Monday, November 15, 2021

What to teach about slavery, Jim Crow and (so-called) inequality?

 Most Americans of 1789 might as well have been living in 789 as far as their ability to do anything about slavery -- for most of recorded civilization the glue holding societies together on dry land was the horse.  The rail road and the telegraph and 360,000 dead Union soldiers (appox. one in five military age males killed or severely wounded!)  -- and post-industrial America brought an end to that.

Came Jim Crow -- and waves of new Americans.  Paddy and Giuseppe and Chan had their own problems.  TV and MLK and LBJ were needed to finally put an end to that.

Came so-called "inequality" (to most Americans this word sounds like a race problem from the 50s). When I explained our labor market to my late brother John, he came back with, "Martin Luther King got his people on the up escalator, just in time for it to start going down for everybody."

At last, put all races on the same economic level:
https://onlabor.org/why-not-hold-union-representation-elections-on-a-regular-schedule/

No comments: