Shea is right;
divisiveness hurts us all
Today’s rhetoric and divisiveness does hurt us all. And it was gratifying to read Mr. Shea’s admission that the Far Right bears some responsibility.
But admitting that and acknowledging that hurt which comes from the public vitriol that poisons our political discourse doesn’t do much. There are a lot of people hurting that are fueling this firestorm, and we have had such firestorms before and there were always people there to fire the flames.
Firestorms can be creative, though. This nation was born from rebellion — a war that lasted six years, and really beyond that (the War of 1812). A small band of colonial revolutionary leaders had “turned the world upside down.” The slavery issue led to a civil war, and a Republican party controlled for a time by Radicals (Reconstruction). There were periods of relative quiet, but turbulence always eventually exploded: the original Populist movement of farmers and workers ground down by monopolists; a brief respite for Progressive Republicans and Democrats to reset balances in society. Then, of course WWI and retrogression through the 1920s, fear from the rise of Communism in Russia, a resurgence of the KKK north as well as south, the Roaring ‘20s that went bust.
The post-war years in which Mr. Shea and I grew up were as he pictured. We both experienced them. They were years of prosperity. After going through the wringer of the Depression and then WWII we woke to a pretty nice dawn. Hard won battles on the picket lines led to a surge in unioninzation and entry for probably millions into the middle class. Farmers, like my dad, benefited from price supports. But there was something neither Mr. Shea nor I saw or gave any mind to, this picture of Ozzie and Harriet was pure white. I didn’t see a Black face until I got to Jr. High. I lived on a farm. It didn’t occur to me why there were no Black faces in the lower level of the movie theaters. Two of my best friends in grade school were Alfred Silva and Freddie Martinez. Had one of the Hanks kids been there, if would have made no difference to me (initially, anyway). My parents drilled into me that skin color meant nothing; it was the character of the person that counted. And they were pretty conservative folks. Yet, when I got to junior high, I got to know, almost by osmosis, that to some kids, it did. If a Black kid was a jock, that was one thing, I suspect that if he wasn’t, well… See, there were two Manhattans, the area around Poyntz and north, then there was south of Poyntz, but north of Hunter’s Island and that was the Black part of town. And Black businesses. Nothing codified, like in the South, but there, anyway. “I think they prefer to stay with their own kind.”
And there was national consensus of sorts. The New Deal by now was set policy. Oh, you could nip at it, even bite a chunk out of it, (Taft-Hartley) but it worked for the vast majority of us. It had been there since 1933. There was even upward mobility for some people of color. Who was going to really rock the boat? Besides there was the Bomb and the Red Menace (again) and the perceived need to exert leadership in repairing those areas affected by the War and contain the spread of Communism. Truman was no Henry Wallace (look him up), and Ike was Eastern Republican Establishment Internationalist, not Robert Taft.
And that rough consensus held until roughly 1980 and even beyond. And now it’s in tatters. How come? Probably any number of us could propose reasons, particularly from the last few years. Mr. Shea would have his; I would have mine. Perhaps, if he’s willing we could discuss it as two reasonably sensible human beings, I suspect that truth could be found from both of us. We might even agree sometimes. Perceptions are facts, too. They are part of human reality, even though they may not fit all the facts.
Frank Siegle
1013 Houston St.
