What Means the Most to Our Nation and to Our Lives -Reflections on Ben Rhodes' "After the Fall"

 I finished reading Ben Rhodes’ After the Fall, with increased respect for the author and for the insights he offers.  Let me capture these overall perspectives:

 

1.      Rhodes is extraordinarily honest in assessing his own perceptions of the role of the faults and some of the strengths of America.  He is deeply introspective and transparent. 

 

However, I believe that he looks at the failures to live up to the founding principles of the country (freedom, liberty, opportunity for all) without adequatley recognizing that the outages he cites have been common to our history and, indeed, to every nation’s history.  He says it well when he writes, “There was nothing inherent in America that made us immune to the viruses that had consumed all manners of societies in the past, and that we were capable of spreading those viruses to other countries.”  He refers here to the seeking of unbridled wealth, a grandiose sense of superiority and exceptionalism, taking strength from comparison to some inferior “other.” 

 

I believe he’s right, though it’s risky territory in saying that, “You have to look squarely at the darkest aspects of what America is in order to fully, truly love what America is supposed to be.”  The challenge here is to make sure that we not lose sight of the many times and in many ways we have achieved new dimensions of “what America is supposed to be.”

 

2.      I believe this:  “Even if flawed, America still offers the world a unique opportunity, an example of citizens of now a multi-ethnic, multi-racial democracy can change things for the better.”  At our best, we have done that many times, often drifting, but more often than not—and may this be one of those times—reorienting our course and doubling down on doing our best.

 

3.      What is it in the end that makes “America special,” even if not uniquely privileged?

 

Personally, I believe it is our diversity.  Our openness to innovation, our curiosity, our founding principles which, even if not achieved, provide a constant compass as to where we should head and where we need to improve. 

 

Our central challenge lies in giving everyone a greater chance for the opportunity to participate in the dynamics and life of the country, through the foundations of good health, education and the eradication of prejudice, including, but not solely, racism.  These are what can stand in the way of an individual being all they can be. 

 

4.      We face a constant challenge of assessing how much weight should be given to addressing our failure to provide equal opportunity in the past to African-Americans and Native Americans, as a rationale for taking action to provide equal opportunity today. I believe that weight is a large one.

 

5.      Rhodes identifies a central challenge we face today and that is the denial of what are true facts.  People have always lived in separate realities but today, due to social media in particular I believe, and to fragmented media, it is greater than ever.  Rhodes says it well:  “Once people choose to exist in an entirely separate reality, it is no easy task to bring them back, especially when every turn of national events can be framed as a validation of their grievances.  We will be living with the residue of the radicalization for a long time.” 

 

Still, we must be sober about this.  It’s not the first time we’ve faced this.  The country lived for decades with very different understandings of what the Civil War was all about, states’ rights or the protection of slavery.  We lived for a long time with different beliefs in the extent to which Communists had penetrated our government.  Senator Joe McCarthy carried that flag. 

 

What’s the answer here:  Stay at it, recognize that progress takes time and overcome reversals along the way.  Be as sure as we can that the education which young people receive reflects the truth as we can best define it.  We have a challenge on that front right now in the battle going on over how we teach the history of this country.

 

6.      Rhodes recounts a conversation with Obama.  Obama observes that he has recently been asking his close friends a simple question:  “What gives you a sense of joy and meaning in life and at what moments do you feel that?”  Here is a truly and profoundly important question.  The answer is one which I believe will have a great deal in common between the men and women in every country on earth.

 

When I think of that question, here is what comes to my mind:

 

·         Being with my wife Francie or one or more of our children and their children in some quiet and beautiful place.  On the deck of the cottage at Pointe au Baril, Canada. Or in a forest in North Carolina with my daaughter, Susan.   Or talking to my son,. David at his farm.  Or walking with my son, Douglas at Fort Funston or with him and his family at Half Moon Bay, California. 

·         Walking the beach in the early morning at Vero Beach, Florida with my son, John. Sitting on a chair at home, looking at the expanse of our backyard, trees in full bloom, leaves rustling in the breeze.

