“
I mean, shit, what Latino family doesn't think it's cursed?
”
”
Junot Díaz (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao)
“
There is no group of Americans more pessimistic than working-class whites. Well over half of blacks, Latinos, and college-educated whites expect that their children will fare better economically than they have. Among working-class whites, only 44 percent share that expectation.
”
”
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
“
Latino families just think they’re cursed because they won’t blame God or the Virgin Mary or colonization.
”
”
Zoraida Córdova (The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina)
“
Sometimes opposites attract, or so they say, but Paloma and Rocío were like arroz and mangú: they didn’t really mix well.
”
”
Raquel Cepeda (Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina)
“
The races are like America's children. White people are the firstborn, so they were Dad's favorite. Black people are the second kids, the abused ones, so they still hate Dad. Latinos are the third, caught in the middle and always trying to make peace between the other siblings. Asians are the youngest, and get good marks in school, but basically are just trying to keep their heads down and not get involved. And Native Americans are the old uncle who owns a house and everyone else in the family was like, "He's not using that! Let's move in!
”
”
Colin Quinn (The Coloring Book: A Comedian Solves Race Relations in America)
“
Then there are families for whom education was not the focus at all. Instead children were expected to go into the family business, join the military, marry and have children, enter the clergy, or grow up to be a contributing member of one’s racial, religious, or cultural group—something some African, Latino, Native, and Asian Americans refer to as “collective success.
”
”
Valerie Young (The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: And Men: Why Capable People Suffer from Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive In Spite of It)
“
To put the gap in stark racial terms, in America in 2013, the average wealth per household was $81,000. But averages have highs and lows. When you disaggregate the numbers, white families average $142,000 in wealth, Latinos come in at $13,700, and black families bring up the rear at $11,000.
”
”
Stacey Abrams (Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change)
“
These dreams
These empty dreams
from the make-believe bedrooms
their parents left them
are the after-effects
of television programs
about the ideal
white american family
with black maids
and latino janitors
who are well train
to make everyone
and their bill collectors
laugh at them
and the people they represent
”
”
Pedro Pietri
“
What sparked the riots in Britain in 2011 was the shooting of a thug by police. The Left have a penchant for politicising and heralding common criminals as revolutionary heroes. The lionising by the Weather Underground of the murderous sociopaths of the Charles Mason ‘Family’, and even of the accidental derailment in 1947 of a train by little Latino boy, Marion Delgado, are some particularly bizarre examples of the Leftist conception of ‘heroism’.
”
”
Kerry R. Bolton (The Psychotic Left)
“
The either/or proposition that forces you to choose between your community and, say, your country has never been true. The very skills we learn to cross borders within ourselves help us to cross borders toward others outside our community.
”
”
Sergio Troncoso (Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between Worlds)
“
I hated seeing these spasmodic upside-down chicken heads stretching to puncture my flesh. I imagined once that they reached my groin and pecked out my penis and my huevos and kept pecking until they got to my gut and my eyes and my brain, until I was just a pecked-out piece of human meat surrounded by thousands of nervous, dirty white chickens. I think that was about the time I fucked up a pair of chicken heads against a warehouse wall when no one was looking. Well, almost no one. Rueben was right behind me, and that's when he grinned his stupid grin. Maybe he hated the chickens as much as I did. Maybe he just knew que ya me iba también a la chingada. Maybe I was going on my first joy ride to hell and back, and it was fun to watch.
”
”
Sergio Troncoso (The Last Tortilla & Other Stories)
“
The Pew Economic Mobility Project studied how Americans evaluated their chances at economic betterment, and what they found was shocking. There is no group of Americans more pessimistic than working-class whites. Well over half of blacks, Latinos, and college-educated whites expect that their children will fare better economically than they have. Among working-class whites, only 44 percent share that expectation.
”
”
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
“
There is no group of Americans more pessimistic than working-class whites. Well over half of blacks, Latinos, and college-educated whites expect that their children will fare better economically than they have. Among working-class whites, only 44 percent share that expectation. Even more surprising, 42 percent of working-class whites—by far the highest number in the survey—report that their lives are less economically successful than those of their parents’.
”
”
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
“
we’re a pessimistic bunch. What is more surprising is that, as surveys have found, working-class whites are the most pessimistic group in America. More pessimistic than Latino immigrants, many of whom suffer unthinkable poverty. More pessimistic than black Americans, whose material prospects continue to lag behind those of whites. While reality permits some degree of cynicism, the fact that hillbillies like me are more down about the future than many other groups—some
”
”
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
“
What is more surprising is that, as surveys have found, working-class whites are the most pessimistic group in America. More pessimistic than Latino immigrants, many of whom suffer unthinkable poverty. More pessimistic than black Americans, whose material prospects continue to lag behind those of whites. While reality permits some degree of cynicism, the fact that hillbillies like me are more down about the future than many other groups—some of whom are clearly more destitute than we are—suggests that something else is going on.
”
”
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
“
It is unsurprising, then, that we’re a pessimistic bunch. What is more surprising is that, as surveys have found, working-class whites are the most pessimistic group in America. More pessimistic than Latino immigrants, many of whom suffer unthinkable poverty. More pessimistic than black Americans, whose material prospects continue to lag behind those of whites. While reality permits some degree of cynicism, the fact that hillbillies like me are more down about the future than many other groups—some of whom are clearly more destitute than we are—
”
”
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
“
It is unsurprising, then, that we’re a pessimistic bunch. What is more surprising is that, as surveys have found, working-class whites are the most pessimistic group in America. More pessimistic than Latino immigrants, many of whom suffer unthinkable poverty. More pessimistic than black Americans, whose material prospects continue to lag behind those of whites. While reality permits some degree of cynicism, the fact that hillbillies like me are more down about the future than many other groups—some of whom are clearly more destitute than we are—suggests that something else is going on.
”
”
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
“
Julia, is everything all right?” her father said in a raspy voice. “It’s three in the morning, m’ija.”
“I’m sorry. I have to talk to you; it’s something very important. Papá, Mamá, I’ve made a decision, and I wanted to share it with you. I’ve decided to convert to the Muslim religion.”
“What?” Pilar screamed. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Julia, what are you saying?”
“I want to be a Muslim. I’ve even chosen a new Muslim name, Aliyah.”
“Julia, are you drunk?”
“No, Papá, I’m not drunk. I’ve thought about this for a very long time. I think it’s the right thing for me, a way to follow God.
”
”
Sergio Troncoso (From This Wicked Patch of Dust)
“
The Pew Economic Mobility Project studied how Americans evaluated their chances at economic betterment, and what they found was shocking. There is no group of Americans more pessimistic than working-class whites. Well over half of blacks, Latinos, and college-educated whites expect that their children will fare better economically than they have. Among working-class whites, only 44 percent share that expectation. Even more surprising, 42 percent of working-class whites—by far the highest number in the survey—report that their lives are less economically successful than those of their parents’.
”
”
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
“
The Pew Economic Mobility Project studied how Americans evaluated their chances at economic betterment, and what they found was shocking. There is no group of Americans more pessimistic than working-class whites. Well over half of blacks, Latinos, and college-educated whites expect that their children will fare better economically than they have. Among working-class whites, only 44 percent share that expectation. Even more surprising, 42 percent of working-class whites—by far the highest number in the survey—report that their lives are less economically successful than those of their parents’. In
”
”
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
“
What is more surprising is that, as surveys have found, working-class whites are the most pessimistic group in America. More pessimistic than Latino immigrants, many of whom suffer unthinkable poverty. More pessimistic than black Americans, whose material prospects continue to lag behind those of whites. While reality permits some degree of cynicism, the fact that hillbillies like me are more down about the future than many other groups—some of whom are clearly more destitute than we are—suggests that something else is going on. Indeed it is. We’re more socially isolated than ever, and we pass that isolation down to our children.
”
”
J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis)
“
The economic crisis and subsequent bailout exacerbated inequality by every metric and did not lead to significant reform of the financial sector. Bailed-out banks continued to foreclose on the homes of working-class families while refusing to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers. Under an Ivy League–educated African American president, African American family wealth had collapsed. In fact, it is common knowledge that African American and Latino homeowners were hit hardest by the 2008 financial crisis: by 2018, an African American family owned $5.00 in assets for every $100.00 owned by white families.6 Obama’s identity politics did not translate into economic policies that benefited minorities and working-class people.
”
”
Catherine Liu (Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class)
“
Even male children of affluent white families think that history as taught in high school is “too neat and rosy.” 6 African American, Native American, and Latino students view history with a special dislike. They also learn history especially poorly. Students of color do only slightly worse than white students in mathematics. If you’ll pardon my grammar, nonwhite students do more worse in English and most worse in history.7 Something intriguing is going on here: surely history is not more difficult for minorities than trigonometry or Faulkner. Students don’t even know they are alienated, only that they “don’t like social studies” or “aren’t any good at history.” In college, most students of color give history departments a wide berth. Many history teachers perceive the low morale in their classrooms. If they have a lot of time, light domestic responsibilities, sufficient resources, and a flexible principal, some teachers respond by abandoning the overstuffed textbooks and reinventing their American history courses. All too many teachers grow disheartened and settle for less. At least dimly aware that their students are not requiting their own love of history, these teachers withdraw some of their energy from their courses. Gradually they end up going through the motions, staying ahead of their students in the textbooks, covering only material that will appear on the next test. College teachers in most disciplines are happy when their students have had significant exposure to the subject before college. Not teachers in history. History professors in college routinely put down high school history courses. A colleague of mine calls his survey of American history “Iconoclasm I and II,” because he sees his job as disabusing his charges of what they learned in high school to make room for more accurate information. In no other field does this happen. Mathematics professors, for instance, know that non-Euclidean geometry is rarely taught in high school, but they don’t assume that Euclidean geometry was mistaught. Professors of English literature don’t presume that Romeo and Juliet was misunderstood in high school. Indeed, history is the only field in which the more courses students take, the stupider they become. Perhaps I do not need to convince you that American history is important. More than any other topic, it is about us. Whether one deems our present society wondrous or awful or both, history reveals how we arrived at this point. Understanding our past is central to our ability to understand ourselves and the world around us. We need to know our history, and according to sociologist C. Wright Mills, we know we do.8
”
”
James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong)
“
Why does everyone call you Mexican?” he asks. My head jerks up. “Huh?” “I’m distracting you with an unrelated and potentially rude question. Aaron called you Mexican. So did they. But you don’t have an accent, and I knew a guy at school named Vasquez who was from Spain. So as the foreigner who hasn’t quite figured out your country, what tells them you’re Mexican?” I want to brush off the question. Really not the time. But that’s the point, isn’t it? I look down at my quavering hands, and when I squeeze my eyes shut, all I see is Predator, pulling the trigger. I can hear Gray’s and Predator’s footsteps. They’re far enough away and we’re well enough hidden that we’re safe here. For now. I glance at Max. “I don’t have an accent because my family has been here for three generations. My father’s family comes from Spain. My mother’s is from Cuba. That makes me Hispanic, and the presumption here—far enough from the border that there aren’t a lot of Latino immigrants—is that Hispanic equals Mexican.” “So Hispanic and Latino mean the same thing?” I shake my head. “Hispanic means you are descended from a country that speaks Spanish. Latino means you’re descended from a country in Latin America. Some are both, like Cuba. But if you come from Brazil, you’re Latino and not Hispanic, because the official language is Portuguese.” “And if it’s Spain, it’s Hispanic and not Latino. Excellent. My lesson in American terminology for the day.
”
”
Kelley Armstrong (The Masked Truth)
“
The photo was published in the majority of Brazilian newspapers in a full-page spread when CNN and all the television channels of the world broadcast the scene, they froze it for a few seconds. Or minutes, hours, I don't know. For me time has infinite duration--I don't know how to measure it by normal parameters. Trying doesn't even interest me. From the World Trade Center buildings, minutes, prior to their collapse--which would appear as a perfect and planned implosion--only a grayish-blue and black vertical lines can be seen. Like a modernist painting--by whom? Which artist painted lines? Mondrian? No, not Mondrian, he painted squares, rectangles. Anyway, in the picture, the man is falling head first. his body straight, one of his legs bent. Did he jump? Slip? Did he faint and then fall? He probably lost consciousness because of the height, the smoke. He fell. He disappeared from the scene, from life, from the city. A million tons of rubble buried him soon after. Nobody knows his name. Impossible for his family to have him identified. He's an unknown who entered into history at the twenty-first century's first great moment of horror--the history of the world, the United States, communications, photography. Without anyone knowing who he is. And nobody will ever know. We'll only have suppositions, families who'll swear that he was theirs. But was he Brazilian, American, Latino, Chinese, Italian, Irish--what? He could have been anything, but now he's nothing. One among thousands gone forever. And, while we're on the subject, what about the firemen who supposedly became such heroes that day--can you name a single one?
”
”
Ignácio de Loyola Brandão (Anonymous Celebrity (Brazilian Literature))
“
What was once a segregated oasis, a black Levittown where flowers grew and families thrived, now seems hardly worth the gas money for young black professionals, not for a daily commute ten miles past downtown, not when they can buy property anywhere these days. No matter the best efforts of the old-timers to keep the neighborhood as it’s always been, to secure its borders, keep the money in and the newcomers out, there are, every year, new families who are buying their way in, working-class blacks from places like Fifth Ward and South Park, and Latino families from the north side, who see in its quaint, tree-lined streets their chance at the American dream. You can’t put up fences on change.
”
”
Attica Locke (Pleasantville (Jay Porter, #2))
“
In high school, I developed a new love: acting. I went to a predominantly black and Latino school in Compton and, outside of television, this was my first true immersion in black culture. I had an inspiring drama teacher, a Jewish man who found the most amazing, hidden plays of color. There was On Striver’s Row, a play about an upper-middle-class black family in Harlem. Maricela de la Luz Lights the World, a fanciful and mystical Latino drama by José Rivera. And so much more. Every year for four years I was introduced to new diverse works, all while working with a multicultural cast. I only wish Hollywood could take a lesson from Compton. The
”
”
Issa Rae (The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl)
“
About 41 percent of mothers are primary breadwinners and earn the majority of their family’s income. Another 23 percent of mothers are co-breadwinners, contributing at least a quarter of the family’s earnings.30 The number of women supporting families on their own is increasing quickly; between 1973 and 2006, the proportion of families headed by a single mother grew from one in ten to one in five.31 These numbers are dramatically higher in Hispanic and African-American families. Twenty-seven percent of Latino children and 51 percent of African-American children are being raised by a single mother.32 Our country lags considerably behind others in efforts to help parents take care of their children and stay in the workforce. Of all the industrialized nations in the world, the United States is the only one without a paid maternity leave policy.33 As Ellen Bravo, director of the Family Values @ Work consortium, observed, most “women are not thinking about ‘having it all,’ they’re worried about losing it all—their jobs, their children’s health, their families’ financial stability—because of the regular conflicts that arise between being a good employee and a responsible parent.”34 For many men, the fundamental assumption is that they can have both a successful professional life and a fulfilling personal life. For many women, the assumption is that trying to do both is difficult at best and impossible at worst. Women are surrounded by headlines and stories warning them that they cannot be committed to both their families and careers. They are told over and over again that they have to choose, because if they try to do too much, they’ll be harried and unhappy. Framing the issue as “work-life balance”—as if the two were diametrically opposed—practically ensures work will lose out. Who would ever choose work over life? The good news is that not only can women have both families and careers, they can thrive while doing so. In 2009, Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober published Getting to 50/50, a comprehensive review of governmental, social science, and original research that led them to conclude that children, parents, and marriages can all flourish when both parents have full careers. The data plainly reveal that sharing financial and child-care responsibilities leads to less guilty moms, more involved dads, and thriving children.35 Professor Rosalind Chait Barnett of Brandeis University did a comprehensive review of studies on work-life balance and found that women who participate in multiple roles actually have lower levels of anxiety and higher levels of mental well-being.36 Employed women reap rewards including greater financial security, more stable marriages, better health, and, in general, increased life satisfaction.37 It may not be as dramatic or funny to make a movie about a woman who loves both her job and her family, but that would be a better reflection of reality. We need more portrayals of women as competent professionals and happy mothers—or even happy professionals and competent mothers. The current negative images may make us laugh, but they also make women unnecessarily fearful by presenting life’s challenges as insurmountable. Our culture remains baffled: I don’t know how she does it. Fear is at the root of so many of the barriers that women face. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fear of drawing negative attention. Fear of overreaching. Fear of being judged. Fear of failure. And the holy trinity of fear: the fear of being a bad mother/wife/daughter.
”
”
Sheryl Sandberg (Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead)
“
Government alone cannot restore the economy to health. Innovation is a primary driver of economic growth. One way of measuring inventive creativeness is through patent applications. Chetty, along with Alex Bell, Xavier Jaravel, Neviana Petkova, and John Van Reenen, studied the childhoods of more than a million patent holders, linking family income with elementary test scores and other key factors. Children at the top of their third-grade math class were the most likely to become inventors—but only if they also came from a high-income family. High-scoring children who were from low-income or minority families were no more likely to become inventors than affluent children with mediocre scores. Successful inventors were also less likely to be women, Black, Latino, or from the Southeast. Chetty called these failed inventors the “lost Einsteins.” “If women, minorities, and children from low-income families were to invent at the same rate as white men from high-income (top 20%) families, the rate of innovation in America would quadruple,” the authors said. The most ominous finding by Chetty and his colleagues was the effect of Covid-19 on educational progress. Using a popular math program called Zearn, the economists plotted the achievement of children from upper-income families versus those from lower incomes. When schools shut down and instruction switched to remote learning, children in the upper-income tier suffered a small drop in the lessons completed, but low-income children fell in a hole—a 60 percent drop in the rate of progress in learning math. The long-term economic prospects for those children are dire. “We’re likely to see further erosion of social mobility the longer this lasts,” Chetty said. The American dream was drifting farther out of reach for another generation.
”
”
Lawrence Wright (The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid)
“
Before Trump, conservatives seeking to appeal to Latinos typically embraced the politics of conservative multiculturalism. Politicians such as George W. Bush reached out to Latino voters by showing a familiarity with their language and history, emphasizing the values of diversity and inclusion. Depicting Latinos as a distinct and valuable part of America’s democratic mosaic, conservative multiculturalism connected Latino culture to Republican values, emphasizing conservative approaches to faith, patriotism and the traditional family.
Trump, by contrast, knows nothing of the history of Latinos in the United States and rarely even pretends to find value in Latinos’ distinct identities. Rather than offering his non-White voters recognition, Trump has offered them multiracial whiteness.
”
”
Cristina Beltrán
“
These nativists—these racists—imagine a U.S. utopia of white people that has never existed. We've been here. Mexicans, and more broadly Latinos, have have never invaded Texas. Our land was stolen, and now we're the ones who are viewed as thieves. White supremacy doesn't care if we are here legally, or if we were born here, or if our families have roots in America dating back centuries, perhaps even longer than theirs. The fear many white people have is not whether we will assimilate, but whether our Latino bodies, and those of our children, will roam this land.
”
”
Julissa Arce (You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation)
“
Compared to children raised in an intact, married family, children raised in single-parent or cohabiting homes are significantly more likely to suffer psychological problems such as depression, to get into trouble with the law, to become pregnant as teenagers, and to drop out of high school.75
”
”
W. Bradford Wilcox (Soul Mates: Religion, Sex, Love, and Marriage among African Americans and Latinos)
“
I love the cooking and the Food. I love the music and the dancing. But most of all, I love the people. Smiles, honor, family, Amor- Latinos have warmth in their blood. I think it's all this warmth that makes our skin turn brown. It's as of the heat of our passion has boiled the liquid in our veins and cooked our flesh from the inside out to make our coloring go crispy brown like a flour tortilla being used to make a delicious quesadilla.
”
”
Alan Lawrence Sitomer
“
Latin not Lethal (The Sonnet)
Yes I am latino and proud,
That doesn't make me a thug.
Yes I am brown in color and loud,
That doesn't mean I'm a lethal bug.
Some of us can't speak English,
That doesn't make us second-rate.
We care for family as much as you,
In friendship we walk to the world's end.
Savage imperialists walked on our corpses,
While they snatched our lands and homes.
Yet you call us illegal and dangerous,
Showing no remorse or desire to atone!
None of us can undo the past I know.
Our kids may walk together, let's make sure.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Earthquakin' Egalitarian: I Die Everyday So Your Children Can Live)
“
Will we be remembered by how many material things we can manufacture, advertise, sell, and consume, or by our rediscovery of more lasting, non-material measures of success—a new Dow Jones for the purpose and quality of life in our families, neighborhoods, cities, and national and world communities? Will we be remembered by how rapidly technology, corporate merger mania, and greed can render human beings obsolete, or by a better balance between corporate profits and corporate caring for children, families, communities, and the environment? Will we be remembered by how much a few at the top can get at the expense of the many at the bottom and in the middle, or by our struggle for a concept of enough for all? Will we be remembered by the glitz, style, and banality of too much of our culture, or by the substance of our efforts to rekindle an ethic of caring, community, and justice in a world driven too much by money, technology, and weaponry? A thousand years from now, will America’s dream be alive, be remembered, and be worth remembering? Is America’s dream big enough for every fifth child who is poor, every seventh child who is Black, every fourth child who is Latino, and every twelfth child who is mentally or physically challenged? Is our world’s dream big enough for all of the children God has sent as messengers of hope?
”
”
Paul Rogat Loeb (The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear)
“
(Mothers) They lose their children's love. Reunited, they end up in conflict homes. Too often, the boys seek out gangs to try to find the love they thought they would find with their mothers. Too often, the girls get pregnant and form their own families. In many ways, these separations are devastating Latino families. People are losing what they value the most.
”
”
Sonia Nazario (Enrique's Journey)
“
in a study of race and perceptions of crime conducted by sociologists Heather Johnson and Thomas Shapiro, white families consistently discussed fear of crime and associated crime with people of color. In their minds, the more people of color in an area (specifically, blacks and Latinos), the more dangerous the area was perceived to be. Research matching census data and police department crime statistics show that this association does not hold, but these statistics do not quell white fears.
”
”
Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism)
“
n the tropical climates of the Caribbean and the temperate climes of South America, where Christmas falls smack in the middle of summer, there is no Santa arriving on a sleigh, no jingle bells in the snow, no stockings hung on the mantel with care. it's a holiday for family, for grown-ups as well as children, celebrated with plenty of traditional food, drink, music, and dance. Nochebuena, Christmas Eve, is the night for la misa del gullo, “the rooster's mass," which begins at midnight.
”
”
Esmeralda Santiago (Las Christmas: escritores latinos recuerdan las tradiciones navideñas)
“
The biggest controversy in immigrant education involves students with limited English, who account for about 10 percent of the K–12 population. About three-quarters are Latino, and most are low income.
”
”
Jason DeParle (A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves: One Family and Migration in the 21st Century)
“
,Heather Oesterreich is a noted educator who has been widely published in top tier journals and given presentations and keynote addresses throughout the United States. She has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Latinos in Education and Physical Education and Pedagogy. Away from work, Heather Oesterreich enjoys hiking, kayaking, and visiting state and national parks throughout the United States with friends and family.
”
”
Heather Oesterreich
“
Just play this out as a thought experiment,” he said. “Imagine if you had genuine, high-quality early-childhood education for every child, and suddenly every black child in America—but also every poor white child or Latino [child], but just stick with every black child in America—is getting a really good education. And they’re graduating from high school at the same rates that whites are, and they are going to college at the same rates that whites are, and they are able to afford college at the same rates because the government has universal programs that say that you’re not going to be barred from school just because of how much money your parents have. “So now they’re all graduating. And let’s also say that the Justice Department and the courts are making sure, as I’ve said in a speech before, that when Jamal sends his résumé in, he’s getting treated the same as when Johnny sends his résumé in. Now, are we going to have suddenly the same number of CEOs, billionaires, etc., as the white community? In ten years? Probably not, maybe not even in twenty years. “But I guarantee you that we would be thriving, we would be succeeding. We wouldn’t have huge numbers of young African American men in jail. We’d have more family formation as college-graduated girls are meeting boys who are their peers, which then in turn means the next generation of kids are growing up that much better. And suddenly you’ve got a whole generation that’s in a position to start using the incredible creativity that we see in music, and sports, and frankly even on the streets, channeled into starting all kinds of businesses. I feel pretty good about our odds in that situation.
