you will see the hands controlling all our lives. And yes, it is the racist South that is the puppet in the hands of the American oligarchs in the Republican Party, a puppet that always votes to divide America. But remember, those are minority views, America has usually voted against Trump, against Bush and the patricians.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
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Brooks et. al. desperately want to understand "global populism" without ever mentioning capitalism. This is like trying to understand Othello's corruption without mentioning Iago.
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I repudiate the argument that (1) white supremacy is the source of our current national strife, and (2) that the sin of slavery must still be born by current generations who had no hand in that crime. The butchers bill from the Civil War was a staggering 2% of the population. More than 360,000 Union soldiers gave their lives, wiping out entire male generations, to free the slaves and preserve the Union. As far as I'm concerned the bill has been pain in full, born by the families whose fathers, sons and brothers who never came home.
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Kudos sir. Finally an American willing to confront the myth of the US: I’m better than all of you, smarter, richer, freer to do as I please now clean up the dishes and put my children to bed, then clean the toilets and iron the bed sheets. Oh, and sign up for the military, we need you to fight our wars too. Keep your hands off that zygote!
Meanwhile the planet burns.
Wait a minute. I am a white, liberal, reformed racist, multiculturalist. When I got married, in 1970, and my sister married a few years later, my Irish parents were not all that happy about uniting with Italian families, not opposed, but wary. Do you not recall the opposition to Irish, Italians, Chinese, Germans, Poles that occurred in every wave of immigration that this country has had? Do you forget the title of America the "Melting-Pot"? The narrative we learned was that our people were discriminated against, not to the degree that black or brown people were, but still, racial purity is not brand new. Do you forget that we finally resolved enough racial animus to elect a visionary Black president? The one that some large percent of White men, hated as much as Trump, I guess for being "you know what".
I was not free of racism until Obama became president. I never discriminated, but I might avoid a black person for technical advice. This is not about an original sin, this is about finally accepting people into our society, like my parents accepted the wonderful Italian families that we married into and stopped seeing them as different. The young, don't see those differences as much. They don't need pontification from those of us who still own the means of production, but who have old concrete brains. Let the young rule and dump those who cannot change out of leadership of our sacred world. Multiculturalism isn't a curse.
There it is in this Opinion of Brook's, the great and catastrophic divide, unevenly patched over after The Civil War. Brooks encourages us to examine 'white supremacy'. 'Racism', the word and feelings associated with it has been worn down, supercharged, underestimated and diminished it its power to elucidate many people these days. We have a bridge to cross. It is our most difficult and dangerous one, but it's not a bridge too far.
2
Keep the masses distracted. Let them fight among themselves for the crumbs we bestow and blame each other instead of us. The GOP 'plan' to maintain white wealth and power in America. I never thought the election of Barack Obama was a sign that racism was now 'gone' but failed to see how scared white America became on election night. McConnell was determined to undermine and thwart every Obama action and drew up a plan. Trump heard Mitch's pledge to ruin Obama and took a logical next step with his birtherism nonsense road show. For 5 years he pushed his lie in every major news network. He was given column inches and airtime to "discuss" his claims.
Why didn't reasonable people just tell Trump to shut up? Why was he indulged for 5 years? Because the powers that be knew it would work. Fight amongst yourselves. Look to the 'other' as the scapegoat for all your pains. Let us get on with our quiet money rule. The GOP could whittle away at government ideology and function for society at large without much notice.
Greed and stupidity have laid bare that plan. It's not working. We will be coming to a reckoning. The economics of the 1% rule will force the hybrid voices to join together and claim back freedom, equality and justice for all.
2
Some day I hope to read an opinion piece by Mr. Brooks that doesn’t blame liberals, progressives, multiculturalists, globalists or baby boomers for whatever problem he has identified on that particular day. Oh, wait. That’s everyone else except him and his group.
1
Bull. I am not a political progressive, but it's indisputable that we marched from coast to coast killing and displacing the natives. We also used slaves to work the land, and we maintained that peculiar institution for 250 years -- a quarter of a millennium -- after which Jim Crow reigned for another century.
We of the present shouldn't beat ourselves up too much about this -- after all, human beings have been killing and oppressing other human beings since the dawn of history -- but we ought to recognize the extent to which the attitudes that made the crimes of the past possible still exist in the minds of many Americans. And we need to face our history rather than falling back on stories about Ben Franklin or even Abraham Lincoln. A frank acknowledgment of truth is needed, not more bromides to soothe white consciences.
1
“I don’t know about you, but I walk into this next chapter of American life with a sense of hopefulness and yet great fear. America needs to have a moment of racial reconciliation. History has thrown this task upon us.”
Better, David.
Equal opportunity and managing income inequality will enable “racial reconciliation.”
Otherwise, there will be no reconciling of the races.
"But we Americans are not at our best when we launch off on holy wars. Once you start assigning guilt to groups, rather than to individuals, bad, illiberal things are likely to happen. There’s a lot of over-generalized group accusation in both these narratives."
Stop fetishizing the individual over the group. This is classic conservative finger-pointing: "I made it, why can't you?" Many of us cannot emulate Ben Franklin—whose brilliance is unquestioned and whose autobiography I adore—because we are not white, male, and Protestant.
Historically, white Protestant identity was predicated on an image of American Indians subsisting on reservations, black genocide in ghettos, and Asians and Jews hiving in Chinatowns and the Lower East Side.
Politics is about the group, just as taxes are about classes, while philanthropy is about the individual.
1
Ken Burns at a commencement speech said it best, race informs everything we do in this country. The stain of slavery and then decades upon decades of Jim Crow like laws and behaviors, both in the North and South, have always been a heavy drag on our nation's political, economic, and social growth---with the largest drag being an entire region---the south---that for a century still is at the bottom of almost every social indicator---education/live expectancy/drug addiction. Unfortunately, instead of political class addressing our peculiar institution--they have used it as a political tool to institutionalize white supremacy.
Well, I took to heart Martin Luther King’s words, “content of character” - if I love you or hate you, it will have little to do with your skin color!
3
A paean to Nixon’s Southern strategy with a dollop of John Birch society.
Now in America, there is too much right-wing totalitarian PROPAGANDA. If we do not recognize it and REJECT it, America will die.
@Darkler
Right wingers are authoritarian. Left wingers totalitarian.
Here I'll help:
Now in America, there is to much left-wing totalitarian PROPAGANDA. If we do not recognize it and REJECT it, America will die.
“You argue that this is a republic of a particular race—that the Constitution of the United States admits of no asylum to any other than the pale face. This proposition is false in the extreme, and you know it. The declaration of your independence, and all the acts of your government, your people, and your history are all against you.”
I’ve taught history for a long time and I am still astonished by all that I don’t know. That quote is from a Chinese American immigrant and was published in a California newspaper in the 1850s.
What is clear to anyone who looks at the record is that there have been people all along who get what America is supposed to be better than the rest of us. Like Fumiko Hayashida, interned Japanese American during WWII, who went to Congress as an elderly woman after 9/11 to remind lawmakers not to make the same mistake in response to a wave of Islamophobia that threatened to turn ugly.
In my last high school US History class this week, both David Brooks and Eric Liu were featured. More people should pay attention to what Eric Liu has been saying and writing.
1
Very strange that Brooks used "Eric" for Mr. Liu and the surname for everyone else mentioned in the article.
I think he knows him personally and it is meant to be friendly.
I love this OpEd. Mr. Brooks stares the monster in the eye and calls it what it is. The cover language I have heard among manny Trump voters, consistently in justifying their vote is; “we needed a change”. I was struck with how many of these folks repeated this mantra verbatim. It finally hit me that they were code words for racism. A huge group of white America could not palette the likes of a black man leading the nation, and the reaction was to back a well known racist/misogynist. Recently, Jeff Daniels called this out on Nicole Wallace’s show while discussing his role in “To Kill a Mockingbird”. It will require many more people to stand heroically for “the better angels of our nature” to slay this dragon.
2
Race in America?
America is largely idealistic and incompetent when it comes to race, indeed idealistic and incompetent when it comes to any living thing, piece of nature, cannot honestly address, solve the nature/nurture problem.
Take America with respect to nature and excluding human life: We have a vastly simplified scheme where people know nothing of flora and fauna and how they best flourish in various niches but everybody has seen Hollywood films of all the animals living in harmony and everybody has been to a zoo with all the animals locked in individual cages.
This same simplified scheme applies to humans in America: We are told all races, ethnic groups, individuals can flourish, as if animals clustered in one place and in harmony in some animated Hollywood film, but the reality is constant bickering and increasing methods of surveillance, bureaucracy and control not much removed from zoo-like conditions, meaning not only are the differences between flora and fauna so great that harmony is possible only by an ugly zoo condition, differences between humans for all idealism are so great that we have vast systems of control whether simple locks on houses or sophisticated tracking and control.
Science, and therefore politics and economics simply has no intelligent theory of how to have humans living with respect to nature and themselves. It's constant simple idealism and reality of zoos, ghettoes, gated communities. This coming from a white man.
Long ago the Germans had an immigration problem. The Social Democrats thought it was a good Idea to let everyone in. People with considerable economic insecurity disagreed. Ten years or so ago in other media I discovered Mexico had a problem with Guatamalan immigration. Can't blame them they want a better life but Mexico has a right to consider it's people first. So, how did Mexico's immigration problem with Central American's become our problem?
What President said leave the kids home? It wasn't Trump It was a Democrat.
2
The sooner becoming America can no longer exclusively invoke the Bible to selfishly define our BEING America, the sooner America will realize that Darwinian evolution -- i.e., that survival depends on adaptability to change, not flexing muscles! -- is the only thing that'll save us.
Otherwise, that WHITE LIES MATTER will continue to whitewash diversity's checkerboard -- without which free will can have no meaning -- expediting the extinction of what better choices can more purposefully make us.
As an African American, I believe that the white/black imposed division has always been about green, not race.
During slavery, it was about free labor. During segregation, it was about cheap labor. That is, keeping down the income of whites by threatening to bring in black "scab" labor.
Politically, its about leveraging the white vote, so that the 1% can keep picking the pockets of the 99% below them.
And the weapon of choice is the history book, and today, conservative media.
Johnson said that it best. If you can convince the lowest white man that he is better than the most educated black man, you can pick both their pockets forever.
Obama scared old-school America with his message of change, hope and diversity. The Republicans, and especially Trump, did everything in their power to show that a black man shouldn’t be president - that he is innately unable to get anything done and was probably not even a “true” citizen. Now the Republicans are taking full revenge on the American people for daring to elect such a man. They are trying desperately to turn back the clock so that racism, scapegoating, and fearmongering rule the day. Add to that the sickening religious right’s rationalizations to justify supporting the idea that to be different is to be bad and you have a formula for disaster. The fact is global diversity is inevitable if one looks out 50 to 100 years, and it is likely humanity’s saving grace, both socially and genetically. The only question is whether we can get to a point of non-racial, non-ethnic identification without excessive violence or whether tribalism will once again cause great pain, death and destruction before giving way to a shared humanity - assuming there is some humanity left to share.
Where to start... In terms of the ill-gotten white priviledge inter-generational wealth passed fown to me, it consists of an empty lot on Detroit's near east side. Its assessed value is $102. I lived there from the 1950s through the mid 1980s. When my family moved it had become a war zone. The violence was perpetrated by its residents. It was a modest neighborhood but for whatever reason at the time we moved many of its residents referred to it as a ghetto. There was also a large degree of racial violence. I won't provide the details as it would probably be deemed as inflammatory.
This was long before Betsy DeVos or the mortgage meltdown.
Any white liberal or progressive had long since moved on. But I could almost hear those firebrands shouting: "Look, white flight!" from their safe environment as we moved out.
And on and on it goes the liberal perpetual motion guilt machine.
3
I don't identify with any of these narratives. My understanding of US history was 10-15% of wealthy property owning individuals orchestrated a war and created a government to guarantee their property. Not coincidentally slaves were considered property at the time. Economically speaking, nothing changed before or after the Revolution. The same rich people controlled everything. They were simply more secure in their control.
In fact, Americans arguably would have fared better remaining under British rule. For one, Britain outlawed slavery much earlier than America thus precluding the need for a Civil War and more importantly freeing the slaves. We would also benefit from socialized medicine and stronger labor protections today. Although, the Louisiana Purchase probably wouldn't have happened so it's hard to say.
As for Native Americans, the ship had largely sailed before the United States existed. 90% of the indigenous Americans died of disease much earlier than 1776. This contributed significantly to the collapse of both the Aztec and the Incan Empires. Meanwhile, widespread indigenous death is the main reason European colonists started importing African slaves in the first place. America is mostly blacked listed because they stole property from Native Americans and often killed them in the process.
Race is therefore an essential component of the US narrative and multiculturalism but by no means the center of the universe. There is no center. Just a lot spinning orbs.
2
It is past time for David Brooks to publicly denounce the Republican Party as no longer having any resemblance to the party of conservative democratic principles he joined as a young man.
He can write a Reaganish "I didn't leave the party, the party left me" column and announce his new status as an independent.
He could join with other moderate Republicans and form a third party. They would be in the political wilderness for a while, but ithey would bring about the political death of Trump and Trumpism, and that would be the most patriotic thing anyone could do at this point.
2
Whatever hopefulness there may be will be found in individuals. But the working out of these things, the flow of history and its current currents of flow, is in groups. Groups are made up of individuals but they don't act as simply the mathematical sum of those individuals.
Unfortunately the structures of society are pretty strong channels for flow. Individual stories, and the revealing of those stories, can only pick away at the shape of the structures. Alas that large societies can't exist without structures. I grew up in the hippie era, "Do your own thing" and all that. It felt hopeful, but turned out not to be very defining of much.
History is flowing faster now, so hold on as the rapids are coming. Maybe not war, but rapids at least.
The fundamental problem isn't the tribalism of the right, or the tribalism of the left, its that tribalism seems to be the only option today. Is humanism a dying philosophy?
4
The contradiction of a civic religion and of a moral framework is that it removes the conscience from the central unifying force in the individual's character. When people make choices based on what other people do (as if right and wrong can be decided by the group), it makes them less democratic. We vote and have privacy so we can make choices without being distracted or influenced by the tyranny of the herd. The civic religion, like any religion peeks at the answers that one's neighbors have circled on the test as if uniformity makes the answer more right. We need fewer cheaters and more honest test takers if there is to be a genuine and authentic world to be proud of.
2
Two great books come to mind - "Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari, and "Non-zero" by Robert Wright. The first details our common origins, then takes us on a tour of prior civilizations. The second details the natural evolution of non-zero behaviors necessary to survival. At this crossroads of humanity, challenged as we are by global over-population exacerbated by existential climate change, we, and not just Americans, but humankind, will either recognize our common roots and, together, address our common threats, or suffer our common fate.
1
Interesting and even hopeful article. I think Brooks is too neat about separating the various American stories. Why can't all of them be, in parts, true? To get beyond where we are now will require good faith and good hearts, not easily definable or enforceable qualities. No doubt there is self-dealing and one-upping across the whole political spectrum, but we are in a time when one of our major parties has completely lost its way.
@Paul Schmitz I do think the democrats will at some point get it together. For the sake of our country, lets hope it is soon.
1
America needs to have a conversation with itself, leading to an intervention. There's plenty of deserved guilt, unfulfilled idealism, but also hope and appreciation of virtue. We need to confront our collective sins and seek redemption. We need to do this with civility, empathy and compassion. The problem we face is not the conversation, but the poison of those who see everything from the perspective of Us vs Them.
5
@JABarry an intervention? Collective sins? Yes, we should strive to improve, but we remain the greatest country in the world and a beacon of hope for all.
4
@dave
You prove the point. Us, the greatest country vs them, the world.
So America has nothing to learn from others or our past mistakes, we are simply the greatest, no mistakes, no acknowledgement of sins, no sins to acknowledge, so what's to improve?
Problems are never solved by assigning guilt, or by apologies, or by humble reflection. Solutions require action and change. Do something about the tremendous poverty pervasive in minority existence. Make education truly equally available to all, regardless of background or endemic disadvantage. Integrate every community in every state. Stop locking up young black men for minor drug offenses. Sadly, we are very far from the point where society will insist on these changes.
8
Every country has a glorified, white-washed legend for its origins, for its populous wants to feel good about itself, it fosters (dirty word for the liberals) patriotism, unity, the sense of belonging. Strong, successful countries - China, Russia - are based on this self-delusion. So was America, but no more. It is sad to see. I had seen my homeland destroyed by such loss of faith in the country's purpose, its right to exist and to be strong (in a positive sense). For the last 5-7 years, sadly, I have been advising the young to exit the US for either Australia or South-East Asia. These are the dusk days of the US, I am afraid.
3
You are saying that it’s ok if the ‘patriotic story’ is a lie? That it should not be rewritten to admit the suffering of some peoples because it may make others uncomfortable? Sounds like the ‘stories’ of the Soviet Union... that so many condemned. You are correct that we are going downhill. We need to accept that the ‘story’ of the US is not a ‘white’ story.
It amazes me that some white Americans cannot accept the crimes of our past and want to right the wrongs.
I agree fully that the myth of white supremacy has always been (and remains) a central tenet of our national identity. However, I am more convinced every day that our deeply-held belief in the sanctity of individualism communicates that individual needs are more important than the needs of the group. Enshrined in our constitution, the Bill of (the individual’s) Rights, and our mythic stories is the foundational concept that individual rights supercede group needs. Combine this with the myth of white superiority and, simply put, it’s not surprising that we are a nation that more highly values an individual’s right to hold a racist ideology than a nation’s need to face its moral responsibilities. I hope that another day of reckoning is coming, for only then might we truly become a great nation. But I fear it, too, for it will tear us apart as did the Civil War and the 1960s.
5
There seems to be a more basic underlying narrative that needs to addressed if we hope to solve our conflicts. That is "me" against "you". Race just happens to be the easy dividing line. The narrative of browns threaten whites is me before you; the oppression of native Americans, the exploitation of black Americans was based not on race, but rather me before you. The continued disparity in wealth that underlies so much populist restlessness, is me against you. I don't think this can be solved by focusing on our racial division, rather I believe we have to heal our inner divisions. Specifically, we can realize that not only can we personally benefit from being our neighbor's keeper, but that it is an immutable universal truth that the more we do for others the more we do for ourselves.
I have lived in Red America and Blue America.I have listened to the argument that purports to be politics.
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises moral philosophy, that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." John Kenneth Galbraith
At 71 I remember when JFK said "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
I remember WF Buckley's modern conservative response after the Civil Rights Act. The 1964 GOP convention is all over the internet.Goldwater, Nixon and Reagan led the charge.
America does not work, modern conservatism stands in solid opposition to a shared prosperity. Greed is not only good for conservatives greed is their highest calling.
There is a simple solution to America's divide that gets worse every second. There is no longer even a dialogue on an acceptable modus vivendi. Red and Blue America hate each other with a passion and the words of the argument don't come close to addressing the fundamental problems.
The argument has drained America of all of its energy and only solution is to end the experiment. The Sun will have gone cold before there is ever again a UNITED States of America.
I wish I could be optimistic but history tells me this will not end well. Paradise Lost was our greatest English epic poem and Paradise Regained simply an attempt to provide a fairy tale ending.
3
@Montreal Moe Our country remains a beacon for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness... don't confuse some polarization with our resilience, strength and courage. Our best selves are waiting to reclaim the shining city on the hill.
2
@dave "reclaim?" It was NEVER a shining city on a hill for many of us. So we might be able to finally CLAIM it.
But it left too many out to call it "reclaiming" it. Whenever I hear someone wanting to "reclaim" the past, I see myself losing my rights.
2
@dave
I wish you were correct. There are no more destructive lies than the ones we tell ourselves. I was around when the GOP became the party of State's Rights. I was around when Scalia and Thomas said the 2nd amendment wasn't about the religious freedom to refuse to not take up arms (weapons of war) and refuse military service was changed to the right to gun ownership. I speak English I listen to both sides of the argument. When we go to America my wife constantly reminds me that my rights to freely express my ideas are the same as those of Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman.
I am compelled to speak the truth even if the truth is expressing my doubt.
I am well versed in your history and literature and remember when the only Twain permitted was Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer and Connecticut Yankee.
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez bases all her comments on the best scientific evidence and all your media says is that she is a young radical and extremist. Climate change and the economics of Saez, Piketty and Zucman are data based and peer reviewed not pie in the sky.
You are entitled to your opinion and I hope you are correct but the right has drawn its battle lines and only dogma is permitted on their side of the line.
You cannot build the shining city on the hill on a foundation of lies.
1
If there ever existed such a thing as "the American Dream", it only arose in mutually exclusive ways in the North and the South because of race. That bi-polarity extends to the entire USA now.
Unless the heirs to the old North wants to embrace the idea that the Constitution actually requires them to respect the notion that the fundamental individual liberty to own property extended to other human beings, they will never grasp that the heirs to the old South do not share its history or values.
Two and a half centuries of a successful regional capitalist oligarchy rooted in slavery created a culture and an economy that were not wiped out by the 13th Amendment. In many ways, the notion that there should be few limits on the ability to convert others into property has actually become the dominant tendency of 21st century capitalism.
We need a Teddy Roosevelt figure who can tackle this national schizophrenia head on.
1
When Brooks says, "No one wanted it," about the Civil War, that's a bit like saying slavery wasn't its cause. When the first southern states seceded, Lincoln pleaded with them to return to the Union. Their refusal was broadly based on their desire to expand slavery to the new territories. Lincoln obliged them, to a point. But they refused to compromise. When Lincoln demanded soldiers to put down the localized insurrections from southern states still in the Union, like Virginia, they refused. Their pride and excitement in their rebellion created a fever pitched desire for war. The wealthy and powerful slave owners and proponents of slavery were the first to have tailors and milliners whip up gold-braided uniforms and plumed hats. They began a drum beat for war, and a disrespect for the United States that continues to tear our nation apart. Witness our racist neighbors around the country who fly a confederate flag and yet who mistakenly believe they are patriotic Americans. So, no Mr Brooks, lots of people wanted a war. And much like today's Trump supporters, if they want a war, a war they will get--and lose. Let's just hope that this time it's fought in the ballot box, not in the streets.
2
There are certainly outrages at the southern border. But they are not this country's doing. Somehow the concept of a country having the right to control its border and who and how many people enter has been turned into something other than a standard and perfectly legitimate function of government. Any government. David Brooks knows better or at least should.
5
We are fortunate in many ways that our American history has moved us forward on a path towards values related to character content and freedom. As long as we adhere to our foundation values, we'll move past shallow things like race and identity and forward towards character and competence. In this framework, immutable things like race and identity give way to what really matters.
2
Others have made long, thoughtful comments. I'll keep mine short and really focused. David, you say in your comment: "Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament. "
Why do you write this as if being a "progressive" and being of a "reconciling, loving temperament" are mutually exclusive? Every progressive I know (and I'm a Unitarian Universalist, so I know hundreds) are of a reconciling and loving temperament, far more than anyone else I know. You are not paying attention, David.
14
Brooks’ essay betrays his fundamental misunderstanding of structural power, a misunderstanding which often—including here, by him—is used to shore up an argument to maintain (with supposed regret) the status quo. In his conclusion, Brooks differentiates between assigning blame to individuals, or to groups for racial harms, imagining that he has accurately identified volitional and structural systems of power, respectively. He has not. By cautioning us against the willy-nilly broad-brush painting of “groups,” he has merely made a minor costume change for the same old song and dance called, “Racism Exists And Ain’t It A Shame But I Am Not One.”
It is probably bad to look to Lincoln for guidance on race, given that Lincoln was not necessarily an abolitionist, but hoped for national reconciliation. By the way, voter suppression is actually the new, but old, Jim Crow. The Supreme Court allowed the South to go back to being the Jim Crow South. For all people to vote districts would allow our country to move forward. We need politicians who are dedicated to equality and who come from a variety of backgrounds in order to make this country move forward. Stacey Abrams loss in Georgia was one of the worst cases of political theft in recent memory.
5
David says "Once you start assigning guilt to groups, rather than to individuals, bad, illiberal things are likely to happen." But he also describes Liu as "an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament." So most progressives don't have a "reconciling, loving temperament?" Isn't that assigning a negative trait to an entire group?
David, how illiberal of you.
8
@Dario Bernardini Have you seen what your fine young progressives have been doing on college campuses? Speakers of contrary view being silenced, panels being violently disrupted, and violence employed against counter demonstrators-- their default response to non-orthodox views is violence. I suppose maybe they all get together and talk about spirituality and burn scented candles on the weekend so that's alright then.
The bottom line is that when I hear about a progressive these days, I'm less likely to think of some serene aging hippie and more likely to think of the younger generation who remind me more of black shirts in their tactics than anything else.
2
Lincoln is, rightly, revered for walking straight down the middle of the divide that led to the war--reviled on all sides until the cathartic coincidence of the war's conclusion and his assassination. The greatest statesman in our history. But his vision was not one of multi-culturalism. Emancipation was a political and military strategy. Period. Had he lived he probably would have taken affirmative steps to implement his oft-stated Quixotic "solution" of exporting African Americans to the Caribbean. Above all he was a realist, and realism must somehow account for racial and ethnic hatreds that have always existed and come to the fore in times of social stress. I truly think America's younger generation may possibly be capable of making that leap to social acceptance for all as the "greatest generation" and the boomers die out. But the economic stress that they will encounter resulting from computers and robotics as work disappears may eventually beat them into submission.
Hard truths, for sure. Indeed, Trump is the continuing the implementation of white supremacy born of slavery and extended into the Jim Crow era and up to present time. It is worth pondering that among slavery's trauma was the separating of families in the sale of humans bound for enslaved labor. Children were separated from their parents and spouses separated from each other. This historic trauma ripples through Trump's policies for immigration by inflicting trauma on people he does not see as human. We do need as a country a process of reconciliation towards justice for all, but I fear it will be a long time coming.
1
Brooks' column would lead readers to believe it was an either/or. We could be Franklin's country or a multicultural one. It's just not true.
Ben Franklin came to this country and established himself as a "young hustler" and created the land of opportunity myth at a time when native Americans still controlled most of the American continent and much of the body of law related to slavery was still inchoate.
That was the moment when America could have made different choices and become both a land of opportunity and a multicultural country, or, at minimum, one that didn't make slavery permanent for all descendants of anyone deemed to have "one drop" of African American blood or one that didn't displace the Cherokee or cause the Trail of Tears.
We chose that direction, but nothing is unavoidable, and we have another chance to get it right.
2
Just off the Santa Cruz shoreline, maybe 100 feet from the footpath that sits on the cliffs, are little flat mini-mesas out in the water, remnants of the erosion eating into the cliffs. On each mesa are clustered distinct, separate species of birds, each making its claim. Birds of a feather do flock together, it's nature, which is why we can and must acknowledge our differences while celebrating our equality at the same time. It's the American way.
Trump hasn't changed our national narrative. I can't think of one policy he's proposed that aims to divide the races. It's the Democrats who are desperate. They're talking about the Civil War. The Civil War.
4
At the heart of this is patriarchy which has existed world wide for at least 10,000 years. Cultures in which men had more rights and freedoms than woman create hierarchies based on a variety of attributes including skin color. The goal was to create barriers and prevent precious resources from being shared.
Multi-cultural harmony can only be realized by enabling and supporting equality for women. Everything will flow from that.
2
I have had time for reading in my retirement from my occupation over the last several years. My interest has been primarily in books about the Civil War and World War 2.
From what I've read, I have to dispute David's comment to the effect of "nobody wanted it, but it came," speaking of the Civil War. Well, the South sure did want secession and keeping slavery intact in those states was its mission. (Read the Articles of Secession emanating from South Carolina). In some respects, the Civil War never ended and white privilege, white supremacy, white fears are the reasons.
By the way, I'm a 75 year old white man who was born and raised in what could be considered the South (Southern Illinois).
5
The New States Clause and enabling acts would be worth brushing up on, Mr. Brooks, but do not depend on the interpretation of David F. Forte or the Heritage club, please.
There were no framers, there were white people being counted in territories to ratify states before the 15th Amendment which still didn't give everybody the right to vote. In this year of the census coming up, I ask you to be more careful on how we count and counted our citizens here.
1
History is history. We cannot wipe it away. As those past tried to settle an already settled land, words creeped into the vocabulary based not on individuals possessing the same assets for survival, but a caste systems based on how people looked, different culture, income, or where they lived. No matter how often these categories are examined and shown to bring unreliable beliefs, tribal affiliations ruled the day and still do. If life is made better for those in marginal groups, others conclude it was taken from them rather than producing a better society.
So what is the problem? To emphasize diversity as a goal in itself, is a mistake, IMO. What we need is comfort, a feeling of being a nation that succeeds best if all our talent and energy is in the mix. Hardship comes to almost all, and knowing your fellow citizens have our backs, no matter gender, race, income. Breaking down tribal inclinations must be a priority. Neighborhoods should be welcoming to all along with decent housing, livable wages, providing help to the disabled, and offering education that is top notch. Yes we are a mixture, but wherever we have used it to enrich rather than blame, there has been progress.
Legal immigration brings richness to this nation, and those who seek asylum properly are not criminals.
As the richest country in the world these problems are solvable to everyone's benefit. Let's make our American experiment work together as it should.
6
Terrific article. I notice that the word 'American' is referenced. At present, all this means is a person living in America. Sadly, we do not have a collective understanding or vision of what being an American in 2019 is. We also don't have a collection notion of what America is. I have noticed with foreign friends that they have been scratching their heads about America since George W was elected president. We elect someone like him and his VP, but then we elect the first African America president followed by electing Trump and the Republicans in Congress. So what is America? Sadly, we don't really know or have a common understanding. The challenge is whether there is any path to defining this collectively being such a divided nation.
2
All of our problems can be solved in three words.
Mandatory National Service.
We can’t talk about building a better America. We must do it. We must roll up our sleeves and get messy. There is so much to be done in schools, hospitals, community centers, national parks. The list is endless.
National Service would provide a common narrative, a shared experience, and open peoples minds to working with others. Regardless, of your political views technology has made us self-absorbed narcissists.
National Service will move is forward.
12
We are so easily fooled, so easily distracted, and so easily manipulated. There are studies out there (like one recent one from the SF Fed) that shows returns on investments in 16 industrialized countries since 1870 (eighteen seventy!). Stocks, bonds, real estate have returned on average per year about 6.6%. Economic growth was about 3.3% and wage increases lagged that amount. Add the magic of compound interest, and there you have part of the wealth disparity.
Since Colonial Times, the name of the game has been to make ready cash (piracy, shipping, slavery, manufacturing, railroads, oil, high tech, war profiteering, etc.) and then bury the profits into real estate where the magic of demographics and low real estate taxes (on land, not buildings) would give you a great return in rents and land speculation. Rinse and repeat.
But we all think that we can find an angle to make that which works against us work for us. The Horatio Alger, rags-to-riches, myth that only works for a few and perpetuates the general rule.
Let's talk about how things really work for most people. And I wonder what Miley Cyrus is doing today...
1
Once you start assigning guilt to groups, rather than to individuals, bad, illiberal things are likely to happen.
Are you assigning guilt to groups of people who have organized and struggled against systemic oppression? That it would be better for them to just focus on individuals who do terrible things pretending that those things just happened in a vacuum..
6
Most Americans welcome LEGAL immigrants, but do not want ILLEGAL immigrants. They recognize that the US cannot afford (or choose not) to support our own citizens: the poor, the ill, elderly, disabled, veterans, et al., and that they and other US taxpayers cannot possibly support the hundreds of millions of foreigners who would like to come here.
US laws allow foreigners to seek entry and citizenship. Those who do not follow these laws are in this country illegally and should be detained and deported; this is policy in other countries, too.
The cruelty lies not in limiting legal immigration, or detaining and deporting illegal immigrants, or forcing those who wish to enter the US to wait for processing. What is cruel, unethical and probably illegal is encouraging parents to bring their children on the dangerous trek to US borders and teaching the parents how to game the system to enter the US by falsely claiming asylum, persecution, etc. Indeed, many believe bringing children on such perilous journeys constitutes child abuse.
No other nation has open borders, nor should the US.
15
Why don’t we make all immigration legal then. Like it once was.
The reasons for us to turn upon one another are building every day. The reasons for us to turn towards one another are building every day.
1
All these are is narratives & marketing. It's necessary to look beyond the slogans and popular identity politics headlines of today at the actual policy on the ground. It is the Democratic Party, under President Obama and Vice President Biden, after all, that has approved the basing of Lockheed's budget-busting, 120+ decibel F-35 fighter jet in densely populated areas, with disproportionate impact on working poor; working class; elderly; veterans; immigrant refugee populations from Africa, Asia, Latin America, etc. The very demographics the Democratic Party pretends to care about. Be it Tucson, Arizona; Madison, Wisconsin; Burlington, Vermont, etc., it has been the Democratic Party using the F-35 to attack the health and home values of hundreds of thousands of people. So if judged by the new narrative, the Democratic Party fails because they embody environmental racism as much as anyone. And, in fact, it is much worse than the GOP because of the yawning gap between reality and the new rhetoric. The big pivot to multiculturalism uber alles as a narrative happened during Obama's 2nd term, as a distraction, when it became entirely apparent that, in fact, Obama did not depart from Bush-Cheney foreign policy & military Keynesianism uber alles.