·         Sitting together with Francie, just the two of us, at our favorite table on the patio at Murphin Ridge Inn outside Cincinnati, with the breeze blowing, and birds chirping, surrounded by members of the staff who have become like family.

Yes, the simple things with our family are the most meaningful just as they are the most memorable.

The Uphill But Essential Continued Battle for Rational Gun Regualation--The Story of the AR-15

 I found McWhirter's and Elinson's "American Gun: The Trues Story of the AR-15" to be a gripping, informing and mind-opening, mind-chilling study of the development of this killing machine in this country.  It is enlivened by the authors’ embedding the statistics and facts of the many massacres (Sandy Hook; Parkland; Las Vegas casino; etc., etc.) in personal stories.

The authors provide meaningful international context for the out-of-bounds growth of guns and particularly the AR-15 in our country.  It tracks the futile legislative efforts to control the damage being done.

Many new insights emerged:

·       Every time there was even the threat of gun legislation being passed, sales of the AR-15 catapulted.

·       The 1994 gun control legislation, which had been so strongly fought for, was supposed to stop all manufacture and sales of the AR-15s in the United States.  Nineteen different guns were identified and magazines of over ten shells prohibited.  It didn’t work.  It was easy to get around the definition that had been provided of automatic weapons.  The definition had been characterized by military features which manufacturers quickly changed.  Instead of controlling gun sales, it created a sustained unprecedented demand for civilian versions of the rifle which had never caught on with the buying public before.  More than 62,000 AR-15s were built for sale in the U.S. in 1993, double the previous year, and in the next year, that number climbed to 103,000. 

·       The sales of the AR-15 took another jump forward as private equity moved in,  bought up a lot of manufacturers and figured out how to market it.  They created a “Buckmaster Man Card.”  Advertised it in Maxim, a very popular magazine for young males 18-34.  This came at a time when the male physique had been deteriorating.  The average weight of the male in 1960 was 166 lbs.  By 2010, it had increased to 196 lbs.  The “Mancard" became a badge of masculinity.  They cynically described the AR-15 as a “modern sporting rifle.” 

·       The Parkland shootings did result in meaningful state legislation, thanks to aggressive work by young people and organizations like "Moms Against Guns".  Twenty-four states across the country enacted new gun control laws.  Many passed red-flag laws.  New Jersey and Vermont passed restrictions on high-capacity magazines. 

·       Research conducted by several reputed professors have found two policies in particular showed promise.  First, laws requiring a permit to purchase or possess a gun could reduce the number of mass shootings.  The second policy that showed promise was restricting large-capacity magazines.  That didn’t reduce the number of mass shootings, but it reduced the number of people killed. 

 

There are obvious solutions to this continued carnage that sadly won’t be touched with a ten-foot pole.  For example, regulations for years have required anyone acquiring a machine gun to register it, be fingerprinted, etc.  There have been no mass shootings with machine guns.  In Japan, anyone getting a gun must have a doctor certificate and register it.  Similar controls are in place in Australia and New Zealand.  They acted at the same time as we were passing the ineffectual gun control legislation in the mid-1990s. 

 

There is no question we are a country of guns.  It is estimated that there are now close to 25 million AR-15's in circulation. We have to be practical in seeking control and there are practical answers.  Fingerprints to activate the gun only primed by the owner (just like a cell phone).  Registration of all automatic weapons.  Limit to magazine sizes.  Full background checks, including gun shows.  The majority of American people would agree to all of these provisions.  What’s lacking is the political will to make them happen.  Those organizations like Moms against Guns must keep up the fight.  And they will.  We’re not going to limit the disasters that exist simply because of the already omni-presence of guns.  But we can limit the disaster for the future for our grandchildren and their grandchildren if we act on what is right and we know to be true. That is our responsibility. 