”
”
Ta-Nehisi Coates (We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy)
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The Environmental Movement’s Retreat from Advocating U.S. Population Stabilization (1970–1998): A First Draft of History by Roy Beck and Leon Kolankiewicz
The overwhelmingly non-Hispanic, white leadership of the environmental movement may have felt it was defensible to address population growth as long as the great bulk of this growth came from non-Hispanic whites, which it did during the Baby Boom. But the situation changed dramatically after1972. From that year forward, the fertility of non-Hispanic whites was below the replacement rate, while that of black Americans and Latinos remained well above the replacement rate. To talk of fertility reductions after 1972 was to draw disproportionate attention to nonwhites. Certain minorities and their spokespersons—with long memories of disgraceful treatment by the white majority and acutely aware of their comparative powerlessness in American society—were deeply suspicious of possible hidden agendas in the population stabilization movement. As the Reverend Jesse Jackson told the Rockefeller Commission, “our community is suspect of any programs that would have the effect of either reducing or levelling off our population growth. Virtually all the security we have is in the number of children we produce.” And Manuel Aragon, speaking in Spanish, declared to the Commission: “what we must do is to encourage large Mexican American families so that we will eventually be so numerous that the system will either respond or it will be overwhelmed.” During the twenty-six years after 1972, the non-Hispanic white share of population growth declined significantly from the 1970 era. Thus, by the 1990s, a majority of the nation’s growth stemmed from sources other than non-Hispanic whites (especially Latin American and Asian immigrants and their offspring). Environmentalist leaders—proud and protective of their claim to the moral high ground—may have been reluctant to jeopardize this by venturing into the political minefield of the nation’s volatile racial/ethnic relations through appearing to point fingers at “outsiders,” “others,” or “people of color” as responsible for America’s ongoing problem with population growth.
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Roy Beck
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The average White family in America has nearly 10 times the wealth of the average Black or Latino family. Many Black families who have established themselves in the middle or upper‐middle class are only one generation into that income and wealth class.
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Seth Levine (The New Builders: Face to Face With the True Future of Business)
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As it stands, the United States is facing a crisis of identity unlike any before. The country is headed toward an inversion of its demographics, with its powerful white majority expected to be out-numbered by people not of European descent within two decades. This is unknown territory for everyone in the hierarchy, an ethnic distribution that could potentially look closer to that of South Africa than to what Americans have grown accustomed to.
Anticipatory fear seems already to have surfaced, but if history is any guide, a change in demographics might have less of a material effect on the dominant caste than imagined. A 2016 study found that, if disparities in wealth continue at the current pace, it would take black families 228 years to amass the wealth that white families have now, and Latino families another 84 years to reach parity.
Thus, as in South Africa, there would be no reason to believe that economic, social, and, in America, political dominance would not still remain in the hands of those who have held it for the entirety of the country's history.
This will be a test of the cherished ideal of majority rule, the moral framework for caste dominance in America since its founding.
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Isabel Wilkerson (Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents)
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On the working-class, multiethnic Upper West Side alone, Moses bulldozed two stable communities of color. One, along West 98th and 99th Streets, he destroyed as a gift to the builders of a market-rate development called Manhattantown (now Park West Village). At a reunion in 2011, a former resident told the Times, “It was a great neighborhood to live in. I remember playing jacks, eating Icees, playing stickball and dodge ball, jumping double Dutch and when it got really hot out they would open up the fire hydrants.” Said another, “It wasn’t a slum; why tear it down?” The other neighborhood was San Juan Hill, destroyed to make way for Lincoln Center. An African-American and Latino working-class community, San Juan Hill was full of theaters, dance halls, and jazz clubs. In the early 1900s, it was the center of black cultural life in Manhattan, where James P. Johnson wrote the song “The Charleston,” inspired by southern black dockworkers on the Hudson River. Still, it was branded as “blight.” While they fought the city in court, 7,000 families and 800 small businesses were removed and scattered.
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Jeremiah Moss (Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul)
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white families consistently discussed fear of crime and associated crime with people of color. In their minds, the more people of color in an area (specifically, blacks and Latinos), the more dangerous the area was perceived to be. Research matching census data and police department crime statistics show that this association does not hold, but these statistics do not quell white fears.
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Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism)
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Don't let any of 'em in the room 'til my guy gets what he needs. We'll be outta here before they get their gloves on.
Tea Party Teddy's Legacy
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Dianne Harman
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The San Francisco Examiner published an article in May 1998 I was happy to see, reporting, “The Latino population is generally younger than the rest of California, but it is getting older, starting families and settling down…. The GOP believes at least some part of this population can shift back to the Republican Party.
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Mike Madrid (The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy)