A Turning Point: Inequality

Bruce Hornsby sang plaintively, “That’s just the way it is,” expressing simultaneously the frustration of the downtrodden and the exasperation of the socially conscious. You simply can’t talk post-virus societal reset without acknowledging the bifurcation of our nation.

The Haves have had their way since time immemorial, but every once in a while, events lead the Have-Nots to force a reset. Looking at only the last two-hundred and fifty years and you’ll see the spasms that have shaped our current world. Take the American Revolution (“Don’t tread on me”), The French Revolution (“Let them eat cake”), The American Civil War (“A house divided against itself cannot stand”), World War II (“Fight for freedom”), the Holocaust (“Never Again”), or the Civil Rights Movement (“We shall overcome”). Each and every one of these historical events was precipitated by man’s inhumanity to man, and in their own way, each illustrates that a people can take only so much.

Each episode provoked a backlash that favored the status quo: the ongoing war between urban and rural America got its start in post-revolutionary days, and set the stage for the Civil War. In the South, the post-Reconstruction era brought a racist institutional response to emancipation that made life unfair and unsafe for African Americans. That history resonates today as loudly as it did following the Compromise of 1877 when the federal government gave up and pulled troops out of the South.

Lynch mobs and vigilantism may have a different look, but the feel hasn’t changed. White supremacists’ spew their hateful rhetoric more easily and brazenly than ever, thanks to the toxic anonymity of the unregulated social media and an administration that supports—sometimes tacitly, sometimes overtly (“there are good people on both sides”)—rather than shames them. Progress in the realm of human rights is not a straight line. Rejuvenated racism in the aftermath of our first black president was completely predictable. The Obama era showed us how far we’ve come. The Trump era shows us how far we have to go. There is a fairly large subset of humans who fear change and embrace intolerance. Some people need to denigrate entire populations to make themselves feel superior. No one relinquishes power willingly. Ever.

When being black makes walking, driving, jogging, and bird watching, crimes that are punished by death without due process, it doesn’t take Nostradamus to predict an uprising. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “Riots are the language of the unheard.” And in a prescient March of 1962 speech, President Kennedy warned, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”

Predictably, the coronavirus hit people of color the hardest because they cannot stay home. So many of our essential workers are brown and black. Meat packers, grocery baggers, physicians’ assistants, orderlies, nurses and receptionists. Fast food workers, delivery people, custodians, gardeners, and municipal workers who keep our cities running.

The Haves enjoy adequate healthcare, the Have-Nots suffer in under-funded, ill-equipped hospitals; the Haves’ schools are modern, the Have-Nots’ schools are dilapidated and ignored; The Have’s neighborhoods offer healthy food choices, the Have-Nots shop for groceries at the Dollar Store where fresh fruits and vegetables are as rare as Teslas; the Have’s surf the internet at high speeds, the Have-Nots are lucky to have a connection at all, let alone a high speed one.

We hear a lot about income inequality. The fact that the wage gap between white men and black men has remained the same since Harry Truman was in the White House truly shocks. This points back to the lack of educational opportunity, but it also hints at the underlying, always-there issue of racism.

We laud fairness and praise ambition, but keep a thumb on the scale. Economically, we tend to socialize debt and privatize profit. We use taxpayers’ dollars to bailout banks and automakers because they’re “too big to fail.” In other words, we socialize debt (yes, that’s socialism), but when the bailed-out prosper, their profits are private. Instead of running from a demonized word, maybe we should give “socialism” a new name and demand that our investments be recouped through the tax code. Why do we rail against a social safety net that provides some families with a modicum of security from eviction and hunger, but remain silent about corporate welfare? Are profitable companies like McDonalds and General Motors more deserving than our food-insecure neighbors?

Here's the frustrating part. The answers are as simple as they have been since time immemorial, yet remain out of reach. We are tribal in nature, and find it almost impossible to share resources with the “other.” It may sound trite, but the solution lies in love. Love of life, love of country, love of dignity, and love of our fellow men and women.