And they and many media allies seem to have entirely abandoned the old narratives, that many people actually still live by, of simply judging each person as a fellow human being, regardless of all the categories and labels.
9
Bravo, @GRH. Correct on all counts! And important. Too bad we can't get that kind of honest, incisive analysis from our media elites who abuse the privilege of the platforms they have with divisive, race-baiting sensationalism.
4
At no time in my life have I felt more hopeful that the white, male dominated America has reached the end of it's life. It is no longer acceptable to portray yourself as welcoming when you are anything but. Look at the 'leaders' of the white, male dominated hierarchy that exists in America. Old and in the way is they way I look at it. McConnell, Cornyn, Grassley, Trump, Jordan, and on and on. When the only way you can get what you want is underhanded....it becomes harder and harder to sell. The only buyers are people just like you. Problem with that is there are far more of us than you. When it walks like hatred, talks like hatred, and smells like hatred.....it's pretty hard to sell it as anything but. And we ain't buying it anymore.
8
As usual Broks is putting his words in other people's mouth. Progressives are not seeking to change the American narrative, they are motivated by it. Nor do not the believe racial reconciliation to be a first step. The first is to see our narrative is based on ignoring too much of our actual history and that imbalance supports continuing inequality instead of continuing advancement in equality. We dont need a Great Awaking of racial reconciliation, we can't change the past. We need to change our laws, institutions, and culture to advance everyone's equality. Securing the future, not changing the past, is the progressive goal.
2
"Moreover, he is always pushing toward an American creed that moves beyond both the white monoculture and the fracturing multiculturalism."
Why is multiculturalism "fracturing" in the terms Mr. Brooks asserts? Why can it not be a point of amalgamation that makes our country stronger?
Apparently, Mr. Liu is attempting to bridge the false dichotomy that Mr. Brooks describes. Not only do these two narratives serve to confound the profound changes that have taken place not only in American society but also in terms of global development thanks to technological change.
What Mr. Brooks also omitted was the white-on-white racism that occurred during the great period of immigration in the mid-1800s. The xenophobic Know-Nothing Party reigned supreme at that time. It was the concept of rejecting "otherness" that motored their political power. The Party of Trump seems to have been founded on this same principle.
Multiculturalism can be a source of strength rather than a source of fracture. Each culture brings a perspective to living that can be incorporated into a larger and more enduring world view. The U.S. could emerge as a beacon for the world to see that blending racial and cultural differences is the path to social progress on an increasingly smaller planet.
However, this is a vision for the future, and not a clamoring for a white supremacist past that is currently advocated by the party of Trump. We must move forward into the future, not backward into the past!
2
The racists were here last month in South Florida. When Immigration said they were going to send immigrants here the Democrats in their counties rose up against the idea. The Democrats rail against Trump but would not accept migrants. If you are for immigrants you should be willing to accept them in your own back yard. But then FL economy is based on tourism and we insist the oil must come from other states.
1
Our narrative isn’t static. It shifts with shifting values of each generation. History gets reinterpreted through the lens of current generation’s experiences.
The arc of racial justice in America is quite long but over her history, it bends toward equality.
2
As as 50 something, bi-racial, 1st gen American, I grew up in the 60's/70's in an America that transformed from a place where my parents could not marry in VA in 1960 because of anti-miscegenation laws to one of opportunity having taken unscalable mountains down to hills. The stories about the Franklins & Jeffersons were parables and didn't require personalization nor absolute truths. The world was not equal but for many opportunity was there for those that had the grit and gumption to get it. American opportunity relied on equal doses of personal resolve and societal change and the goal was gender and racial blindness. Socialism's long fail ended in 1991. Capitalism even transformed China. I married a Jewish, white woman, raised 4 bi-racial, religiously ambiguous children in a community where none of us would have been welcome a generation ago for our multiple racial & religious transgressions but now fully embrace, and built several businesses. The national sentiment has shifted to a war posture based on identity politics which in its positive state asks us to reflect on the journey of the individual thru a myriad of identifies and in a negative state absolves the individual of responsibility in favor of outsourcing of personal success to a narrative of oppression and failed government programs. Socialism is unknown but now favored by the left as the new solution. I am not optimistic. Too many people are being left behind for both real and self-imposed reasons.
6
It sounds to me like Eric Liu is jumping on a bandwagon that has become even more prevalent because of the Trump presidency.
Because David Brooks describes Liu's book as a series of sermons, Liu's newly created "religion" is a way to capitalize on people who feel victimized and create a society of martyrs.
A "racial reckoning?" Why not? Sounds like a "come to Jesus" (literally) method of proselytizing.
Until Trump's hate filled campaign of the past three years, explicitly stoking the flames of racism and white supremacy, America was moving toward as a welcoming nation to immigrants in addition to making up for the ongoing harmful maltreatment of black Americans.
Just look at the comments here - ordinary individuals become victims of slavery. In other words, this is a terrible op-ed - so is Eric Liu's "religion."
2
The idea that this country was ever governed by white supremacists is hogwash.
In fact this country has always been ruled for the benefit of the 1% and against the interests of the vast majority of whites.
It is class warfare, not racial warfare, that has been at the center of the American story since the end of slavery, though there's no question the freed slaves and their descendants were confined to the lower class by institutional mechanisms until the civil rights movement forced the issue.
But white people were always victimized, too. One of my ancestors came to this country as an indentured servant. My grandfathers were both poor farmers, one farming rented land, the other driving a school bus and preaching in a country church to make ends meet. Read Steinbeck, O'Farrell, and Dos Passos and tell me about white supremacy in pre-FDR America.
Most whites have not grown up with the advantages the Times's Op-Ed page assumes they have. And of COURSE it's been even harder for minorities to get ahead, but minorities still shouldn't throw the blame on the poor whites who are their natural allies.
The one to blame lives in the big house on the hill.
4
How can you a fight class war without reckoning with racism?
1
David Brooks, you sum up the progressive consensus on race by saying, "The essential American struggle is to confront the national sin, have a racial reckoning and then seek reconciliation." Then you tut-tut: "But we Americans are not at our best when we start holy wars." Who said any thing about "war"? That is your word, and it reflects the fear of a privileged white person that grappling with racism honestly will simply be too painful--and perhaps too costly--for him personally.
The thinking and behavior of white supremacists who believe "their country" is being invaded, assaulted, and annihilated, and want to respond with border walls, armed militias, and unrestrained police firepower is far more warlike than that of any progressives I've seen. In your own, subtle way, David, you are projecting onto others the behavior of "your" side--just as conservatives do when they shrug off Trump's constant appeals to racial hatred, then tut-tut about the divisiveness of Democratic "identity politics."
4
Race in America?
America is largely idealistic and incompetent when it comes to race in America, indeed idealistic and incompetent when it comes to any living thing, piece of nature, cannot honestly address, solve the nature/nurture problem.
Take America with respect to nature and excluding human life: We have a vastly simplified scheme where people know nothing of flora and fauna and how they best flourish in various niches but everybody has seen Hollywood films of all the animals living in harmony and everybody has been to a zoo with all the animals locked in individual cages.
This same simplified scheme applies to humans in America: We are told all races, ethnic groups, individuals can flourish in America, as if animals clustered in one place and in harmony in some animated Hollywood film, but the reality is constant bickering and increasing methods of surveillance, bureaucracy and control not much removed from zoo-like conditions, meaning not only are the differences between flora and fauna so great that harmony is possible only by an ugly zoo condition, differences between humans for all idealism are so great that we have vast systems of control whether simple locks on houses or sophisticated tracking and control.
Science, and therefore politics and economics simply has no intelligent theory of how to have humans living with respect to nature and themselves. It's constant simple idealism and reality of zoos, ghettoes, gated communities. This coming from a white man.
Racism, prejudice, dislike for the unlike, hatred of what looks different, anger against imagined past transgressions, lumping a group of people and blaming, them for all your own perceived personal injustices, all these negative thinking and behavior is as old as human history. What is NEW, today, specifically, in the United States, is that rather than condemning and standing up against hatred, the current President of the country and his supporters are legitimizing and defending hatred and inventing their own truths. THAT, active, blatant, open, disregard of what is true and decent, that is dangerous to this country's long term unity and promise.
There are no good people on BOTH sides of what happened at Charlottesville.
Nazis, are not, good people.
As the late Senator Moynihan once said, in a democracy and a country ruled by the rule of law, a citizen has his own opinions, but not his own facts. Wrong is wrong, facts are facts, it is not fake news, because you disagree with it. Otherwise, chaos and distrust and impunity, becomes the norm.
1
Do yourself a favor. Get your DNA tested. Learn that you are a physical embodiment of America's melting pot. Also, reflect on how that heritage strengthens and shapes you. And, how it strengthens and shapes us as a nation. If you saw me on the street, you would conclude 100 percent European in ancestry. But you would be wrong. Many generations back, I have East African and Southeast Asian in my ancestry. And, let me tell you, whoever paired up with those folks in colonial America was likely the subject of ridicule and scorn. But guess what? Here I am. An American. The day after he was elected, I turned to my crying wife and said, "Maybe, this is a reset button." A time for reflection and change. Van Jones spoke the truest words, "It was a white-lash against a black president, in part." But, also, guess what? The same America that had just twice elected Barack Obama had just elected Donald Trump. So, there is hope. But, hope without change is pointless. Barack Obama was hope. Now that we've seen the other side, it is time for change.
5
Well put. Thanks. I enjoyed reading your comment. And who among us isn’t east African where the first human was found? Ironically, we are all just as Kenyan” as Barack Obama, considering that’s where momma Lucy was found.
1
"Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament."
What are you trying to say about us David. Have I ever treated you with anything but kindness in these pages??
2
I am no historian but this much I know. We we're not the only place where slavery of black people was permitted.
We we're no more a racial society than the world has been
The world has changed and so have we.
We are also a nation of immigrants.
Most came after the civil war and most to the North East where slavery had been outlawed a long time before the civil war.
It is there are a lie to say this country was founded or exist as a racially oppressive society.
Is there a racial divide.
Yes but the cause of that are complex and the reason there is one is more because of the Democrats than the Republicans
People who voted Trump we're not racist but they were against identify politics.
This did not make them racist
They felt justly that they were under attack and they reacted in ways that should have been expected.
This is a great nation.
5
Reading this reminds me of a quote from a biracial woman I heard and I thought, so true. “In America, there are no Thorobreds”.
The last thing the US needs is a president who divides the country on a racial basis. We have already had a civil war because part of the country wanted to continue to have the right to have black slaves. We need a president who makes it clear to all that the US is not a white Christian country no ifs, and, or buts. People of all races and religions should be welcomed to try to make better lives for themselves and in doing so make America better. This is a secular democracy based on constitutional law. But millions of Americans don't realize that, they think it is a white Christian country that is being destroyed by liberals and the more extreme Americans with this view such as those who marched in Charlottesville hold the baseless view that Jews are behind the liberals, a crazy conspiracy theory that will not go away.
2
American politics is owned by the corporations, whose ceos are 85% white men.
Come and talk to me about believing in anything when that imbalance has shrunk to their true proportion in society, i.e. about 25%.
Until then, the US is a racial oligarchy.
Terribly long winded trip to nowhere. The Republican Party built the last 40 years of American policies on racism, and Brooks still does not get it
1
Brooks is still stuck in dream land.
The USA is the first caucasian majority country on the planet to elect a non-white as POTUS. . . TWICE!!!
Said POTUS of color leaves Office with race relations in the worst shape in decades . . . due largely to Obama’s war on cops.
Libeling President Trump is not the answer. We now know that he has been telling us a lot of truths . . . from when he complained when his campaign offices were being bugged . . . to the witch hunt intended to upend an election.
Donald J. Trump, business man, hired all who qualified . . . no trace of racism in his business.
Nor is multi-culturalism the answer. We just observed the anniversary of Red China’s massacre of its youth in Tenamianian Square. Interesting as the demonstrators fell their band played Beethoven . . . no Asian nor Chinese music in ear shot.
Time for the self proclaimed “progressives” to just stop and go back to dream land. The USA and all of its legal inhabitants will do just fine . . . prosper even.
3
You lost me at “war on cops.” We live in a para-military police state. The white conservative “gun nuts” know it. The white liberals know it. Blacks and Hispanics know it. The gays, lesbians and trans people know it. If there is a war on cops, the people are losing. Bigly. Cops can kill anyone and choose the most vulnerable because they can get away with it more easily.
Obama kept us from falling over the edge, which is always a possibility and seems more likely everyday. As President, Obama was wise, empathetic, sane and humble enough to embrace ALL Americans, no matter how marginalized. Obama never put his own personal or political problems above the well-being and security of our country. Thank God Obama was at the helm after the trauma of the W years.
Trump uses his own white grievance brand of identity politics to scare people into scams like “Duh Wall,” while doing nothing constructive to respond to the influx of refugees at the southern border. Trump is a scam artist out for himself. He should have never run for President because he is a criminal. People are sick of his constant whining about Mueller. Trump should resign but he’s afraid of the feds at SDNY.
@Steve B
So the reason racism runs rampant is due to a black President. Talk about bait and switch. It is always the refuge of ignorance to blame the victims.
Populism comes from a place of fear . Some of it is fear of change, but most is fear of loss. Loss of opportunity; loss of status, loss of security. Successful populist grab this fear, and nurture it, grow it, use it to manipulate.
Fearing that someone else has taken what is due you is easier to manage than fear that what is due to you no longer exists in this reality. Scapegoat people based on race, on immigration, but don't face the great big unsolvable reality of global business conglomerations, automation, arbitraged labor which is forcing the quality of life for the middle class on a downward spiral.
A wall is easy to build; rethinking capitalism so that it works for workers is not.
It is not a coincidence that the last bout of truly toxic and violent nationalism came during the global Depression of the 30s, a reaction to the communism that the era sprouted.
Politicians have discovered, once again, that fear and division are really easy to capitalize into power. We resist, one by one, or we will be consumed.
We Americans are torn between the lure of money and our historic values.
One percent of the country now controls 40% of its wealth. We have allowed this to happen through law and policy- making which had often unintentional consequences. The result is that this one percent now sets the agenda for everyone else by funding the political system and, literally and figuratively, buying candidates and parties.
But our core values--the ones this nation were built upon--are rooted in creating a place for those who felt unwelcome elsewhere and who yearned to be free to become whatever they were willing to work for.
What is unique about Trump is that he has completely abandoned our core values, while intentionally creating law and policy to favor and further enrich the one percent. He has remade the Republican party in his image.
Nearly all of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were rich men for their time. Yet they risked everything--their money and their lives--to break free of England, even while knowing that the odds were against them. Today we have a one percent who largely disgraces the words and deeds of our Founders by taking everything they can get their hands on and risking nothing, at the expense of everyone else.
This is the struggle we face: Are we about nothing more than hoarding as much money as we can, or do we continue to follow the values our Founders established when they declared this country fee and independent?
2
There is a lot of truth in both narratives. The key is to recognize both the accomplishments and faults of our history.
I would point to Germany or Japan as the example here. Many of the people there seem both rightfully proud of their country’s commercial and scientific achievements, but also at the same time feel guilty about the bad things their country did in the past. This has led those countries to pursue peaceful development that has massively benefitted both them and their neighbors.
Both America and the rest of the world would similarly be much better off if Americans became more conscious of our own national failings and as a result adopted a more humble, peaceful, and benevolent foreign policy, while directing our talents to creating wealth and innovation that diffuse to the less fortunate parts of the world.
2
The philosopher Wilfred Sellars talks about the need for a stereoscopic vision, alternating between what he calls "the scientific image", and "the manifest image."
I encourage folks to look at the American experience not just from the American perspective, but from the global perspective. What I have in mind particularly is Sven Beckert's book, "The Empire of Cotton."
Capital has been global for a couple of centuries at least. As far as global capital was concerned (what Beckert calls "war capitalism"), the American Civil War was a bad hiccup in the cotton market.
I think what we are witnessing now is a new globalism whereby we are in search of a remedy/antidote to global capitalism.
Capitalism ain't all bad, and it ain't all good. What we need is a way to make this heaping mess work for everybody, and that's going to be a whole lot easier if we stop wasting gargantuan amounts of money on the military and the paramilitary (CIA type things.)
From the perspective of pure reason, the American treatment of native peoples, and African-descended peoples is/was a gargantuan crime. But life/history isn't lived entirely in pure reason. There were few BETTER national models available to anyone at the time.
