The World is Changing. The Old Ways will not do. The United States was a great bastion of freedom and opportunity and liberty. for white men . AND NOBODY ELSE. Slaves are not set free until the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.
The people who wrote our US Constitution were rich, white, men, many were lawyers. Many of them had slaves. For example, the person who wrote "all MEN are created equal", Thomas Jefferson , owned hundreds of slaves. James Madison also owned many slaves. In fact, PBS tells us :
Slavery was an accepted way of life in early colonial America. Without the work of slaves and indentured servants, the growing economy of the colonies would have been limited. Almost all of our country's founding fathers owned slaves at one time or another, including Benjamin Franklin.
When one is a slave and is considered only 60% human , then one is without educational opportunities and rights. Thus, one cannot possibly have equal opportunities or earn an equal pay for equal work.
Education is one of the most influential determinants of wage,[8] and thus it is a factor that contributes to the racial wage gap.
Through the use of statistical controls, sociologists and economists “ask whether a given person with the same background characteristics, such as level of education, region of residence, gender, marital characteristics, has the same earnings as a statistically equivalent person from a different racial/ethnic group”.[4] Differences that emerge are taken as evidence of racial discrimination. Research has found wage and employment discrimination against blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asians; however, discrimination has been found to a much larger contributing factor for black wages than wages of other races.[4]
Even when slavery was "outlawed", discrimination remained legal, unchallenged and as terrible as ever, until the end of the 1960s. This did not actually end discrimination and racism. However, it gradually reduced overt active discrimination. It did not undo the structural discrimination which has largely not been addressed effectively.
Now, these good conservative "Christian" gentlemen did not just oppress and oppose African Amercans. They also have long practiced misogyny. They can be considered experts at it.
In 1776, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John Adams, who was one of the men writing the Constitution, to ask him "in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies." But even though John Adams loved his wife very much and asked her for advice all the time, he answered, " As to your extraordinary Code of Laws, I cannot but laugh...We know better than to repeal our masculine systems," (see the letter here) and he did not include any rights for women in the Constitution. Abigail tried again, "I can not say that I think you very generous to the Ladies, for whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to Men, Emancipating all Nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over Wives" (see the letter here). Mercy Otis Warren also tried to improve the legal position of women. But women could not vote until 1920, or be elected as President or as Senators or anything else.
The right to choice is an important right so that women have equal opportunities and equal pay.
Of course, Southern White Conservative Republican "Christian" Men support discriminating against hispanics too. As a certified public school teacher who has taught bilingual educaton and ESL, I am well acquainted with this truth. The ignorant opposition to bilingual education and sink or swim approaches found in California and Arizona, surveys of our fellow educators which reveal their opposition to and ignorance of bilingual education (as well as their nativism) in Arizona, the fact that Hispanics and African Americans are more likely than not to have a teacher who did not major in the subject they teach, the likelihood that Hispanics and African Americans are in inner city schools with inadequate resources, the high stakes testing that subjectively chooses to test using questions referring to objects/things familiar only to Caucasians, ... These are in the peer reviewed professional literature. Nor can I comprehend the push for Engish as the Official Language, the xenophobic attempts to separate Hispanics from the United States by radically anti-immigrant immigration policies.
The pure unadulterated hatred expressed by Arizona's racial profile law is beyond the pale. Those who support it, enforce it, or tolerate it are unreachable.
A few lowlights :
Americans see Hispanics as the racial/ethnic group most often subjected to discrimination.
A majority of Hispanics worry that they, or someone they know, will be deported.
A sizeable minority of Hispanics say they, or someone they know, has experienced discrimination
Fewer than half of Latinos say they are confident that police officers in their community treat Hispanics fairly.
They also include the LGBT.
So, what has this all really been about ? Is it about God or Jesus Christ or the Bible ? Not really. It is about what it has always been about : power. It is about control.
They have it. They do not want to relinquish it. They do not want an equal playing field. They do not even want to be "first among equals". It is about them. These rich, white, "Christian" Gentlemen that are associated with the Republican Party are standing in an unbroken historical continuous line with their spiritual forebears who did everything that they could to keep everyone other than themselves down. They are the spiritual progeny of those folks. They know, deep in their souls, how they have wronged the rest of America, Americans who are not rich, white, "Christian", men.
They know that they are on the wrong side of history. Defectors from among their ranks condemn them figuratively speaking for their attempt to masquerade their bigotry, retain the status quo, and keep others down. Each time a white guy's eyes are opened to reality and that person engages in the fight for social justice (which in truth requires an abandonment of most Republican policy views and certainly the Republican Party), the failure of those who remain becomes more evident.
They know that demographics are changing. And with those demographic changes, equality is coming. We need to identify, register, and engage our voters. We must get them to the polls on Election Day. We must get our message out. The Republican Party is only good for you if you are a rich, white, bigoted, male. Otherwise, our party, the Democratic Party, is your party, the Party that will fight for you and for equality. Our voters have diverse backgrounds, LGBT, African American, Women, Hispanics, Young, Educated, Labor, ... We are increasing. They are decreasing. We are in the ascendancy.
Aware of the changes that are coming, afraid of losing power or retribution, they fight like a cornered animal. They know the numbers are against them. They are trying to hold on for another election cycle or two. They are using greatly restricted election laws, voter purges, and tons of money to foist and perpetuate lies about our party and our President.
They will get the big money donors. We must organize, donate as much as we can, identify our voters, motivate and educate our voters, and get them to the polls.
If we do, we will win !
9:23 AM PT: Lol at the suggestion that I am bigoted against myself. The person who suggested that looks rather foolish since I am a Southern White Christian Man.
Here is the group of people discussed in this diary:
These rich, white, "Christian" Gentlemen that are associated with the Republican Party are standing in an unbroken historical continuous line with their spiritual forebears who did everything that they could to keep everyone other than themselves down. They are the spiritual progeny of those folks
It is the same group of people envisioned in the title and throughout the diary.
We use context to determine meaning. That context, those modifiers and descriptions at the bottom, made clear that I was speaking of rich, white conservative "Christians" who today identify with the Republican Party. The reader who uses context was already aware of that. For the ones who did not, I modified the diary.
10:35 AM PT: One idea I have is making sure every school is equally funded, each school getting the same amount of funding from property taxes. It might be one small part of creating a more level playing field.
I anticipate the objections made against this proposal. I do not find those objections a compelling reason to discard the proposal.