The Depths of Unvarnished Prejudice Against Blacks by Educated Northerners On the Verge of the Civil War

A chilling, eye-opening reminder:

 The speech of Francis P. Blair, Jr. (a congressman and Senator of the United States and graduate of Princeton and Yale) to the Mercantile Library in Missouri in January 1859, presents a telling picture of the attitude of many well-educated men and women of the time toward African-Americans.

 

His lengthy talk boiled down to the strong pronouncement that the enslaved people should be set free and re-located to a tropical climate suited to their nature.  His opposition to slavery rested in part in the Declaration of Independence’s assertion that all men are created equal, but also on the belief that slavery threatened the expansion of free White labor, an expansion which Blair felt essential to the health of this still developing country.

 

His position was based on an uncompromising conviction that the White race was superior to all other races, including Native American and African.  He writes that, “The White man is stronger in endurance than the African.  Our country is in the temperate, not the torrid, zone; and we find that, even in…Texas, the emigrant Germans produced the best and highest-priced cotton, and more of it to the acre, than unslaved plantations.  When the cloud (of slavery) passes over Virginia, and its renovation is proscribed in the adjoining Carolinas, it will pass, too, from their worn-out lands and White freeholders will renew them, and make more cotton from their 100-acre fields than will be obtained from plantations of 1,000 devastated by slave culture.”

 

He concludes, “How grandly our nation would loom up, in the eyes of the world, if abandoning the policy which makes it the taskmaster of slaves, it should lay its hands to the work, not only of our freedom to the race which has so long and so faithfully served us and our fathers, but to recompense them for their long servitude, by giving them all homes in regions congenial to their natures, and guaranteeing to them a free government of their own in which, without ceasing to be a part of this country, they should be to themselves and escape the presence of that social subordination and inferiority inseparable from the contact of different races in the same community.  The moral power and grandeur of the act would challenge the admiration of the world, and make our later fame surpass the glory of the great struggle which gives us a place among nations.”

 

I find it surprising that a man as well-educated as Blair, and so well-connected politically, could in 1859 harbor the notion that Blacks could be “exported” to a tropical land.  This had been pursued by the American Colonization Society for decades.  It had been resisted, vociferously, by Black leaders and, from my perspective, had lost traction with political leadership.

 

The overriding conviction by Blair that there were qualities of the African-American race that led them to forever be inferior to Whites is, sadly, a sentiment that still exists among too many 150 years after Blair recorded this unvarnished  conviction. 

 

 

The Role of Human Agency--The Difference Individuals Can Make

 

During a conversation during a recent P&G Alumni Reunion, I was asked for my perspective on the developments that have occurred in Russia and China over the past three decades.

 

My answer was that my reaction was one of great disappointment.  I had never expected Russia to mirror  Western culture or way of life.  It was equally clear that this would not happen in China, though I did believe that as China continued to open up economically, it would gravitate to a more open society with more individual rights to choose. How wrong I was.

The two most surprising geo-political events in my lifetime have both involved Russia:

 

1.     The peaceful dissolution of the Soviet empire in 1989-90, and

2.     The reversion of Russia to a position of outright antagonism to the West, once again feeling surrounded, now proclaiming its own way of life, radically different from what President Putin cites as the corrosive evolution of  Western culture.

 

In the cases of both Russia and China, it’s clear to me looking back, I underestimated the determinative impact of history, culture, political dynamics,  geography, and economic development.

 

Over the course of history, there have been on-going debates among historians, social scientists and philosophers about the relative importance of individual action compared to structural forces, cultural factors and other determinative factors in shaping the course of human history. 

 

Some have argued for what is called be the “Great Man Theory.”-- that history is driven significantly by influential leaders and  thinkers who shape events and drive historical progress. 

 

Other schools fostering a historical perspective driven by“determinism” argue that human history is primarily shaped by external forces and by history.  They believe that individuals have limited agency and that it is broader structural forces  which drive change.

 

Going back to my reflections on Russia and China, there is no doubt that the deterministic factors of history,  environment and culture have provided a defined scope with which individuals can operate.  But there is also no doubt in my mind that individual agency has been massively at play in the development of the history of those two countries over the course of the last half-century.