I'm not sure (no idea, actually) what the multi-dimensional term for stereoscopy is, but that's the sort of vision we are going to need. (Good luck, you know.)
1
Mass incarceration for profit is worse than the new Jim Crow. It’s the new slavery.
Mandatory medically-unnecessary pelvic exams (in Missouri) are the new sexual assault.
Below-subsistence wages are the new serfdom.
Thanks, GOP, for keeping us poor and backwards!
8
Say what you will, but when it comes to pursuing "life, liberty and happiness,” then providing each individual with the ”opportunity,” to do so amounts to precisely this:
—
“…We the People give each aspirant one free pass, to pursue their destiny on our Great American Battlefield, where it is mandated, that one must fight, claw, and scratch one’s way to whatever outcome appearing within reach, for better or for worse…” [my caption]
—
Furthermore, each aspirant must understand fully, that from beginning to end, "might is always regarded as right," and that the Laws of the Land always favor whoever is victorious.
--
It doesn't take education or even insight, only experience, to teach us that all things "American," can be encapsulated in just twos simple axioms:
1. There are only winners and losers.
2. Winners take all, losers get nothing.
--
And that, in a nutshell, is exactly how things are working in America, for each of us, right now. And do you know what? It's always been that way.
2
What do white supremacists and fringe multiculturalists have in common?
They racialize everything.
I think it would be a good idea for the rest of us to not follow their lead. For some reason, we allow them to hijack public discourse. The rest of us (ALL of us - black, white, Hispanic, Asian, mixed, whatever) need to stand up to these people who would have us hate each other and our country simply because of skin color.
5
DK,
Equating the fringe white supremacist with the fringe racial multiculturalist is just wrong. White supremacists hate people due to their skin color. They lump all the "others" into a horde of evil invaders who are trying to take "their" land. Minorities in our country deserve the freedom our system promises. We are at a sorry moment in our history when American Nazis are described as "very fine people." When you adopt a racist system of government, like fascist nationalism, you are embracing a form of evil that must be called out and resisted. Fascism is the antithesis of democracy. I don't agree with the antifa group's violent response to American Nazi demonstrations. I agree that it must be confronted. You cannot be both a good American citizen and an American Nazi.
1
@joe parrott Yeah, but you can be president.
A quick quiz: what country offers more opportunity to a new immigrant or person of color than the US?
China?
France?
Brazil?
Japan?
Australia?
Nigeria?
Norway?
Not to disparage the countries in that list, but I think most (almost all) prospective immigrants, given a choice, would pick the US.
So the US isn’t perfect, but it is still, by far, the most attractive “shining city on the hill” that the rest of the world looks to.
5
Frankly, I believe in an America where white supremacists, Republican oligarchs and their assorted hangers-on in the media and Senate, Trump cultists and capitalist gargoyles can sit and break bread with radical progressives and their frothing university watchdogs and all let each other live in peace, as long as 50.1% of the vote swings left. Is that so much to ask?
1
“The opposing narrative” as Brooks calls it; the one where the US engaged in a Native American genocide to take their land and has not come to terms with its history of slavery, racism and so on is not a story. It’s what happened and what is happening. And if you want to have hope for the future you can’t bury your head in the sand and pretend the kkk doesn’t exist anymore, and that there aren’t people in the US waving confederate flags. You can’t pretend redlining doesn’t still effect families today or that police treat citizens fairly. You can’t claim that the “immigration crisis” does not have a racial component or that the treatment of children at our southern border doesn’t have a racial component to it.
If you pretend those things didn’t happen and aren’t effecting the US today - we have no hope.
If your worried that telling the truth and addressing it will anger the people who have previously benefitted from the sordid history then we have no hope. You can’t keep sweeping these problems under the rug and expect to move forward.
5
The comment sections under every David Brooks column remind me of a sack of Rome, where a literary, benevolent, and gentle palace of words is burnt to the ground by Democratic barbarians. I usually choose to not read them, but whenever I yield to that temptation, I’m left feeling scared and hopeless. If a writer as reasonable and elegant as Mr. Brooks can’t get through to them, who could? Such adamant and self righteous refusal to listen, to being reasonable, to show humanity, is not only evil, but monstrous and incomprehensible. How could the Democrats who claim to believe in so many good things be at the same time embodiment of everything we hate about human nature? The fact that there are people like them out there enjoying the same Disney movies that I enjoy is just upsetting.
3
Over a period of three days in 1921 white mobs destroyed 35 blocks in the Greenwood section of Tulsa, Oklahoma. At that time Greenwood was thought to be the most prosperous black community in the country. About 9,000 people lost their homes, and later estimates placed the death toll at 100-300. The point of this atrocity was to attack and eradicate any record of black success in Tulsa.
Fast forward to the current president. Trump has been unrelenting in his efforts to erase all accomplishments of Barrack Obama. Quite willing to destroy health care for 20 million Americans with prior conditions in order to erase ObamaCare Quite willing to undo sensible treaties such as the Iran nuclear deal simply because it was Obama’s work.
Whenever blacks have made advances in the United States, white counter reaction has been iinevitable, and often deadly. Envy, resentment, anger are at the core of white counter blows — buyried deep in our nation’s character. And continuing.
10
Within one generation, my 4 immigrant grandparents sent 5 sons into combat for America against the evils of Nazi Germany. One died at Normandy, one flew 45 combat missions, one earned the Purple Heart for wounds suffered during the Bulge, and the other two fought bravely. Selfless Americans.
I was raised to believe America was the greatest and most generous country on Earth. It still is, despite the naysayers. That’s why people will do almost anything to live here; here in this land founded by some great men in 1776.
2
Sorry to disappoint those who wallow in more whining about how they believe America is a racist nation, while enjoying the benefits of the freedom, liberty and economic security created by the very people they criticize.
I am a white male.
Many of my forefathers fought and died to free slaves, defeat tyranny and worked and voted to provide the vote and equal right for all people, including women and minorities.
I am relatively kind, generous, considerate, law-abiding and socially and financially successful.
I am not racist, misogynist nor homophonic.
I refuse to allow those racist, misandrists anti-heterosexuals among us to inaccurately and cynically stereotype and label me to serve their selfish UnAmerican purposes.
Have a great day.
8
Why is racial reckoning linked to immigration, they’re completely different issues. Seems to me that if liberals could see a way to agree a halt in immigration, they may just be able to get some concessions on other race issues
2
Ever since I read Mr. Brooks say that he could go either way on Jesus rising from the dead I don’t pay much attention to his utterances. Why pay attention to someone who is skeptical of rational thought?
3
Its ironic that your subject, Eric Liu, is likely Korean/Chinese/Filipino or from Asia. They all do a much better job of adopting to US culture than others, and they succeed quickly, and they don't complain about being victims of racism. They just quietly do their business, and all of a sudden they are successful.
"For most of the latter half of the 20th century, for example, about 10 percent of white liberals supported increased immigration; now it’s 50 percent. "
I am all for immigration according to the law. White liberals love illegal immigration because:
1) White liberals are for the most part isolated from the results of the policies. This is like when school busing was enforced in the south, but white liberals screamed when it came to the north.
2) The Democrats want as many illegals as possible because they envision more voters
3) White liberals need nannys and lawn care guys etc.
I need to perform e-verify for every employee that I hire. Why should all employers be required to do this. It takes about 15 minutes.
"The opposing narrative is something like this: America began with a crime — stealing the land from Native Americans. "
This is an entirely different topic and not germane to the point of the editorial. Since the dawn of time, civilizations have invaded each other. The Native Americans practiced "stealing land" from each other long before the Europeans arrived. Its a strawman argument.
3
This seemingly moderate and appeasing column is not so moderate if you read between the lines.
Brooks describes Trump's worldview as "We real (white) Americans must protect our country from brown-skinned invaders." Then he describes an alternate worldview in which America has still has moral debts to pay due to being founded on the displacement and genocide of Native Americans, followed by the exploitation of African slaves. But his only attempt to compare and contrast these views is to say that "There’s a lot of over-generalized group accusation in both these narratives."
Wow, OK. Is that the only stand you're willing to make, Mr. Brooks? I've also heard it said that "There were very fine people on both sides" of the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville.
I start out wanting to agree with Brooks' columns, but something in them always rubs me the wrong way. Another subtle but telling wording choice is found in this sentence: "Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament." BUT? Why the BUT? Reading between the lines, Brooks seems to be implying that most enlightened progressives are in fact divisive, hateful souls.
Hey, at this point, I'm glad to see any self-described conservative who isn't a Trump cheerleader. But I have a feeling that Brooks could do a lot better if he scrutinized the implication of his beliefs - and his wording choices - more carefully.
7
Conservatives don't care about hard work and ingenuity if it's brown people who are doing it. That's the conflict. Conservatives are throwing away American ideals in favor of
maintaining rural white Christian cultural dominance. Their supposed loyalty to the Constitution and the founding principles of our country is a sham. It's become so obvious that anyone with any shred of moral courage cannot lie to themselves any longer about the racist claims of meritocracy that have kept minorities marginalized throughout the history of this country.
2
A very special attraction of this country has been its easy comparison to a condiment table. Although its declaration only respected the “salt” on the table in 1776, “cinnamon” and “black pepper” was quite present.
In the years that followed “saffron” came to the table as did fascinating combinations of them all. A great example of a “salt” and “black pepper” combination was President Barack Obama.
Let us hope that the uniqueness and attractiveness of this great “condiment table” forever set it apart as special with its citizens so analogous to “salt,” “pepper,” “cinnamon,” “saffron,” and fascinating combinations thereof!
1
You posit that the “ national sin” is racism.Operating as individual and systemic white supremacy manifested in a range of ways. THEN and NOW, and there is the need to confront it and “then seek reconciliation.” This is a limited point of view. Consider: This divided nation, of diverse Peoples, has enabled, and even promoted at times, a vibrant, toxic WE-THEY culture, which violates, by words and deeds, transparently as well as hidden, created, selected and targeted “the other(s).” Daily! Not just racial discrimination. Many Peoples have been marginalized even as America enabled THEMS to enter its borders while closing the same borders to selected “others.” Your use of “sin,” a theological “creation,” underpinning a sacramental WE-THEY, borders on semantic surrealism. Personal unaccountability by ranges of PAST, PRESENT and future “wanna-be” policymakers, at all levels- locally, regionally, state level and nationally- elected and selected ones, for their harmful and voiced words and done-deeds are perhaps a greater barrier to America’s democratic State-of BEING.
The incidence and prevalence of complacency about what IS and should not be, re decreasing mutual trust, mutual respect, civility, mutual help when and if needed, and the complicity of so many others enabling this to BE is beyond racial discrimination. The daily choices of so many to be willfully blind to types, levels, and qualities of dehumanization is ever-present. As is willful deafness and ignorance about…
1
If you look, you will find “that story” in the lives of many different people who are contributing to the well-being of others. This is #ourtopstory, and people like you and Nicholas Kristof have been telling it. What you and others like you need to do is tell it with a great sense of mission because our survival likely depends on telling the story of the best within us. We can all learn from this.
Why don’t we have excellent coverage of excellence? There are case studies in every important field of endeavor — and they are instructive and inspiring. There is no better place to do a deep dive into the story of achievement than your newspaper. You are “writing that story” but don’t seem to see that you'll work wonders if you “flood the zone” as your former editor Howell Raines put it.
Who is making life better and how precisely are they doing it? If you commit the resources required to “get the story,” you'll be amazed by the response. The best news organizations can build an inspiration system on the inspiring truth of achievement. And profit handsomely from it as it attracts an ever larger audience.
“Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.”
In the Civil War, the South wanted to separate from the North; but now, Trump and the white supremacists want to keep dominating non-whites, (also all women and non-heterosexuals and non-Christians) without severing the country geographically into two counties.
The progressives, (not a fair term—because aspiring to equal rights for all is a timeless, eternal virtue, one should not have depend on progression through time, as if on a journey, to realize these ideals), are trying to prevent, not the severance of the nation into two nations, but the perishing of the nation itself, into nothing—a feudal system, a caste system, anarchy, the law of the jungle.
The war comes — because people are willing to fight. One side fights all the time — that’s what domination is, systemic violence and oppression. The other side is fighting back, rather than being continually beaten down. “Take your feet off our necks,” RBG would say.
But the war must be fought. If Lincoln were alive today, he might well agree, there is unfinished work here. It is as though the South, mainly, as embodied in all the red states, refuses to accept the surrender at Appomattox. They want to re-wage the same war—they want their roles of dominators back.
The idealists are not making war, but they are accepting it.
The war comes.
1
Tribalism is the worst kind of poison there is for a democracy. If elections are just going to be head counts of people of different races and religions battling for money and power, why bother having an election? Why not just fight a violent war and get things over with? Everyone knows that's how things will end anyway.
People like to point out that the US has always practiced identity politics that just favored white males. Yes, that's true, but the goal has been to move away from that. Not to simply replace one type of identity politics with another.
I hope we can change the direction things are going in this country. If we don't, we'll be headed for an ugly civil war that will resemble Iraq's or Yugoslavia's. Both of which made our civil war look like a picnic.
2
It isn't only the essential myth that portrays our country as a force for good that is being trashed by Trump, it is the very belief that human beings are essentially good that this selfish and bullying psychopath and his cult of supporters are destroying.
Previous presidents of my life time at least pretended to care about all the people of this country, even if the legislation they supported was tailored to favor a minority of rich and powerful white men.
Trump's tax policy and government protection of consumers and the environment may be terrible even by GOP standards, but it is his meanness that makes him unique as a president.
That a man of such utter repugnance is celebrated by a substantial percentage of my fellow Americans is somehow more psychologically disturbing than all the years of anti-social and anti-environmental policy of the GOP since Reagan became president.
8
Mr. Brooks, when the war does come, the first shots will not be fired by the left. I predict it will take just one national election unfavorable to the right to put them squarely there.
The false equivalence, yet again. It's lubricant for what both Mr. Brooks and I fear most.
3
David dives down the rabbit hole again. Maybe he missed the antics of the modern Republican party, his spiritual home.
Nixon's "southern strategy," Reagan starting his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi where civil rights workers had been murdered, political ads designed to divide, not unite, minority voter suppression.
I wonder what country David has been living in.
1
123,000 illegal immigrants (or, undocumented) crossed our southern border just in May. They are largely uneducated, do not speak English, are poor, etc. What are we to do? The impacts on schools, the learning of native English speakers in those schools, medical costs, income support costs, housing costs, are all impacted, for the most part, negatively. Of course they want to come and stay. Their home countries are a mess.
So, I ask again, "What are we to do?" I am personally torn. My small town now has 23% of the children of Hispanic origin, most of whom do not speak English. Teachers are having to have bilingual help to even teach. We passed a 65 million dollar levy to build more school capacity. That's a BIG deal in our small town. We get scant help from the State or Feds. Many Guatemalan's here. Dysfunctional country of origin, most illegal.
My ancestors came here legally (for the time) from Germany (an educated minor Prince), Norway (to be able to own property) because inheritance custom prevented all but the first son from owning property, Scotland because they saw opportunity. They were among the first wagons in the Willamette Valley. The Germans settled on Orcas Island. Nobody has gotten rich, some were poor, but we have had a life of freedom, paid in blood in WW II and Vietnam.
The overwhelm at the border IS a crisis, we should treat it as such. But, to me, what to do isn't clear. The xenophobic discussion in the NYT picks pertains, I think.
In the Trump era of the past few years, I’ve gotten the impression from many of the NYT op-ed writers and the many commenters that view themselves as progressives that things will be much better in America when whites are no longer a majority. The struggles of blacks and brown people will somehow become less burdensome because the impediment of a white majority will be lifted. Perhaps this is true. Yet I view the reckoning in America today and the reckoning Americans will face well into the future is one of income disparity and of opportunity disparity. The poor urban black person has much more in common with the poor rural white person than many will acknowledge. A wealthy coastal white family has nothing in common with the poor white Appalachian family other than the color of their skin. We might be spending so much time dwelling on skin color that we ignore the causes of so much that is wrong in America - disparities rooted in income and opportunity. There are many ways to begin addressing these disparities. Long term, perhaps our greatest investment and focus should be on the education and job training of our young people to prepare them for the jobs of the future; and that is where we must be color blind.
1
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this piece, but stopped for a second when I read, "Eric’s great contribution is to show how to mix conviction on racial matters with humility and gentleness." Another person came immediately to mind who, to me, fits that description perfectly. His name is Barack Obama. Brilliant, thoughtful, eloquent, tolerant, patient, humble and gentle a man as he was leading this country, what did that gain us in the bigger picture of advancing the cause of racial equality and understanding in this country? It seems that it simply provoked and worsened the historical white supremacist tendencies in America. It infuriated a surprisingly huge number of white people in this country that an African American could actually become President of the United States and spawned the sickest of resurgences in hatred and repression of minorities.
