America was built on the backs of migrants. Our essential \u201corigin stories\u201d: from Jamestown and Plymouth to Promontory Point and Pittsburgh (the transcontinental railroad and the coal and steel industry) are migrant tales. America\u2019s history is replete with what migrants did to Make America Great. The desperate battles of the Civil War had Irish and German brigades, taking orders in their own language, on both sides. But, the largely untold story of that War, was the great sacrifices made by Free Black men. Nearly 180,000 served the Union Army, and near 40,000 paid the ultimate sacrifice. That\u2019s over twenty percent killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our public education system still teaches that America is a \u201cvast stew\u201d of immigrants. In the 1970\u2019s, young students even watched cartoons about the \u201cGreat American Melting Pot<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You simply melt right in, Of course, it wasn\u2019t true then, and it certainly isn\u2019t true today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I graduated from high school in 1974. It was eleven years after Martin Luther King\u2019s \u201cI Have a Dream” speech. The reality King described in that address is today over-shadowed by his description of \u201cThe Dream\u201d. But in the speech, King referred to the sacred obligation of the Declaration of Independence\u2019s \u201cAll Men are created equal\u201d, and the Constitutional amendments ending slavery and granting citizenship and the vote. He called them all a \u201cbad check\u201d. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c<\/em>\u2026Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given its colored people a bad check, a check that has come back marked “insufficient funds.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n That was the \u201creal\u201d message, the \u201cbad check\u201d. It’s far more important than, \u201cI have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n King called for America to make the \u201ccheck good\u201d, before we judged everyone \u201cequal\u201d in character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And, it was only a decade before my graduation, that legal school segregation was the law in much of the Nation. Black kids weren\u2019t allowed in white schools (or theaters, restaurants, public bathrooms or swimming pools). The demonstrations, marches and protests of the Civil Rights movement managed to alter the legal framework of segregation. But, when public schools were integrated and black and white students learned together; many white parents took their kids out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That was both the beginning of \u201cwhite-flight\u201d to the suburbs, and to the growth of \u201cprivate schools\u201d where kids could get a segregated education. It was also the beginning of state governments seeking to direct more public monies to private schools, a problem still growing today. Here in Ohio we spend more than $13 billion on public education where 90% of kids go to school. Almost $1 billion of that amount, and growing, is directed to private schools, where the state has no say in what is taught or learned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I learned about all of this from personal experience. In the 1960\u2019s, the best colleges in the nation took mostly white men. The \u201capplicant pool\u201d didn\u2019t include many minorities or women. So the standards were not \u201cthe top students\u201d, but the \u201ctop white, male students\u201d, a much easier threshold to crack. By the early 1970\u2019s things were beginning to change. Minorities and women were \u201cjumping right in\u201d to the pool, making it bigger and more difficult. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most colleges recognized that there was an inherent bias in education against minorities and women (there still is). After all, a black student applying for college, wasn\u2019t likely to have access to as good an education as a white student. It just the way it was, and frankly, still is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So colleges began to broaden the way they chose students. It wasn\u2019t about \u201cweakening the standards\u201d. It was about making the standards reflect what it took to be a minority or woman and achieve in a biased academic world. They had to overcome literal centuries of discrimination and lack of educational access. Their intelligence and effort to become competitive was, in and of itself, a mark of success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was a white, male, high school student with above average grades, good (to great) standardized test scores, and lots of activities. A black student with the same grades, scores and activities might be \u201cequal\u201d by the numbers, but likely had to overcome more to achieve it. Which was the better candidate for college? <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was actually a \u201ccase in point\u201d. I was put on the waiting list for an elite college. A nearly identical black student in my school was admitted. In the 1960\u2019s he wouldn\u2019t have had a shot, and I would have gotten in. But I knew, then, and still believe, that the college was right in 1974. He was \u201cmore qualified\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That common sense, make the \u201cbad check\u201d, good; might seem reasonable. But today, fifty-one years later, teaching that in school is teaching \u201cCRT\u201d (critical race theory). The current MAGA extremists might have the teacher \u201cridden out on a rail\u201d. (That\u2019s an historic reference to being tarred and feathered, strapped to a railroad tie, and expelled from town). <\/p>\n\n\n\n The extremist majority on the US Supreme Court ordered any college that accepts Federal money (including scientific research grants and the like) must remove \u201caffirmative action\u201d from their admissions policy in 2023\u2019s decision, Students for Fair Admission v Harvard <\/em>(USSC<\/a>). In fact, the whole process of broadening standards beyond \u201cthe numbers\u201d in college admissions, and in hiring in this country, is now branded \u201cDEI\u201d (diversity, equity and inclusion). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Somehow, DEI is a \u201cbad\u201d thing. But what\u2019s really happened is that white men are defending their status of privilege; one that\u2019s been gradually eroded since I graduated high school. They are led by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roberts, President Trump, his \u201cPresidential friend\u201d Musk, and the MAGA movement. They found political \u201cenergy\u201d in trying to turn the clock back, before the 1970\u2019s. MAGA wants the “pool” to be smaller. And they want to make sure Dr. King\u2019s check remains marked \u201cinsufficient funds\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s about power, politics, and \u201cgrievance\u201d. It\u2019s also about getting votes: in 2024 Trump get 60% of white male votes, the critical block in winning his narrow victory over Harris (Navigator<\/a>). So in 2025, it is incumbent upon Trump to \u201cpay them back\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s doing it. Trump canceled the promissory note, the \u201ccheck\u201d written to Americans of color. He\u2019s handing them another bad check. And he\u2019s taking the balance of their account, and giving it to his supporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It doesn’t matter what your skin.
It doesn’t matter where you’re from,
Or your religion, you jump right in
To the great American melting pot.
The great American melting pot.
Ooh, what a stew, red, white, and blue.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nInsufficient Funds<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Segregation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Pool<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
More Qualified<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Alphabet Soup<\/h3>\n\n\n\n