 

I would argue that the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet empire never would have happened if it were not for the vision, courage and determination of Mikhail Gorbachev.  And his vision and determination were enabled and amplified on an individual basis by the wisdom of George H.W. Bush and James Baker. 

 

I would go on to argue that, while it was certain that Russia was going to redefine its place in the world as a major power, having been brought to its knees in the 1990s, the turn it has taken has been highly influenced by the person of Vladimir Putin.  And also by the complex of political decisions that contributed to the current divide,  most importantly in my view the decision to expand NATO to the borders of Russia. 

That, too, was a function of human agency. 

 

In China’s case, the  speed and direction of the evolution of China was greatly  influenced by the person of Deng Xiaoping and Zhu Rongji, with whom I worked personally.  They had a distinct vision of working together with the West,  albeit certainly with the goal of maximizing China’s economic development and the strength that would come from it.

 

President Xi comes from a different school. He has set out to establish China as a unique power in the world. He would claim China is only seeking coexistence with the United States , but clearly China today is laying claim to be the the dominant power in Southeast Asia, much as they see the United States having done in the Caribbean. This has produced a conflict with the United States which has led to our increasing viewing each other as existential enemies, which we need not and should not be.

 

*****

 

This question of human agency goes beyond geo-political issues.  The role of human agency comes down to the relationships within our families; it comes down to the impact we have on those organizations we are part of.  Organizations, too, are affected by structural and cultural forces that will shape their future. However,  within that determined framework, the individual can and does make an enormous difference.  To be sure, it’s often an  individual working with other individuals.  But the individual makes the difference. 

 

How else do you explain that some companies, a very few like Procter & Gamble, can exist and succeed for over 180 years while maintaining leadership, while others, once leaders, fall by the wayside.  There were common forces affecting all these companies.  Some made it through successfully.  Some didn’t.  Individual agency at different point of history made the difference.

 

Closer to home, there is the role of individual agency in one’s family.  The impact one has in ones family is also influenced  by certain constraints, historical roots, the economic exigencies of the moment  But they still leave all life-determining room for the agency of a parent. 

Take my own life.  My  mother made an irrepaceable difference in my life.  Her belief in me, the confidence she bred in me, her willingness to make every personal sacrifice for my success, had everything to do with my success.  It was not inevitable that I’d have a parent like my mother, not at all.  

 

And when I read about the success stories of individuals who have risen from challenging circumstances to achieve success, there is always the influence provided by individual agency. 

 

For me, this reality provides enormous encouragement to do our best in positively impacting the lives of other people whom we meet and taking proactive steps to meet more people whose lives we can in some way benefit. And it also gives me hope that the brutal and  seemingly hopeless situations currently prevailing in Russia and Ukraine and in Israel and Palestine will some day turn for the better as a result of wise and courageous human agency. We have seen it happen before.

 

When you reach the age of 85, as I have, you realize even more that we have been placed on this earth for a very small amount of time.  The scope of our opportunities will be more or less limited.  But  whatever they are, each of us has the opportunity to play a role of positive human agency in contributing to the lives of others. I will continue to try to make the most of it.

 

Israel and Palestine--A History Offering a Ray of Hope

 I’ve read four books now on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, each with their own strengths. However, the freshest, and in many ways the most insightful for me, has been Daniel Bar-Tal’s, Sinking into the Honey Trap: The Case of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Bar-Tal is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Education at Tel Aviv University. His research interest lies in political and social psychology. He approaches the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by tracking its social-psychological foundations. He does so in the context of other intractable conflicts (Northern Ireland, Algeria, Guatemala, etc.).

Professor Bar-Tal believes that resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—that peace—will eventually occur, even as it may well take decades, which it already has. Professor Bar-Tal’s belief is based on two realities and one conviction. The two realities lie in the demographics: the number of Palestinians is about the same number of Israelis, and the Palestinians are not simply going to move away. The other reality as Professor Bar-Tal sees it is that conflicts of this horrible dimension and long-standing character have been resolved in the past. Northern Ireland is a classic example. South Africa probably another.

As Bar-Tal views history over the long term (centuries), he sees, as I do, a movement-- albeit with fits and starts-- to a greater respect for individual human dignity and freedom. He believes this will eventually happen in Israel.

Basic to Bar-Tal’s thesis is that the current state of the conflict has been created by competing narratives which, through most of history of this conflict, have asserted that the other side has no right to even exist. Each side declares its legitimacy and it is legitimacy that cannot be shared.

This narrative and mindset, has been expressed in different ways. At a few points it as has been altered by a short commitment to peace. But not today.

Bar-Tal rightly points to mutual trust as the key determining foundation for progress. As we have always seen in every venue, trust must flow from people coming to know one another and learning they can work together to a better end. This is what makes the "Combatants for Peace" movement so very important to my mind.

Another key part of Bar-Tal’s thesis is that the resolution of this conflict will need to be led by the stronger party, i.e., Israel. At the same time, he recognizes the imperative, so long un-obtained, that Palestine establish a unified leadership credible to the Palestinians, the Israelis and the world at large. He believes the Arab nations and Israel and probably Europe need to help make that happen.

However, the most important premise in Bar-Tal’s thesis on what it will take to resolve this conflict is that it will have to come from the recognition that the failure to do this carries a greater cost to both parties, including the Israelis, than continuing with the situation as it exists today.

A clear challenge on this point is that today the majority of Israelis not only feel the current situation is right, but they’re comfortable with it. The PLO, while objecting to the current situation, also to some degree finds that the conflict gives them its right to exist. Bar-Tal’s conviction on the importance of both parties discovering it is in their interest to change necessarily means, I fear, that there is likely to be more carnage before the mindset is created to establish a new narrative.


I find enormous encouragement in the history of the last 75+ years that there have been instances that show such a shift can occur. I won’t go through nor am I even aware of all the examples. Preeminent among them for me was the impact of Anwar Sadat’s coming to Israel to make peace. Sadat saw through the conflict supporting narratives and recognized the psychological barriers which prevented a peace process between his country and Israel.

In a luminous and brave speech to the Israeli Parliament in November 1977, Sadat reflected on the factors that prevent societies involved in conflict to reach an agreement: “There remained..a wall (which) constitutes a psychological barrier between us. A barrier of suspicion. A barrier of rejection. A barrier of hallucinations around any action, deed or decision. Today, through my visit to you, I ask you: Why don’t we stretch our hands with faith and sincerity so that, together, we might destroy this barrier? Why shouldn’t ours and yours meet with faith and sincerity, so that together we might remove all suspicion of fear, betrayal and ill intentions? Why don’t we stand together with the bravery of men and the boldness of heroes who dedicate themselves to a sublime objective?”

Tragically, as we all know, several years later, Sadat was assassinated by a far-right citizen of his own nation.

It’s often claimed that the Palestinians have never acknowledged the right of Israel to exist. That is not true. It’s been that way often, but not always. At about the time of the Oslo Accords, Yasser Arafat in November 1988 proclaimed the establishment of a Palestinian state (PLO) and also recognized the state of Israel within its 1967 borders, paving the way for division of the area into two states.

Of course, that never occurred. Blame exists on both sides.

The change in mindset called for by Sadat was more than skin deep. It took place importantly in the education area. Until the 1980s, the Israeli educational system had taught an uncompromising story of Israeli victimhood and Palestinian perfidy. That changed in 1984. New instruction material published by the Ministry of Education proclaimed the “existential need” for the educational system to deal with relations between Jews and Arabs and Israel. It established that the history of the Arab nations, their culture, their art, their language and their religion would “be taught in schools and the subject of relations between Israelis and Arabs would be integrated into the educational system from Kindergarten until the end of high school.”

In 1994, the Director General of the Ministry of Education wrote that: “We should present the achievement of peace between us and our neighbors, the Palestinians and the Arab nations, as an agreed-upon goal and to explain its essential importance, its contribution to the security, the strength and the prosperity of Israel.”