While the nonviolent movement of Martin Luther King and others, like Eric Liu, are noble and righteous and can gain sporadic victories, I believe that history shows tragically that perhaps other means are more effective. In no way am I arguing for violent approaches toward attaining true equality, but I think the Black Power movement and Black Panthers may have actually done what the gentle, kind way could not - express the seriousness of white offenses and the hurt and egregiousness of one race methodically oppressing another. Tragically it seems that sometimes fighting fire with fire is the only thing that works.
2
Rich D,
The peaceful civil-disobeience campaign of Martin Luther King jr did much more for Black Americans than the violent Black Panthers. Violence is self defeating. It illicits a violent response that can then be justified by those in power. JFK, president, at that time helped MLK jr at times through his RFK the Attorney general. It does not further the perfecting of a more perfect union in the USA to suggest violence is the solution rather than peaceful confrontation. Blue wave 2020!
I admire Brooks for his transformation from a pretty hard core ‘conservative’ to a humanitarian who is pushing for change.
For those who want to learn more about how racism has been and still is endemic to the American culture I suggest they read Stamped from the Beginning. It is long and flawed in modest ways. But it is also very instructive and worth the effort required to read it.
The group that has power, will always wield that power against the weaker group. The group that has power wants only to keep that power.
Those new migrants or whomever, if/when they have power will want to retain that power and will then become the oppressor.
Sadly it is the human condition. All one has to do is read history. And that is why there is so much turmoil in this country because one group is threatened by a perceived change in power.
And religion is the biggest contributor to this concept.
1
Why should America be multicultural, a shining city on a hill?
Because if it isn't, Russia won't. China won't. Africa won't. Maybe even Europe won't.
And all the technology, scientific and philosophical progress that humankind has achieved will be winked out, wasted in a global Balkanization. Because the wrong strivers prevailed.
So let Mr. Brooks exfoliate.
Encourage Stephens and Douthat to stand with him or on his (or Reagan's) shoulders. Send Chris Wallace his father's approbation and the suggestion that purpose is not to be squandered, to construct more elaborate tea ceremonies.
I'll take my epiphanies where I find them.
3
Last time I checked, the only large enough story that held all people together was the story of Jesus Christ and salvation.
Now, because of being politically correct, this can’t be anymore recognized or even acknowledged, it will be too offending!
There is not another story that can be larger than this. I would start from there if I want to fix what has been damaged in Europe and the US.
I have to say though, I am not as optimistic as you David. Some fractures are so deep that a cure sounds unrealistic, in fact borders insanity.
God bless the USA
4
Here’s a an overarching storyline to start you off that doesn’t involve Jesus, or other religious figures that unfortunately have the ability to divide. And this story can and should be embraced by every American- but not just in word but in deeds...
ALL MEN (ie, all PEOPLE) ARE CREATED EQUAL.
Now let’s start acting that way as our guiding principle, shall we?
We should all remember to thank Mr Brooks and the Times for another thoughtful column.
I am interested in the idea of many people talking about America, but I think there is a good bit of self-interested promotion going on with so-called White Progressives that needs to be noted.
As one who grew up going to NAACP events and functions I don’t think I fit the profile of the typical alienated Trump biter. However in the past generation, as manufacturing and other sources of employment have declined, there has been an increasing move for “Progressive” people to seek employment “Helping” people in “Protected classes”. As actual Americans like American Blacks increasingly represent and act for themselves this means new protected classes need to be invented and/or recruited to provide employment for these so-called activists.
Many of the folks being recruited are from outside the U.S., giving ride to the increased support for immigration, since Many of these folks do not speak English and people can get government jobs to “Help” them.
As a result of the increased rate if immigration we are losing our communal identity to some degree, and, far from creating the Black and Brown “Rising majority” progressives talk about we seem to be nurturing a plethora of National immigrant populations that identify mainly with their countries of origin. Further the result of State support for this process is displacement of Americans from positions, communities, and employment.
7
I believe we have inherited this moment, with a racist President leading a battle against civil rights and immigration, just because of the tremendous progress of the civil rights movements of the 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond into the present. The reason is the balance of forces, between those seeking freedom and equality, and those favoring suppression and hate, are always pretty evenly balanced. When our Constitution was passed, it was by tiny margins. President Lincoln got his amendments by a hairs breadth. Johnson's Civil Rights legislation was equally close. Every successful fight for equality, is a narrow victory.
So much has changed for the good, during my 68 years, in this country. But, it has also exposed the lasting depths and breadth of the resentment to the great Civil Rights movements of the past half century. Real change doesn't happen in a twinkle, or a lifetime, or more. But, it does happen. And then it needs to be defended, generation after generation.
14
@Michael
Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed Senate 73-27 and House 289-126, not a close call at all. If this same legislation were up for a vote today, Mitch McConnell would not even put it up for a vote.
4
"Once you start assigning guilt to groups, rather than to individuals, bad, illiberal things are likely to happen."
The multiculturalists have been demanding that we judge people "by the content of their character and not the color of their skin." And yet they blame all white males for the foibles of a minority.
Traditionally, most powerful people have been white males, but most white males are not powerful. They have had some important advantages, but not enough to propel the majority of them to the heights of power and prestige. There is only room in that rarefied space for a few select individuals.
Please let that sink in for a moment. Power and prestige are the privileges of a select few. When and if the playing field is leveled, there will still only be a few people at the top, and they might look like everybody else, but most people will still be at the bottom. It's a pyramid, wide at the bottom and narrow at the top.
What we now call white privilege should be shared with everyone. But that is not the same as power and privilege. No matter how level the playing field is, most people will never have it.
16
That only the powerful few are at the top is trivially true and obvious since everybody can’t have elite power but the overwhelming majority of the pyramid is still white and male.
@Wes: Not where I live or work, but I'm in tech in California. The rest of the country is catching up. I hear Colorado is fairly liberal; how's the mix there?
I was trying to make two points because there are two blends. 1) There's the bottom and middle levels where things are looking very progressive but still some work to do. 2) Many people confuse that with the tip of the pyramid where most people won't get to go.
In places where the majority of the people are white, I'd expect to see the majority of people in the bottom and center to be white as well. I don't know how the women are doing in places besides California because I don't work there.
There are two clear narratives and they are not what were presented in this article.
One is the narrative for inequality, the other one is the narrative for equality. Those are the choices that America will have to figure it out.
And they are trying to figure it out using many ideas, not just the blaming or narrow choices as the examples cited in this article.
3
I don't know where Brooks learned that when "we" came to America, it was an open field. I am older than David, went to a NYC public school and learned that the "Indians" were here before us -- that some helped us and I learned from cowboy and Indian movies, that it did not end well for them.
Brooks says, "Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament. " I think the "but" he uses here says a lot about how Brooks views progressives. While it is true that some are part of the call-out culture, most are likely more reconciling and loving than their conservative counterparts.
Finally, Brooks seems to see everything through a religious prism these days. A civic narrative doesn't have to take on the attributes of a religion; it needs not be dogmatic. Our civic narrative can be a living, breathing thing if we grapple with it honestly and completely, leaving out no-one's story.
16
I share the worry about the lost American narrative. I am an American from what used to be called Yugoslavia and always felt that this beautiful country went to its destructive path not only on account of its growing economic problems in the 1980s or even the fall of communism but because we could never sustain a common narrative. Such narratives are always social inventions and are never true stories in the sense that could they pass a scientific test but they hold nations together when there is enough truth to them to make them plausible to most members of society.
The American narrative was one of gradual progress toward the better, respect for the individual, the ability to reinvent oneself and others. Today’s social justice warriors like to emphasize the lack of reckoning with the past, but peruse any of the wonderful Horizon middle to high brow history books from the 1960s and you will quickly become aware that the best Americans were very aware of the tainted racial past and willing to confront it while also placing it within a broader narrative of progress and inclusion. It is so sad to watch my adopted country descend into such divisiveness: I loved and continue to love America for its liberty, decency, respect for every individual and their dignity regardless of background. Please do not descend into the Yugoslav path of emphasizing differences to the point where the only outcome can be resentment, victimization, hatred and, ultimately, war on the streets.
39
@Veljko Vujacic
'The American narrative was one of gradual progress toward the better, respect for the individual, the ability to reinvent oneself and others.'
This narrative allowed you to live here unencumbered. But America never respected black people. In fact, it told black people that they had no rights for which white people had to respect.
While there are periods and episodes of racial nightmare and crisis, the broad arc of American racial trajectory is toward justice and inclusion. It might be wise to recall that racial barriers to citizenship and to immigration were not removed until McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 and Immigration Act of 1965. These two laws, along with Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally gave African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans the legal and social capacity to follow the European immigrant experiences that got weaved into "white" American experience. We are still closer to the beginning of this epochal change rather than the end. In the epic American racial experience, reckonings have been a constant and permanent feature. After all, reckoning the inclusive and egalitarian aspirations of racial minorities with American past and present is what makes racial progress possible.
3
I’ve changed my opinion over the last 2 years from Ben Franklin is ok to Brown World is ok. We all have a role to play in this no matter your skin color or politics. Labeling either political side with general assumptions is dangerous.
3
The Brown skin versus the Ben Franklin comparison is bad to the extreme. What is being forgotten in this new fad is that Ben Franklin was neither a slave owner or supporter. He was an early abolitionist. There is room for equality in a self improvement entrepreneurial approach to all facets of the American experience. Ben Franklin represented the model of a fully enlightened man and was famous the world over for it.
You're correct that this nation needs racial reconciliation. Unfortunately, the tragic election of Donald J. Trump has made that far less likely.
I, like so many other Americans, won't forget how proud I was of my country on the night that Barack Obama was elected in 2008. Then, I believed that this country was finally ready to accept that all people are equal. As a white man, I was giddy to be able to tell my children that, truly, anyone can grow up to be President and to live the life of their dreams.
Alas, I was wrong. One of the stories of the Obama years is the determined push back by racists - the birthers, the militia nutcases, the "Christians" of the Evangelical churches who think God loves only the white-skinned - and the astounding rise to power of a chief executive who is not only blatantly racist, but appallingly ignorant.
Reconciliation can't happen unless we're honest about what's preventing it. There are still way too many people in this country who hate. Those people, when the first African American was elected President, did not cry with joy as so many of us did; they raged at the sharing of opportunity with those who have been kept down for so long.
To fix this, we must re-commit to a simple creed:
"[A]ll men are created equal, . . . they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, [and] among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
If that philosophy is not in our hearts, it won't be in our politics or our culture.
37
You WERE NOT WRONG, and I do not capitalize lightly.
It is just that David Brooks, and too many others, are unwilling to step up to what they say they believe.
1
I was not aware of Citizen Saturdays nor of Eric Liu, so the column helps introduce his noble ( dare I say quixotic?), effort to a larger audience. This is useful.
I cannot, however, fail to point out that the underlying core of
the problem is the mental balkanization we seem to be imprisoned by. We call this partisanship but it's really more
fundamental than that, residing in an irrational,
rigid part of the psyche in which nurturing grievances and the urge to vent them takes precedence over a form of civic discourse that educational institutions at all levels were supposed to promote, but now do not, clearly.
To break apart those psychic
constructs we can neither keep screaming at each other nor believe that this is the only option we have. We can't continue trolling and spewing out nonsensical irrational vileness just because dear leader is our role model. We can't claim sole dominion over righteousness. We need return to a sense of civility and mutual respect that can only occur when the urge to troll and/or foam at the mouth ceases.
We need start attending to the very sick
body politic that has been brutalized beyond recognition
once a winner take all mindset took over and now utterly dominates all forms of public discourse and political behavior.
How to do this in the age of infotainment, f-x "news", and internet demons is a challenge that Citizen Saturdays will need to solve, while swimming upstream against strong cultural forces.
2
I see the progressive position as a way of telling a more complete American story. Let's say you were a Polish immigrant coming here in 1920. You may have been illiterate, but you worked grueling hours (and had labor unions help you organize) and you built a better world for your children. There is nothing wrong with that story. But it isn't complete. If you were a black person, you didn't get to participate in that story in many ways. You worked hard, but your money got stolen, your store got burned down, the family breadwinner was incarcerated for no good reason.
Polish people, Irish, Germans, Italians -- worked hard. But they didn't just succeed by working hard. They also succeeded because they were able to participate in a racial caste system in which, if they could call themselves white, they were automatically in the upper caste. Someone may have been in the lower-class back in Sweden, but in America, they were in the upper-classes by virtue of skin color -- and the lower classes were providing virtually unpaid labor.
If white people can tell their story more holistically, celebrating their ancestors' hard work but also recognizing their ancestors' unearned advantages, then they can set about creating a true land of opportunity. But that means abandoning the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" myth and acknowledging a more complex reality, and more complex, thoughtful solutions to the problems that American history created.
26
@RVC You put that really well.
2
Toni Morrison wrote a short potent piece on this in Time magazine in 1993 titled “On the Backs of Blacks”
How quaint the optimism of Obama seems now, how ironic the hope of a post-racial society. Have events just overtaken us? Is reality actually as ugly as Trump claims it is, as negative as he wants it to be?
No, the regressive forces that plague us now have always been there, boiling just under the surface in some places in our country and in plain view in others. In many ways, Obama himself brought on the post-Obama era, not that he could have done anything else. He showed the nation what was possible for a man of his race and background to accomplish, to be. And a big part of America couldn’t stand to see that, couldn’t accept that. Donald Trump spoke to those people long before he became their president and now he speaks for them. His obsession with destroying the legacy of Obama is their obsession.
Now the question is whether that obsession will permanently wreck the institutions and beliefs that we used to believe were strong enough to overcome all obstacles and deflect all attacks. Will they actually be so strong and so resilient? Will our institutions and beliefs be strong enough to protect us from ourselves?
Our external enemies have always been dangerous, but in a very real way, we truly are our own worst enemy. Our external enemies have always caused us to unite, but our internal enemies do what our external foes never could - divide us. And that, of course, is the goal and the method of Donald Trump.
5
David Brooks writes, "Trump's narrative is: We REAL Americans (white) have to protect our culture from the alien (brown) who would weaken it."
The message from the blue states reads, "We will continue to enrich our melting pot culture with the people, traditions, ideas and cuisines of all of the Earth's races."
On the right, the tendency toward racism is driven by the Id. On the left, the tendency toward fellowship and moral behavior is driven by the Super-Ego. It's the vicious pit bull versus Saint Francis of Assisi.
1
Nobody wanted it (the American Civil War)? So the cannons aimed at Fort Sumter went off accidentally?
3
I teach literature at the college level, and one of the loveliest and most disturbing novels on my syllabus, Deep Creek, traces the moral arc from easy liberalism to hard enlightenment when a Chinese investigator hires a Idaho judge and a Native American guide to capture the white-nationalist killers of some 30 Chinese gold miners. The awful subtext: it is fiction based on history--an actual white-supremacist massacre on the Snake River in 1887--and reminds us all that a) narratives of racial justice need to include crimes against Asians and Native Americans for full awareness; b) in 1865, the Civil War simply moved west, turned its unresolved furies against people of color...and its poisons endure to this day.
7
And yet people from around the world are clamoring to come here despite our issues with race. I'd say liberals and democrats don't see the goodness of this country and how it provides so much for immigrants (and everyone else) compared to most of the rest of the world. Let's not forget that we take in more immigrants annually than any other nation. Are western and eastern Europe, China and most of Asia not more racist than the US? This incessant demand for open borders by 'progressives' threatens to turn this country into the former Yugoslavia. The current population of the US, including most legal immigrants, will not stand for this.
7
@new conservative
"we take in more annually" is very misleading statement.
based on a per capita we are like number 40 on the list. germany, which has like 1/30th of our population took in almost 700k compared to our one million.
its easy to mislead with your statement. based on our vast resources, land and actual financial riches we do FAR less then other countries!
9
Uh, Adam, Germany is not 1/30th the size of the US. Germany has over 83 million people. Don’t know if the rest of your “facts” are correct,
2
Yeah, Trump really exemplifies your “goodness of this country.” Sure, and so does FOX&Friends.
Myself figured it was the likes of Twain, and “To the person sitting in darkness.”
Feel free to read, and explain.
“Once you start assigning guilt to groups, rather than to individuals, bad, illiberal things are likely to happen.”
As a progressive I’m not very interested in assigning guilt or blame to either individuals or groups, but I am troubled that millions of people are simply incapable of accepting or unwilling to even acknowledge the grip that racism has on all our lives. I don’t seek punishment or reparations. I’d just like to know that a conversation about race that doesn’t begin in denial and historical fiction is possible. Trump, his acolytes, and his party are now delivering lies heaped upon lies, and as a result illiberal things are happening. No need to wait.
