White progressives' race problem

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

The post-WW2 period was a time where people could believe in the promise of upward mobility.  Blacks had reason to believe this would benefit them as well, and in some cases they did.  The problem was discrimination, much of it systematic, largely kept them from being able to realize this potential.  By the time policies and culture were changed toward more racial inclusivity, much of the opportunity had been lost, much of the vitality of our cities demolished, and instead of mobility there was dislocation and desperation. 
The lost opportunity doesn't mean that there wasn't something legitimately good about the 50s.  Sanders and Warren think their policies can bring that opportunity back, so it makes sense to focus on it. Unfortunately they have very little legitimate reason to believe their policies will do any of this. 

[The Mikado]

It's interesting how many people missed the point of the article.

It's not that talking about the 1950s misses the point due to Jim Crow. It's that many of the benefits white Americans received after the war were made possible by Jim Crow. The massively-expanded university access still had very little African-American competitions for those slots, as did the famously good-paying factory jobs of the 1950s. Talking about how much better things were then ignores the fact that much of the good quality of life for white Americans originated with Jim Crow and its more subtle northern cousins. African-Americans can get a hint when you start talking about that era as a better one that you don't have their best interests at heart.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

It's interesting how many people missed the point of the article.

It's not that talking about the 1950s misses the point due to Jim Crow. It's that many of the benefits white Americans received after the war were made possible by Jim Crow. The massively-expanded university access still had very little African-American competitions for those slots, as did the famously good-paying factory jobs of the 1950s. Talking about how much better things were then ignores the fact that much of the good quality of life for white Americans originated with Jim Crow and its more subtle northern cousins. African-Americans can get a hint when you start talking about that era as a better one that you don't have their best interests at heart.

The article just mentioned that idea in passing and didn't provide any evidence for Jim Crow as a major factor for white opportunity in the 1950s.