Yitzhak Rabin, then Prime Minister, said this in May 1994 during the signing of the Cairo Agreement regarding the Gaza Strip and Jericho: “We are convinced that our two people can live on the same patch of territory, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, as the Prophets foretold, and bring to this country, a land of rocks and of tombstones—the taste of milk and honey that it deserves. On this day, I turn to you, the Palestinian people and say: Our Palestinian neighbors, a century of bloodshed has forged in us a core of mutual enmity…today we are both extending a hand in peace. Today, we are inaugurating a new age.”

That was about to change as the 21st century was born. There were a number of factors, perhaps most importantly the lethal Second Intifada. The narrative shifted again and it has not changed fundamentally to today. There is encouragingly a growing, stronger minority group in Israel and Palestine that sees the resolution of the conflict as the only ultimate safety ground for Israel as well as what is right for and owed to the Palestinians. While still a minority, the world must build on this. It is the only peaceful and righteous path to the future.

I am struck by how the conflict of competing narratives is reinforced by the media and by the lack of factual understanding by the public. An example. Research conducted in 2008 indicates that about 22% of Israelis thought the Arabs had been a minority in the country before the beginning of accelerated Jewish immigration. Thirty-seven percent thought they were a majority and only 23% said they were a large majority. In reality, 95% of the population were Arabs.

About 70% of Israelis did not know that the division of the country, according to the United Nations resolution in 1947, gave the Jews, who were a minority, a larger, expanse of territory than that given to the Arabs. (About 1.2 million Arabs received 43% of the country, while about 600,000 Jews received 56% of the territory.)

Looking forward, Professor Bar-Tal underscores that achieving an ultimately peaceful solution will require two fundamentally different narratives than exist today. An eventual lasting peace agreement will involve painful compromises and will need to be based on the conviction that it is better than the alternative and, from an Israeli standpoint, would not harm the security--indeed it would improve the security of the Israeli people. Needless to say, it must grant equal justice and rights to the Palestinian people.

Professor Bar-Tal summarizes his examination of other examples of conflict resolution. He repeats his thesis that they were resolved peacefully "when at least a significant part of society change the narratives they held during the conflict. This happened when a large portion of society realized that the price of the conflict was extremely detrimental to society: in human lives, in its development, in its attempt to achieve prosperity.”

“When this understanding spreads and becomes legitimate, the insight that one can speak with the opponent arises, the same opponent who has been perceived as violent, with whom one does not negotiate. In other words, in order to enable the end of the conflict, it is important to change the way one looks at the opponent in the conflict.”

Professor Bar-Tal concludes with this: “Every major societal change must begin with the construction of new narratives. Societies that wish to set their direction toward democracy, humanizing the ‘other,’ peace, morality and justice must socialize their citizens with these values from a very early age. It is our responsibility and duty to show this road to the nations.”

 

The Source of Anger for Others--Often, Anger for Ourselves

 

I have come to believe that a good part, maybe even the biggest past of the anger and disrespect people show for other people flows from anger and dissatisfaction they feel with THEMSELVES. They are failing in their own self perception to do all they should, to accomplish all they should, to fulfill all they should, to be as good as they should--again in their self perception, often (usually?) mistaken. 

We are own worst enemies when we are not humble enough to recognize our limitations, the fact that we cannot and need not do it all, that we are far from perfect. I plead guilty to this. I feel guilty if I am not "busy". Nonsense. That is a signal of pride, isn't it. 

Said another way, we do not LOVE ourselves enough and hence do not LOVE other people enough.  Does that sound odd to you? Self serving? It could. I am not talking about exclusive love, but inclusive love. In loving ourselves, we love others. I find religion helpful here. The belief that there is a supreme power that supports if not loves (in a human sense) all of us.

Learning from History That Remains Relevant Today

 I finished reading C. Vann Woodward’s The Strange Career of Jim Crow.  It’s a historic book, truly.  It brought home to me, as never before, that absolute segregation did not start, at least to the degree imposed by Jim Crow, until the late 1890s and early 1900s.  Yes, there was racism and a lack of acceptance of social equality.  But even after the Compromise of 1877, Blacks continued to vote, to hold office, and to be together with Whites in many forms of transportation.  In fact, Dejure segregation in many ways was stronger in the North than in the South in the period leading up to the turn of the century. 

 

As Woodward writes, “The South’s adoption of extreme racism was due not so much to a conversion as it was to a relaxation of the opposition.  All the elements of fear, jealousy, prescription, hatred, and fanaticism had long been present, as they are present in various degrees of intensity in any society.  What enabled them to rise to dominance was not so much cleverness or ingenuity as it was a general weakening and discrediting of the numerous forces that had hitherto kept them in check.  The restraining forces included not only Northern liberal opinion in the press and the course of the government, but also internal checks imposed by the prestige and influence of the Southern Conservatives, as well as by the idealism and zeal of the Southern Radicals.”

 

So what changed?  Woodward does not provide a totally convincing answer.  One element which I had never considered was the impact of the acquisitions we made in the late 19^th century in the Pacific and the Caribbean.  They suddenly brought under the jurisdiction of the United States some eight million people of the colored races, “a varied assortment of inferior races which, of course, could not be allowed to vote” as many in the country saw them.  As Woodward writes, “As America shouldered the White Man’s Burden, she took up at the same time many Southern attitudes on the subject of race.”

 

Here was meat for the White supremacy movement.  At the very time that Imperialism was sweeping the country, the doctrine of racism reached a crest of acceptability and popularity among respectable scholarly and intellectual circles.  It became part of the national sentiment.

 

Woodward’s history reveals once again the push and pull of history, how progress almost inevitably results in pushback and fatigue on the part of those who had pushed for change.  We saw that following the three Amendments and enabling civil rights laws of the late 1860s and early 1870s.  We saw it again post the civil rights and voting act bills of 1964 and 1965.  It was accelerated by President Nixon’s “Southern strategy.”  We see it again post the election of President Obama and post the Black Lives movement.

 

A personal reaction to this book is summed up by this question:  “Where was I?”  That’s what I wrote in the margin as I read about the violence that took place in Watts in 1965 and the violence, flaming cities and looting, which took place between 1965 and 1968.  Of course, I know where I was, recently employed at P&G and just married.  How ignorant I was of the seminal change around us. 

 

In so many ways, history repeats itself.  The Brown vs. Board of Education decision rested on the conviction that “separate is not equal.”  Yet, the separation remains, in some ways more in schools than it was at the time of that decision. 

 

It’s striking how the grievances of the “alienated” Whites have continued to be one source of racism.  As Woodward writes, “Unlike upper class Whites, who often sympathized with Black aspirations, the alienated class of Whites resented such advances as Blacks made, opposed government and philanthropic measures on their behalf and denounced the tactics and especially the violence of the Black movement.  They were the neglected, the forgotten.   They bitterly rejected President Johnson’s war on poverty as another handout to Blacks.”  Their champion back in the 1960s was Governor George C. Wallace.  President Trump became the champion in the modern era.  Nixon had his own response, saying:  “It is time for those who make massive demands on society to make minimal demands on themselves.”  It was time for the hysteria to cool, time to appease the South.

 

We are seeing such sentiment today in the reaction to overreaction by the Left.  Words matter.  Calls to “defund the police” come to haunt.  So does the loosely thrown-about term “Critical Race Theory” which, drawn to its originating roots back in 1996, has treacherous linkage with Marxists, all of this making it hard to argue for a truthful and not honor-bashing narrative of our nation’s history.

 

History is filled with ironies.  One told clearly in this great book is how members of the Black leadership themselves became Separatists, lobbying against the very notion of integration.  It reminds me of the blog I wrote recently celebrating the ability to recognize and capitalize on the strength of individual interests without losing sight of a common, united good. 

 

---