8
Mr. Brooks,
I respect your perception that all Americans have a piece of the mess we are in. We do. I,for one, feel like I could have done more and that during the 80s and 90s and the 2000-2010s, I was so busy raising kids and doing my job that I failed to see that which is upon us now: a future where the average middle class kid is in 50-100K of student debt.
A major difference between the current administration and the previous administration is that the current one has weaponized everything, and that's before we even get to actual weapons. I am a veteran, I know weapons. I am afraid
that "so-called patriotic citizen" terrorists will follow our deeply racist president into civil battle. I, like you, pray that this all comes to an artistic head not an armed head.
3
After a while, one can write these racebits by heart; they distract from our other problems nicely. How satisfying it is to demonize racial or political groups and completely ignore our looming economic/climate problems.
3
Despite every effort, the most segregated hour in the US remains 11 am, Sunday morning.
1
Mr. Brooks, I enjoyed reading your article, even though what you wrote is something that most liberals already knew. But if your article is about something that you personally have recently discovered, please come right out and admit that you were wrong in your defense of Trump. That will give me a reason to admire you.
1
@Thomas When did Brooks really defend Trump? Seems to me he's pretty much despised him from the start, and rightly so...
We have a society that is unfair and unjust to everyone not in the top economic 10%. We should apologize to everyone who has to struggle in our society-students who graduate with unremitting debt, people who have to work more than one minimum wage job to survive, people who will die because they don't have proper health insurance, people with good jobs who can't afford child care, people who are told they are leeches on society by the real corporate leeches on society. This column is just another Brooks ploy to keep us from facing the real inequities of our current political system. As long as these inequities continue Blacks and whites will suffer and that is also original sin.
4
"Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament."....
Mr Brooks, that "BUT" in there, hints as if progressives are in general, not a reconciling and loving people?
Needless to say, there is a real avalanche coming.
I want to see a generation that will not tolerate racism, justice for all-not few, hold violators of others' rights accountable, aim for global free market, work towards equality, basic human rights and as anti-war as they come!
Gen-Z: majority's behavior and ideas are an early indicator, we are on that path.
Also, America has had xenophobia/racism in one or another kind all throughout its history. Be it Native Americans, Blacks, Irish, Italians, Polish, Jews and now more and more against LGBT and Muslims. It is as if every epoch we need someone or somebody to hate?
A turning tide...
First there were Native Americans, given grief by Spanish Conquistadors but not for long, then came the (proverbial) smallpox of white invasion, and in a way annihilated them and their cultures. Africans were dragged as slaves into this mess.Then, came wars: Civil war, WW I-II, Korean, Vietnam, Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan...
USA is moving fast towards becoming one of the most racially diverse countries in the world. Trump & this loud conservative rhetoric, in truth, is the last howl of transformation we're suffering, to emerge into a new era... just as we had to go through Civil war to emerge without slavery.
What will be the ultimate cost?
5
@Ash. Actually the diseases came first, that is from the earliest Euro-Amerindian contacts, decimating their numbers even before colonization/settlement got underway in earnest...
You have a job that pays pretty well Mr. Brooks. You have savings. You have a decent place to live. You can go for medical care when and if you need it. You don't have to worry about being harassed because you are female, LGBTQ, African American, or just plain different. You are a white male. The America you live in is quite different from the one many of us are imprisoned in now.
You have supported a party that has played racial and religious politics to the hilt. The GOP supported a man who inflames the prejudices of white male Americans towards every other group in America; women, Jews, Muslims, Hispanics, African Americans, etc.
I'm 60 years old. I sincerely hope that I can find another job in my field and be useful until I die. However, given the policies that both political parties have allowed employers to pursue I don't see that happening for me or my peers. Nor do I see it happening for the younger people.
Our country decided that cheap was better than quality. We handed the reins of government over to corporations that do n ot have our best interests at heart. Nor does someone like Mitch McConnell, Trump, or the rest of the GOP. They proved it during the Obama administration. For the GOP Trump is the chocolate sauce on the ice cream scoops. They won and if their win is our loss they don't care.
If I had any hope left it would be this: that Trump is impeached, the GOP dissolved, and that our politicians work for us first.
6/6/2019 11:44pm
11
America is splayed out, regionalized and self centered.
Narcissism is the religion du jour. It occurs in a myriad of ways at many levels.
Most are unaware of themselves. They just see their own survival as preeminent. It's "Every man for themselves"!
Women are included, of course. Race, religion, ethnicity are identifications that can be exploited from time to time.
4
“Once you start assigning guilt to groups, rather than to individuals, bad, illiberal things are likely to happen.”
I assign guilt to Republicans, each and every one of them, individually.
How’s that, Brooks?
7
Here in super-liberal New York City, elite public schools that once reflected the racial diversity of the population by accepting the smartest kids from all neighborhoods have turned into segregated schools that practice test-based apartheid. Only certain races score highest in the test so that becomes a reason to keep out Black and Latino kids. it's all about meritocracy you know. On these very pages one reads from tried and true liberal New Yorkers that "standards must be maintained" which means that based on one test, it is OK to keep out smart kids of color. If this is happening in New York City, and if progressive Whites seem OK with it, what makes us think we are heading in the right direction in terms of creating a more just society anywhere?
2
Here's a narrarive, Mr. Brooks: As a child, I was taught to love America before I was taught to love God. I was taught that I grabbed the brass ring in life, just by being born an American. And I was taught that informed citizenship was a sacred obligation, and voting was the greatest privilege of my life.
Fast forward fifty years, and we have an entire swath of people who voted for a protofascist buffoon for President as a 'joke', and an entire swath who voted for him to 'stick it to the libruls'. How are we to understand any American narrative in the face of such nihilism?
13
Mr. Brooks, when you say "Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament", you imply that Seattle progressives do not generally have "a reconciling, loving temperament". Your bias is showing - and why would you believe this?
3
I can’t help wondering what David Brooks would think if some public intellectual in Germany were holding sermons at public gatherings to venerate Deutschland. Sounds kind of creepy, doesn’t it? Then again, the Romans worshiped the goddess Roma as a means of pledging allegiance to the empire and its divine genius. This worked quite well for a while. Perhaps civic temples of classical design should be erected throughout the land in order to foster patriotism and blind faith in truth, justice and the American way. Presided over by secular priests and served by chapters of local dignitaries, each would have its own replica of the Statue of Liberty located in an apse at the back behind a flag-draped altar. Attendance by all citizens and catechumen immigrants would perforce be mandatory.
Somewhere in America many young people are writing a vision of America that answers how to get America back on track to 1964 and the Civil Rights Act.
Sadly America is committed to neoliberalism and a way of thinking that dismisses the needs of people to believe in something beside their own pleasures and enrichment.
Reporters without Borders lists America as 48th in Press Freedom. America is not Saudi Arabia but it knows how to drown out the sounds of those hungering for a meaning in their lives beyond the acquisition of more stuff. American Evangelism is as far from Christianity as any belief can be. It is a golden throne and a golden commode in the Temple.
America is about The Temple where God only considers price and bottom line, the Priests look for better and faster ways to fill their wealth portfolios and Trump is the High Priest.
1
i don't think much would have changed if hillary had become president. she is so corporate-owned that it's scary. look at her monetary worth.........tens of millions of dollars, speaking to a midwestern crowd wearing a thousand-dollar outfil. that is her presence.
2
There are any number of ways in which the story of the successful, optimistic striver has always been more fable than truth. It has always excluded to significant degree people from certsain 'marginalized groups'. Now, though, it increasingly is made lie of by the increasing concentration of wealth in fewer and fewr hands proportionately. The recent college admissions scandal illustrates the current mindset of the many, perhaps most, of the haves irrespective of how they situate themselves politically. Of paramount importance is maintaining and increasing one's material advantage. Meanwhile Madame Defarge knits while knives, scythes, and sickles are given a keener edge.
1
Funny, I didn't grow up with the "Ben Franklin narrative" even though I learned about him as an admirable figure. I grew up with the "started with a pushcart" narrative - about how poor immigrants built their lives and businesses from scratch in America. Successful immigrants, not wealthy native landowners, were the models, and this was even for immigrants back in the earliest decades of the 20th century (a time of massive immigration). So I don't accept Brook's notion that somehow modern multiculturalism has displaced the true American narrative, just because it now also includes native Americans and African Americans.
2
Mr. Brooks, if you want to quote Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, you might pay attention to these sentences:
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'"
We all need to examine what our country has done wrong and right the wrongs. Repentance and restitution must precede forgiveness.
2
Harry Truman said something like, the only new thing in history is history we have forgotten. The multi cultural narrative is not new, but at last it is gaining traction, especially traction of a sympathetic variety among the young. For example, the narrative about the evils of slavery and its effects has been around in some variation since long before the Civil War. Anyone reviewing the history of the late 19th and 20th century history is bound to be struck by two threads of narrative, the first about the populist movement and its call for justice in the national government to include the farmers and other groups not advantaged by the tariff and monetary system, the second by the long battle of Civil Rights activists against the Southern senators who kept any laws against lynching and for voting rights off the floor of the Senate. I view the present moment as a rear guard action by white supremacists which will be overcome with persistence, emergence of new leaders who can speak without stirring up even more rancor on the subject (for example Pete Buttigieg can do this). We have been through worse, some of the worst being during my lifetime.
2
Interpreting everything through the lens of race, as certain columnists in this newspaper and in many others routinely do, presents a deeply distorted picture of our history and our contemporary society. Race is part of the story, certainly, but it does not explain everything and the story is not one of unrelieved oppression and injustice. To fail to acknowledge the progress that has been made on civil rights and racial equality (painful and halting though it may be) is just as shallow and false as trying to insist on American "exceptionalism" in this or any other area. The current fashion among self-styled progressives in endlessly diagnosing and decrying "white supremacy" in all things is so unfortunate, as it fuels social divisions that undermine our ability to work together for the common good. It actually promotes (and sometimes exhibits) the racist attitudes that it claims (often with the utmost sanctimony) to be combatting.
12
Calling out white supremacy is racist and stokes divisions.
Couldn’t be white supremacy itself that’s the problem, right?
By the way, can you name an aspect of American culture that isn’t tainted by racism? I’ll wait...
I know Brooks means well but this is all rather infantile. No racial reckoning will be forthcoming. Nor should one be. We seem to be going backwards on these issues not for the reasons cited or because of those in high office but because too many of us are fixated on the false God of group identity. The collapse of the educational system in the United States and the loss of American individualism (and those who see others as individuals not as avatars for skin-color groups) are the main problems, for which I suppose there are quite a few who might share in the pain of an overdue reckoning.
5
This is a fine essay by Mr. Brooks, but as I read it, all I could think about was the UN report saying that we have just 12 years to prevent catastrophic climate change. If we don't get that done, soon we will be spending all our time responding to one natural disaster after another. There won't be time to deal with any other issue. And yes, this may bring us together, but mostly we will be united in suffering and death. If that's not the kind of outcome we want, we have to make dealing with climate change our top priority, starting here and NOW. And we need to make sure that indigenous people and people of color don't bear the brunt of the impact of climate change.
4
Less focus on identity politics and more focus on providing real educational and economic opportunity to all.
People become more protective when they perceive a “winner takes all” situation.
1. Provide every child a high quality education spend adjusted for the conditions of that school/neighborhood.
2. Ensure those below a certain income level can get financial aid to attend a trade school, college or university
3. Take steps to make all neighborhoods economically diverse. Stop the ghettos and rich enclaves.
4. Stop funding schools by property taxes
5. Provide a strong safety net that accounts for temporary job losses and retraining.
11
@Practical Thoughts With economic diversity comes a lack of safety and that's why we have rich enclaves and gated communities and private schools.
1
Liz,
That doesn’t have to be the norm. Decent people exist regardless of income level.
Crowding poor people in ghettos and isolated towns leads to a pathology just as bad as a bunch of rich people living in a gated bubble.
People should be judged on their character.
I get what Mr. Brooks is saying. But those who are engineering permanent control of our government don’t give a hoot, unless it disturbs steps towards perpetual power.
I am hopeful, since demographics are in our favor, but saddened because the latest social regression likely means I won’t get to enjoy watching my children enjoy what should be happening now.
But, that same phrase of Lincoln’s (“and the war came”) looms, unfortunately. These folks don’t fade away easily.
7
Isn't it possible to celebrate and promote the American ideals of maximizing opportunity and the pursuit of happiness even while striving to recognize and curtail injustice? Can we walk and chew gum at the same time, or are these things mutually exclusive?
19
Ultimately I think this.
The bottom line is that the majority of us shall come to realize that it is just US here.
There is in fact no THEM.
To the extent enough of us intuit this fact, we will flourish within a healthy biosphere.
To the extent we do not...
We harm the only reality we have ever known- Ourselves and the biosphere that sustains US.
7
Well said, thank you.
Brooks adroitly captures contemporary ideas and practices on race and gender, and ascribing traits, ideas, and words to some who might not really think them (or say them). (They inherited the hate, or, perhaps a penchant for making money?!) Much of this stylized language of dehumanization and demoralization, of course, passes muster among modern American socialists and may be vaguely similar to pre-WWII campaigns designed to demonize certain religious and racial groups. One interesting aspect is the detachment from historical language elements the left exhibits; the "success" they deserve justifies disparagement. The U.S. and world have seen great changes wrought by globalization since the demise of the Cold War and the rise of China; the correct path would help citizens adjust to these changes without reverting to racial stereotyping but apparently 'we' must go down that path against majorities or (pre-minorities) again; and, let's not forget the patriarchy when our rage is up! In the end, they'll conclude, again, their errors, and people will recognize their commonality rather than make it all about their differences.
1
Reading the comments, and feeling disheartened, I highly recommend that if you're white, you should read Robin DiAngelo's book "What Does It Mean to Be White: Developing White Racial Literacy." DiAngelo is white, btw. I hold little hope that a single person who sees this recommendation will actually check her book out, which is heartbreaking. For white people especially, increasing white racial literacy is desperately needed.
7
This, too, shall pass. This, too, must pass. Unfortunately, they will get worse before they get better. But they will get better. How much longer and at what cost is up to all of us and while we're all responsible in some way for how far we've fallen in such a short amount of time, we're the only ones who still have the power, the perseverance, the principles and the patriotism defeat those whose goal it is to divide and conquer us by conspiring with our sworn enemies and destroying our democracy for the sake of their morally corrupt practices. Our new national narrative has already begun.
Vote.
Here's a thought for someone, who in his previous op-ed referred, if I remember correctly, to W.F. Buckley as his mentor, END Affirmative Action. It polls terribly. It has undoubtedly helped some African-Americans at the top, but in the aggregate, it's hard to see any positive impact. And in the case of Asians and Hispanics, it's morally repulsive, because it overtly discriminates against the former, and helps the latter, who have no meaningful claim to it. Contra Italians? Maybe in the near future, Mr. Brooks can man up and just say this. END Affirmative Action.
7
As an immigrant, I think America should have a more aggressive form of Affirmative Action focused only on descendants of US slavery and Native Americans with no other groups benefiting, including Hispanics. Affirmative Action should be a form of reparations for a chosen few.
White women have been the biggest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action, especially on the corporate level, but whites never complain about that.
I don't like this idea of splitting the difference, both sides are wrong and the truth must be somewhere in the middle. I give credit to past Americans who were ahead of their times. That doesn't erase our Native American history or slavery and its legacy, but Ben Franklin advanced freedom and democracy, as did slave owners Washington and Jefferson. Not the case for Robert E. Lee who was behind HIS times and killed more Americans in a treasonous rebellion to preserve chattel racial slavery. I admire those who are pushing forward today, and don't give any credit to those who are resisting progress.
10
Brooks asks: "how can we be good citizens?" while belonging to, and supporting, a political party that opposes basic decency, honesty, kindness, education, health care and actions to save our planet.
He has no credibility or moral bedrock.
18
@Dr. M
It took a while, but I knew if I just kept scrolling down, I'd find someone who understood that the columnist we were responding to was part of the problem, and that his offered "solution" -- a gentle preacher interacting with a narrative -- is nothing but a way of maintaining the status quo.
It's a status quo in which the elected president is a racist, sexist, xenophobic fool, in which Wall Street continues to turn oil into death and money, and in which the media keeps reminding us that Joe Biden supposedly represents the left alternative.
As an older white male recently retired from a successful career, I am hopeful about the future but not because of what I see today.
There is a homeland battle line that was established during the Vietnam war. The same combatants are still at each others throats. The battle is about what to believe about America. Were our forefathers criminals who stole this country and destroyed the indigenous people. Or were we the benefactors of the promised land and have "god on our side?"
But I believe in a future that is rapidly heading our way and is unstoppable. One only need to open their eyes to see that not only are the relative numbers of different groups changing but the population is truly becoming multi-ethnic - the melting pot that we have always heard about.
Their principles will be very different than those of us who grew up in the 50s and 60s. It is likely that they will not see capitalism as the holy grail. Or that "white America" is necessarily a good thing. They are open to gender issues. They believe that we are all equal and this county is not here just for the benefit of the few. And their numbers are swelling every day in a coming tidal wave that will fundamentally change the United States of America no matter what actions are taken today.
699
As another older white male mostly retired from a successful career, I hope for the kid’s’ sake that you are right - and that there is something left for them.
96
I agree. my wife and I (68 years old) observe these emancipating attitudes in our kids and their friends (in their 30s).
68
@Common cause I agree, and I hope we have our public education system up to the job of integrating and educating all these diverse peoples, so that the history of what it took to get us this far is transmitted into our shared future.
43
In this article Mr. Brooks tells us the story of Eric Liu who created a church whose veneration and object of worship was America. But what is America other than the vast variety of its people? And honoring all of our people in their variety of struggles seems to be the best way to honor America itself. It also means looking at our country with clear eyes that see all of her faults and strengths. It does not mean putting it on some sort of pedestal that ignores our problems as Trump and his base seem to do. The best way to destroy our nation is to make it some sort of a country club where only the in crowd predominates, as an example, the Grand Old Potentates.
4
Ben Franklin was against German immigration to America for most of his life. They were just not English enough. I remember my mother saying whatever you do don’t marry a Catholic. I guess a communist Martian was okay. I think most people have at least a little racism in them. The difference is whether you feed and nurture that racism or fight it every day of your life.
694
@Ray Nurmi
I grew up in a family of non-practicing atheist Jews, and I was expected to date and marry Jews. There was no pretense of living a "Jewish" lifestyle, nor any curiosity about it. I guess that's tribalism.
46
@Ray Nurmi I don't expect those things to change. Just like in the past the white "majority" will be expanded in the future to include new groups.
What won't change is the tendency to divide the world between "us" - the civilized orderly people - and "them" - the disorderly people who can't do anything right and should be kept at a distance.
12
@Wim Roffel. Is it necessarily a bad thing? I do not see most of us moving to Africa, for example (no offence to Africa, just a statement of the fact).
3
America may have been started as a new country but it was started by Europeans. In the late 18th century was there any country in the world that was multicultural? Was there any country where Europeans or other powerful foreigners arrived and did not exploit or kill the natives? Let’s face it. For most of the existence of civilization, it has been racist and xenophobic. But fortunately at least some humans can and have become more enlightened. We can recognize our past failings without trashing our past.
326
@Jay Orchard
Respectfully, there were many multicultural "countries" in the late 18th century (I'm using the quotes because the the concept of what it means to be a country that we have now emerged in the 19th century, in the wake of Napoleon's wars and invention of modern nationalism). The Ottoman Empire in particular was very diverse. Indeed, multiculturalism was historically the norm almost everywhere, going back to antiquity; it's basically synonymous with what we typically refer to as civilization. Did you know Dublin started out as a viking colony? Or that the Rus, living north of modern Turkey and who eventually became the Russians we know today, were Swedish in origin?
To many people, the most important thing about their understanding of history, is that it is correct. It doesn't even make sense to them to talk about "trashing" anything; they're neutrally pursuing the truth, and not to blame for what they find.
60
Actually that’s the only thing that will work. Unless people meet each other at a young enough age that their attitudes aren’t buried in cement and, given a supportive atmosphere, that’s the best chance to bridge those barriers.
19
@Someone else
Lots of people have overcome xenophobia. Despite all the claims of how evil religions are, it has often been the religious who have overcome this [ex: Christianity and Islam, who have to a great degree overcome this, not to mention many others]
.
3
When we quickly glance back at our past several hundred years as a country and without giving it much thought, one would think that our national story had been written. Whether it be the Irish, the Southern Italians, the Jews and Eastern Europeans, Southeast Asians, et al., we have heeded those iconic words of Lady Liberty. But we are still far from the concluding chapter of our biography. We had been making headway with the African-American plight beginning with LBJ and up until President Barack Obama. Yet we are still far from united. We have never embraced our Native Americans as they should have been or given them the respect they deserve. And now there are Middle Eastern immigrants who happen to be Muslim and our Central American neighbors, desperate in their attempts to escape oppression and violence. Sadly, as we have learned under the Trump phenomenon, racism still curdles within too many of our souls. Many of us may rue the day that Trump was elected, a nasty, nasty man. However, there may be one silver lining in this storm cloud. We are forced to look in the mirror and see that we still have miles to go in our journey of oneness and equality. We are forced to recognize that our nation will not sustain itself until we are one in our humanity.
10
The thing is, even if you're not a white man from the middle class (which a printer in colonial America would have been), the Ben Franklin story has a lot of appeal. So a young kid reads it and takes it in, and only later hears the message that "we didn't mean YOU."
Fixing that dissonance is the challenge. As is making sure to tell a realistic story about the relationship between the heroic individual and the social structures that allow that kind of heroism to flourish. Structures that have traditionally left most people out, but that shouldn't have to.
196
@Maria
I really appreciate what you've written, however, you may not be aware that the "realistic" story of Ben Franklin begins with his indentured servitude as an apprentice printer in Boston. With four years left in his servitude he escaped and sailed to Philadelphia where he was able to start over without being beaten and having his labor stolen.
Late in life he became an abolitionist, but for most of his life he was up to his neck in slavery and not just ownership. Some of his early publications earned more profit from advertisements for runaway slaves and indentured servants than from subscriptions, and they often described slaves who possessed particular skills, not unlike his own.
He sometimes published letters to the editor from invented black personae who would testify, not about the evils of slavery, but about some particular law or regulation that Franklin opposed as being "like slavery."
About a decade and a half ago, during the Ben Franklin tercentenary, Temple University professor David Waldstreicher published "realistic" book Franklin and the institution of slavery: "Runaway America." I see there's a C-Span video presentation by the author.
1
I think both stories are too simplistic. We need to hear all the stories. There were whites who escaped persecution in Europe who were not greeted with open arms here. The oppression of women is endemic. There are individuals who, despite difficulties in their family situation, were able to achieve success in America.
Pitting different have-nots against each other is the same old “divide and conquer” strategy used by the powerful from time immemorial.
12
Amen to all that. I have long believed that the "original sin" of slavery MUST be expiated before this country can truly move forward. There are many stories that make up what America was and has become and many are hopeful and positive but the fact of slavery vitiates those national narratives in all their iterations.
Until the descendants of those who held others in slavery apologize formally to those whose ancestors were denied their humanity there will be a stain and a corruption that cannot be wished or rationalized away. And parenthetically there needs to be an end to the celebration by some of the antebellum south and the "Lost Cause"- it is nothing more than racism in sheep's clothing.
229
@greg The “original sin” of slavery HAS been expiated. In our American Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, six-hundred-thousand White Males died fighting *each other* to destroy slavery. That’s an enormous six-hundred-thousand dead out of a tiny national population of only thirty-one million at the time. That’s more dead than all our other wars put together. Furthermore, the slave-holding southern states were reduced to smoking ruins by the Civil War. Furthermore, my White ancestors included soldiers who fought and died for the Union/Yankee/Northern/Federal slave liberating side under the command of Abraham Lincoln, so count me out of your guilt parade. Furthermore, demanding that today’s White Southerners apologize for things that happened generations before they were born is a miserably un-American idea and smacks of the evil doctrine of collective guilt. Furthermore, a majority of White Americans voted for a Black president. My Fellow American, I most respectfully suggest you get over it.
144
@S. Richey
America has never honestly confronted its racism. The civil war ended slavery—and ushered in 100 years of Jim Crow. Only in the 1960s did we really start to grapple with the fact of our deep cultural racism. And by the 1980s a backlash had started that today is culminating in a retreat to white nationalism.
So no, greg is right. The original sin endures. We still must repent.
For what it's worth, I'm a white man. Half of my family are Italian immigrants who came to America after slavery was abolished. The other half were slaveholders. I feel no guilt. But I do feel responsibility to make things better. And that means admitting that our society has been—and continues to be—unjust to Black people.
105
@S. Richey
Yes, all that may be true. But that which happened in the decades after the Civil War harmed and continues to harm those who were slaves and who have descended from slaves. Look, the Republican Party actively, strategically, and strongly, attempts to deny African Americans the right to vote. So, how do we deal with that post-War legacy?
43
Interesting article, David. Humility and gentleness are the right ingredients. We don't convince anyone by spitting on them or by yelling or even with logic. Actually, there's no need to convince, let people be, just give them their space. Interactions with others is where the humility and gentleness are helpful (grease on the gears).
87
@Bill M I wish it were so, that interactions with those who do not believe in White Privilege could see. The youth will change things. The minorities will change things. The older white majority will become a minority and eventually die out.
4
If there is a racial reckoning forthcoming, it will be a nasty one. Our current President has fanned the flames of racism, elevated white supremacy to its highest levels since the 50's and 60's, and dares any and all to challenge this doctrine of hate.
Electing a Democratic President will be just a first step. Next is change the narrative from hate to a common goal, i.e. climate change, healthcare. And Democrats have to, and must win seats at every level of government, local, state, and federal.
And Democrats must keep in mind that most Republican politicians have accepted the Trump doctrine of hate, and they will not change until they have been replaced.
540
@cherrylog75
Agree! My hope is people of all backgrounds are scared enough to vote. Be afraid of the consequences of inaction. VOTE.
35
@cherrylog754 I don’t think most Republican politicians have accepted the Trump doctrine of hate, they have only become shackled by the results of the Nixon Southern Strategy to flip the south Republican and the base of supporters they’ve honed over the last 40 years. At this point Republicans are stuck. They’ve created a brand I suspect a lot of them would wish they could change but know they can’t and stay in power.
15
@jim Nixon was also issued the following executive order :Nixon’s Executive Order: Section 1. “It is the policy of the Government of the United States to provide equal opportunity in Federal employment for all persons, to prohibit discrimination in employment because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, handicap, or age, and to promote the full realization of equal employment opportunity through a continuing affirmative program in each executive department and agency. This policy of equal opportunity applies to and must be an integral part of every aspect of personnel policy and practice in the employment, development, advancement, and treatment of civilian employees of the Federal Government.” see
https://todayinclh.com/?event=president-nixon-orders-affirmative-action-in-federal-employment
Ironically, Nixon Southern strategy wasn't based solely on racism, and he may really be the last moderate Republican president.
3
“Only our sense of time enables us to think of a day of judgment. In reality it is a summary court sitting in a perpetual session.”
Kafka is right on target. Our history shows oppression, or much worse, of Native American, Blacks, Asian, Hispanic, and LBGTQ persons. Every day we live in the prison of history. But we are not condemned to this forever. To go forward we need to recognize this and move forward.
We cannot change the past. But we can write a different future.
179
@John Graybeard Women belongs in the list of oppressed groups.
9
@Dora LeeAgree whole heartedly.
5
"America needs to have a moment of racial reconciliation." That's easy to say ... but what does it mean ? Part of the problem in reconciling is that the left seems to have moved the goalpost. If you read the 1964 Civil Rights Act and MLK's "Dream" speech, the goal had been to "be judged by the content of your character rather than the color of your skin". But now, liberals insist that such color blindness be replaced with "cultural sensitivity".
As always, history is a useful guide. How did we make progress on gender reconciliation ? When I was a child, my father was often confused by our pediatrician (who was an Asian woman) and her nurse (a tall white man who was also her husband). But now, there are more women in medical school than men. Same with law school and college. Sure, there are still gender issues to be resolved. But the progress in sterotypes (such as a male doctor) has been due in large part to simple changes in the numbers. The assumption about women changed because more women now work and even assume the chief bread winner in the family.
Experience with gender teaches us that the reconciliation Brooks seeks across the races will not occur until blacks achieve success at far higher rates than they do now. Sure, there remain impediments which must be challenged. But much of the difference in material outcomes is due to lower marriage rates and educational attainment among blacks. Change this and the country will heal.
8
"When I was a boy I was taught a certain story about America."
One of the interesting features of the conservative mindset in America is the importance people like this place on everybody else in the world acting like the stories they were personally told as children, were actually true. This attachment to the stories they heard and believed when they were kids reflects a deeper emotional attachment to childhood and childishness in general, because it functions as a kind of guarantee of personal moral innocence.
People like Brooks experience growing up not as a loss of their own personal innocence - the realization that when you were a child, you were mistaken about the way things really worked - but rather as the corruption of the world itself. Every bad thing they learn about as they grow up, is seen as something new to the world itself, not something that was always there, that they have just now become aware of. This form of repression manifests itself in the heart of conservatism as an idea: that what is good is old, and what is bad is new.
Somewhat tangentially, this is partly why they are so panicked by and preoccupied with universities and professors. The purpose of the university is to get at the truth and challenge everything: but conservatives take modern scholarship as an insult to the authority of the adults whose stories they believed, when they were children; and it's a threat to their control of their own children's beliefs.
68
Nope, there is no young artist with a dewy-eyed palette that will cause us to heal. There are many practical steps, such as better public education, a fairer tax structure, an end to gerrymandering and foreign interference, etc., but no rosy panacea.
One could argue that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was the bright side of Nazi Germany...but look what happened to him.
Sorry, David, but the bus has already gone off the cliff, destroying decades of careful work toward restorative justice. It will take more decades before any meaningful level of trust is restored again. Vladimir Putin is the “artist” and architect of our age.
3
Mr. Brooks would do well to acquaint himself with the wonderful poem, "I Too" by Langston Hughes. This Harlem Renaissance artist's prolific commentary on race in America is apropos to any discussion about it in the 21st Century under the bigoted regime of Trump. This great poet, Mr. Hughes righteously declared:
"I too sing America."
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table when company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
'Eat in the kitchen,'
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed
I, too am America!
105
@SGC I loved this poem. As someone who is Jewish I could identify with the sentiments. Thank you for posting this lovely and sad Langston Hughes poem.
2
I certainly agree that "there’s a lot of over-generalized group accusation in both these narratives." Because the purpose of those narratives is to divide, rather than unite, people.
Of course the country was founded on genocide & racism. Do you know of any societies that haven't been saturated with barbarism & lies? To say that any society embodies both the lowest evil and the highest aspirations is no contradiction; it's just realism.
Our society has certainly improved in its treatment of Native & African Americans, but it is no better in any absolute sense. Today, we accept the fact that our economy is based on the destruction of the planet as blindly as 18th & 19th century Americans accepted the fact that their economy was based on kidnapping, torture, & genocide. Solving today's problems would mean facing the ways in which many of us profit from the problem--as did addressing the problem of slavery. Calling people names like "racist," or "illegal," or "libtard" is a way to avoid dealing with problems. The powerful encourage us to call each other names and misunderstand each other. They craft narratives in which our interests are opposed, because if we realized that we are all in the same boat, then we might demand that our government & our politics work for us, instead of for them.
10
True, but America insists on lying to itself and the world about its inherent greatness.
There is nothing inherently great about the US. We have to work for it, and we won’t be able to if we keep lying to ourselves about how great we are.
1
@Kat
In fact, it's striking how the blind belief in our own greatness is so often the thing that prevents us from being as good as we could be.
1
Racisim is not a "shared guilt." At the nation's founding, about 700,000 ancestors were native to America, about 700,000 were native to Africa and about 1,400,000 originated from Europe. This characterization of "multicultural progressives" assumes a white dominated viewpoint ignoring the millions of non-white Americans who simply want to be treated as individuals - not as a group.
3
In this weird reckoning there's not a single word about fear mongering that led to the gruesome event of our war against Muslims and Iraqi?
The ultimate America-first propaganda enterprise, entirely built around ethnicity. Our economy subsumed to the trillions wasted there? Our morality devastated by the dishonest basis for getting us into it.
Not a word here about how hatred of an ethnicity was fretted into the language of the ruling gentry, to the extent that torturing them was conscionable? As was flattening a nation that had a better literacy rate than our own and exposing generations to ordinary happenstance of death and mutilation by violence. Isn't killing a half million people of another ethnicity somehow related to our racism?
Those multiculturalists, what scoundrels!
The convoluted distortions made, to excuse a violent war, that hyped up fear mongering, led to the white supremacy movement of today. And why? To gin up foreign policy wagers that led to fatter coffers?
Iraq was the font where racism and xenophobia was allowed to spill over recklessly, into a newly branded xenophobic notion of immigration and racial hatred.
Isn't tracing the roots of Trump's Muslim ban, back to the willingness of conservative intellectuals, to bomb human beings from another culture to death, somehow more relevant than musing on Benjamin Frankin?
5
it’s highly amusing to see David drifting toward liberal points of view, yet completely unable to see the utter bankruptcy of his earlier conservatism..... anyway, we liberals weren’t fully aware of how many white suprematists would come crawling out of their rocks once they had their man in the White House....
6
The racial reckoning already came, and it came quite a while ago. In a Pew poll, 52% of Trump voters said black people were either lazy or stupid. A minuscule fraction of Clinton voters said the same thing. This isn’t about reconciling progressive multiculturalism with whiteness as an identity. It’s about acknowledging that whiteness as an identity is about white supremacy. This column entirely misses the point, especially with a sentence like, “Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament.” But? BUT? I can’t believe I actually read that. As your beloved president would have it, case closed.
6
One can extend this argument to misogyny, e.g., the efforts of white religious men to control our bodies.
7
You want a "unifying national story", how about "We're all in this together." Ben Franklin was great but, as I tell my mother, "The Bible is a great book, but it's not the only book.". The racial reckoning is over and the beautiful people have won. In evolution beauty is the greatest engine for procreation and the mixed races have produced the most beautiful and exotic men and women in humanity's short history. I've lived enough of that history to state, first hand, people are getting taller, people are getting smarter, people are less religious, they care less about differences and more about connections. The human race continues to evolve, it's just too bad we can't take everyone with us.
6
Those of us who grew up in the South, especially, were reared among elders whose racism was uncoded, explicit, and often virulent. Yet from childhood we associated these elders with other, cherished memories. We love these people. We respect them. As a result it becomes too easy to forget the true horrors and brutishness of racism. In our minds it’s more of a character quirk than a persistent evil. And so the problem persists, into the next generation, never adequately confronted, contextualized, or understood, because we don’t want to understand it. It’s what I think about when I remember Faulkner’s famous quote: “The past is never dead. It's not even past." We make small steps toward progress and then take a step backward. I’m an optimist, but as a white man, perhaps it’s easy for me to be optimistic. But I am.
23
I teach high school US history for a living, and I was happy to see David Brooks use the Ben Franklin image as a central piece of his article. But Franklin himself provides us with an image of BOTH the individualistic, striving, open-minded optimist AND the committed white identity politician. My Los Angeles students find it pretty hilarious when they read the Ben Franklin article in which he seeks to exclude Germans from Pennsylvania on the grounds that German are not actually of the white race (he classifies them as being of "the swarthy race" instead). "White" has always been and continues to be a pretty shifting label in the USA, and our sheer pragmatism may be what saves us, just as it has in the past. Fifty years after the death of Franklin, all of those ethnic Germans were now considered white enough to team up with all the other white Pennsylvanians...to resist the arrival of the non-white Irish in the 1840's. The past does not guarantee the future, of course, but I hope that it does at least provide a little guidance and perspective on our current national challenges.
55
Mr Brooks has been living in a small, isolated room for many years. Outside, the world is changing, so the vast difference between his privileged room and the rest of the world is now impossible to ignore. But he will not renounce the ideology of inequality and exploitation that he has been promoting. Instead, he resists by imagining that his old room is now the future. He uses outlier examples, isolated statistics and rhetorical leaps, but is only fooling himself.
14
Life is so short and is so obviously temporary, I often wonder why we humans spend so much time and energy worrying about so many issues that will soon pass away. As the author of Ecclesiastes writes in the first few verses " Life is meaningless ( futile, vain) if it is not rightly related to God." The things that matter in life are loving our neighbors, feeding the hungry, being hospitable and doing good to all people, even our enemies. We should live to please God, not other people.
2
@aaron Adams
You’re right that it would be nice if everyone could focus on different things.
But the problem is that the current social structure and culture is such that some people don’t have that luxury. They are just trying to survive and keep their families going. Others of us are fortunate enough to have the luxury to try to spend our excess energy working towards equality for the lives of marginalized people in the here and now. Part of that is speaking up and trying to create progress and change.
One would not be far off the mark to interpret everything that the current imposter-in-chief has done since taking office as a repudiation and reversal of everything that his immediate predecessor did during his tenure, and to understand his overwhelming popularity in certain areas of the country in light of the same. It's there in black and white.
25
This may not be the worst David Brooks column, but it is certainly one of them. Far too simplistic, weepy and anxious approach to a complex problem--which Brooks has acknowledged himself in columns too far in the past. His focus seems to wander from blacks to Hispanics. Mass immigration is the primary driver of this complexity and demographic change. Brooks likes to celebrate immigration and it has some positive effects; but it also has some downsides and economic and cultural conflict are two of them.
7
I never get a thing out of a Brooks essay. He uses a lot of pretty words but says nothing substantive, nothing concrete or realistic. What world does he live in and how does he dream up this vague nonsensical malarky?
27
@Grandma
Indeed. That nails it.
Brooks wrote:
"The multicultural story gradually began to rival the Ben Franklin story. Over the past two years it has almost entirely eclipsed it in many parts of our society."
Well, it may be that Brooks only arrived at seeing and understanding the "multicultural story" over his past two years of epiphanies. But for many of us, we've been understanding the multicultural story as it has been unfolding over many decades, not just the past two years!
Did Brooks not understand the historic importance of President Obama's election as a milestone in that story?
Does he not understand that the only reason he (and others) are finally becoming woke is because the vileness of all things Trump has exposed the racial hatred entrenched in wide swaths of our country in undeniablly visible ways? The racial animosity of Birtherism wasn't enough to make you woke; you needed to see cross burings and Neo-Nazi rallies?
I haven't read Eric Liu's book; it sounds rather good. And it was probably enlightening for Brooks to read it.
But please, Brooks doesn't deserve any kudos for finally understanding what so many other people have been writing about (and talking, and painting, and singing, and making films about) for so many decades: James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Tony Kushner, Spike Lee, Winona Laduke, Amy Tan, etc., etc., etc.
It shouldn't have taken Trumpism to open David Brooks' eyes; and his late-in-coming wokeness isn't really anything special or insightful.
21
@Paul-A
It may be late in coming, but open eyes still are something to appreciate.
1
We are simply rearranging the social justice deck chairs on the climate change Titanic. When it really hits the iceberg, racial bickering will be irrelevant.
17
@Someone else: On the contrary, I think climate change will aggravate all the other stress fractures in our society, including racism. Climate change is a huge problem regardless of our particular social ills, but I think we have enough intelligence and resources to tackle climate change and social justice issues simultaneously.
1
Or else racial resentments will become all-consuming as we descend into tribalism. Who knows with humanity?
2
Once through the revolving door of the human heritage in New York, you forget that you are in America. If an African colleague is surprised that you do not remember Betty Bloom, recently retired, and tries to juggle your memory by adding that she's black, this is of no help since you are the only 'albino' in global resources.
Back to America. With a wish to learn something about my country folks, I found a job in the corporate world. This took place forty years ago after 1979 was celebrated as The International Year of The Child, and Carmen Lopez Portillo of Mexico is standing surrounded by children, my boss from The Philippines is welcoming the guests, Eva Curie is seen in the photo, etc. etc. And, look where we are now in 2019! Welcome to Georgia with an invisible sign 'Pro Life, and after that not so much'.
Evidently, I had been living in another America, but setting religion and patriotism aside, a belief in something is needed. While we continue with this paper presidency, one that may be renewed, I have faith that there are plenty of contemporary Jonathan Swifts in our midst akin to Eric Liu.
'Burr!', you have never heard of him, shouted my uncle, an officer and a gentleman. They didn't teach American history at school in France, you reply weakly. But you smile now, looking at the dress cuffs he wore at the Inauguration of F.D.R.
No time for fear, Mr. Brooks, or guilt, but read 'England Your England' to set matters right, with some peace of mind.
1
America's obsession with race will never end until we just stop talking about it. No amount of blame or self-flagellation will change the past; both serve only to keep opening old wounds and creating new ones. Let's focus on helping the poor overcome poverty today rather than dredging up old wrongs from long ago.
6
Mr Brooks - Indeed there are very fine people on both sides of these narrartives.
Interestingly, at his intellectual peak, Benjamin Franklin was an ardent immigration restrictionist. The first great work of American social science, Franklin's 1754 pamphlet against open immigration, "Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind," caused a sensation among Enlightenment thinkers and directly inspired, generations later, both Malthus and Darwin.
https://www.unz.com/isteve/sailer-in-chronicles-benjamin-franklins-american-dream/
In the retconning of American history to hype immigration, Franklin's greatest social science achievement has largely been forgotten.
2
Give me a break. Everyone just needs to relax. Okay, it’s true. Everyone is at least a little racist. We all make some generalizations about people based on skin color. Sad but true.
But slavery is dead and buried. There is no genocide or holocaust going on. Let’s just put up with the minor indignities of petty racism and live our lives. Okay?
7
@Greg
Black men and women dying at the hands of the police is not a minor petty indignity.
“Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament”
This “but” really disturbs me! Really? ... It’s the enlightened progressives who lack a “reconciling, loving temperament”??
90
@Looking For My Previous Screen Name
Brooks has to poke at us a bit to earn his keep. Otherwise, no doubt he'd show his "reconciling, loving temperament."
6
@Looking For My Previous Screen Name I caught that, too. Says everything about where he's coming from.
1
@dukesphere
Yes! Jumped right out to me, too.
For long periods, I have just read the comments to Brooks' bland, sloppy cultural critiques. But, a little slap at this progressive, who he supposedly appreciates, always reveals.
2
The cultural tradition behind today's liberalism is indeed Calvinism and Puritanism. The Calvanism manifests itself in several tenets:
1. We are all terrible sinners. We must all publicly show contrition for our sins, and ask for forgiveness, repeatedly.
2. Everyone else is also a terrible sinner (probably even worse). We must expose the sins of our neighbors and convince our neighbors to follow the godly path to contrition.
3. The state is the voice of the people; the people are sinners. We must use the power of the state to ask for forgiveness, and force our neighbors to do the same.
.
This is why topics like reparations for blacks and self-flagellating environmentalism are so popular. If you're a Calvinist, you can't really feel good about yourself without first publicly declaring how terrible you and your ancestors are, and then sharing your goodness with your neighbor by telling him what a terrible person he is too. Self-righteousness starts with a lot of guilt cast upon yourself and those around you.
8
Initially the Jews, and now the Asians, got most of the places in the NYC special high schools. "We do things the old fashioned way - we earn it".
3
This sentence is a real doozy: "Eric is an enlightened Seattle progressive but with a reconciling, loving temperament."
But?
Apparently, Brooks finds a progressive who is kind and generous some sort of bizarre anomaly. That explains a lot.
78
@Annie Towne: EXACTLY. I and several other commenters noticed this Freudian slip, too. It seems quite telling, doesn't it?
8
Gee, David, I guess what you’re saying is there are good people on both sides...
1
Implied but not answered in this column is do identity politics have a future going forward. Trump isn't the real problem. It's the 62 million people who voted for him. How do you get them to switch sides? It won't be easy if the Democrats nominate a progressive. The working class use to be the party's foundation. Now they feel like we've abandoned them. And lets be honest we have. The left wing of the party is dragging us into culture wars we will never win. The left never stops mocking these people. You're bad for eating factory-farmed meat, owning a rifle, & driving an SUV. You're bad for speaking the language of micro-aggressions, patriarchy, & cultural appropriation.The left has become self-righteous & obsessed with trivial issues that have made Democrats a national laughing stock. This is politically disastrous & just plays into the hands of Fox News. Democrats can't win over working class swing voters if they persist in ridiculing their cultural values. The working class has legitimate concerns & we aren't listening anymore. Remember when we stood for the dignity of hard work, family, faith & coming together around basic "kitchen table issues? Sadly, over the past 10 years the DP has abandoned those core values in a desperate attempt to please the strident advocates of identity politics. Trump wouldn't have capitalized on the salience of race & ethnicity if the Democrats hadn't exploited it. Time to chart a new course towards the center while there is still time.
12
I point out once again that we have hundreds of thousands of people living in their cars and on the sidewalks of this nation, along with mountains of garbage and excrement.
A teacher in Texas was recently fired for pointing out that her school was overwhelmed by illegal immigrants. The truth can no longer be spoken here?
Quit making sermons and calling people racist, and address these problems.
3
The Republican Party and 45 adroitly originated, developed, implemented, and executed a systematic program championing white nationalism and racial superiority through the corrupted lens of MAGA overtures. These overtures are intentionally directed to engender and promote the enhancement of Caucasian, white racial pride, that America is besieged by multiracial, multicultural, multireligious, and LGBTQ assault upon purported family values that are especially questionable and challenged in this new milieu of extensive diversity. The GOP and 45 intentionally apply resources and attention to fomenting and engendering divisiveness by accentuating the irrefutable, incontrovertible fact that by virtue of their white skin privilege, their presumptive superiority inexplicably justifies their stature to pronounce to 'those people' what is called 'American.' This ridiculously presumptive position is intended to shore up and protect the Republicans and 45 from electorate oblivion. Regardless of the GOP vocal discourse to prove their fallaciousness, indefensible position, the Republicans and 45 persist that by mere white skin colour, they will, tell 'those people' what to do though they themselves are proudly less educated, patently absent of global comprehension of international affairs, unashamedly displaying myopic racially predisposed beliefs and conduct. A page from Josef Goebbels' 1930s Hitler's Nazi Germany. Constantly repeat the lie and more people will believe it. Race matters.
7
Dude, one “story” is true. The white myth you learned is a lie.
2
The patriotic hype that we are the "greatest country in the world" depends on if one is on the receiving end or the losing end. Eric sounds like a nice, smart guy and I applaud him. It will take a million more Erics to fix the hell we are stuck in.
2
So, just as an aside, if Mr. Liu is an Abraham Lincoln fan, I’m wondering what he thinks about DJT co-opting The Fourth of July to conduct what will be essentially a Trump rally from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
4
"Somewhere in America a young artist is writing that story, that new vision that will serve as a beacon to draw us all onward."
Lots of young and not-so-young artists have already written versions of that narrative. Frederick Douglass in "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself." Walt Whitman in "Song of Myself" and his other great poems. Allen Ginsberg in "Howl." Octavia Butler in "Kindred." Steinbeck in "The Grapes of Wrath." Ursula LeGuin in "Always Coming Home."
It's good to see Mr. Brooks realizing that there's narratives beyond that of the white monoculture. But his idea that there is a single "opposing narrative" shows he hasn't spent much time on the outside. There's lots of narratives. I hope he takes the time to explore.
65
I have had this same thought in understanding the meaning of the concept of original sin through slavery. The truth is that as humans we all contain the possibility of doing evil. To be human is among other things to be capable of evil. All you have to do is open your eyes to see how we treat each other and the world.
5
Your hopeful young writer, as s/he ripens and gains experience, will one day discover that the strongest unifying power is war. That was Lincoln's realization, and I fear that war will sorely test David's hope as it did Lincoln's. This was the teaching of Israel's warrior god YHWH and of St. Augustine long before Calvin reaffirmed our wretched condition. Modern liberalism has breezily dismissed Calvin's insight along with Hobbes's contention that we are a nation of individuals at war against one another, making our life "solitary. poor, nasty, brutish and short"---a pretty good description of DJT's condition (except for the word "poor").
2
So Brooks is really starting to alarm me.
"But we Americans are not at our best when we launch off on holy wars. Once you start assigning guilt to groups, rather than to individuals, bad, illiberal things are likely to happen. There’s a lot of over-generalized group accusation in both these narratives."
Doesn't he mean "bad, anticonservative things..." Hasn't he always blamed things on groups - liberal, socialists, government agencies - while singing the praises of individuals - Reagan, the Bushes, Scalia. In fact, he would probably like Trump if he could speak the King's English and have his press secretary send out the tweets.
I fear that Brooks' multicultural conversion is as superficial as his conservatism was, skin deep with shallow thought.
24
On the 75 th anniversary of d-day, I have been reflecting on the racism of ww2. The fighting in Europe, the adversaries in Europe, were much more human than the adversaries in the pacific. My mother wanted an Audi, but would never buy a Japanese car because of what “ those people did to our troops.”
Our civics are ingrained with the belief that whites have a common civilization that others don’t share.
7
@Blovius
The novel “Snow Falling on Cedars” teaches this truth, but it is the movie, where the German-Americans who speak English with accents contemptuously watch the Japanese-Americans who speak English without accents marched off to concentration camps, that really brings it home.
2
Jefferson just needs some tweaking and clarification: All children are created equal and entitled to protection, shelter, nourishment and the opportunity to fulfill their potential and pursue their dreams.
11