Think about the treatment of native Americans, African American people, women who suffer from gender bias, Irish, Italian, Polish, Asian peoples in the past.
I watched a show about New York city in the early 20th century. One scene had a poster in a window of a bar. It said, "help wanted, Irish need not apply." I've seen shows with women marching for the right to vote. I've seen shows and lived through the civil rights movement in the sixties. I've read about the infamous "trail of tears" and what that did to native Americans. I think those things were horrific and now we still have issues for these same people to have equality in our country. We are better today, but there is still work to be done.
I remember when I was just a lad and my teacher told us to ask our parents and grandparents about their ethnicity and report it in school. I asked and my mother was Irish, father German and my grandfather knew his mother was Polish but he didn't know what his father was. Grandpa said he could be anything, Polish even Chinese, he added, "don't tell that in school or the kids will be calling you names." I suppose he was correct at the time, after all who hasn't heard jokes about big dumb Pollocks? For a long time there were lots of jokes about Chinese people.
As for Polish intelligence, Nickolas Copernicus was the first man to come up with a scientific analysis of the cosmos. Poles had the first parliament in Europe. David ben Gurion the first prime minister of the state of Israel, was Polish. Menachem Begun a later prime minister of Israel was Polish. Lately how about a guy named Steve Wozniak? Without Wozniak there would be no Apple computer (one of the biggest corporations in the world).
As for Chinese, they are one of the oldest cultures in the world. They have produced millions of engineers, physicists, doctors and that's just off the top of my head.
Doctor Martin Luther King brought about the civil rights movement. He suffered dearly and died for it.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was Irish and a good president, who in the most dangerous time any president ever faced, during 13 days in October of 1962 saved us from nuclear war. No one else can make that claim.
Italian immigrants were treated horribly in the early 20th century. They worked in sweat shops in New York city for wages that barely kept them fed, yet when WW-2 started, they volunteered in huge numbers to fight for this country that still had bias toward them.
Finally, women, they have from the beginning done the same jobs as men but have been paid less. During WW-2, without women the massive buildup of weapons that won the war would never have happened. Women worked on every manufacturing project done in the war years. Women flew the B-17 bombers (picture below) from factories in the U.S. to England to help win the war. They flew into combat areas as nurses on C-47 aircraft to save the lives of combat soldiers.
Politicians today fear women in politics. Why you ask? My belief is women think about issues and oftentimes come up with different ideas. They are not afraid to buck the trend and they don't blindly follow along the good old boys club doctrines. Women in politics are not willing to be lemmings and run off a cliff just to follow party doctrines.
Copyright Bill Weber 2006-2019 and beyond.
I watched a show about New York city in the early 20th century. One scene had a poster in a window of a bar. It said, "help wanted, Irish need not apply." I've seen shows with women marching for the right to vote. I've seen shows and lived through the civil rights movement in the sixties. I've read about the infamous "trail of tears" and what that did to native Americans. I think those things were horrific and now we still have issues for these same people to have equality in our country. We are better today, but there is still work to be done.
I remember when I was just a lad and my teacher told us to ask our parents and grandparents about their ethnicity and report it in school. I asked and my mother was Irish, father German and my grandfather knew his mother was Polish but he didn't know what his father was. Grandpa said he could be anything, Polish even Chinese, he added, "don't tell that in school or the kids will be calling you names." I suppose he was correct at the time, after all who hasn't heard jokes about big dumb Pollocks? For a long time there were lots of jokes about Chinese people.
As for Polish intelligence, Nickolas Copernicus was the first man to come up with a scientific analysis of the cosmos. Poles had the first parliament in Europe. David ben Gurion the first prime minister of the state of Israel, was Polish. Menachem Begun a later prime minister of Israel was Polish. Lately how about a guy named Steve Wozniak? Without Wozniak there would be no Apple computer (one of the biggest corporations in the world).
As for Chinese, they are one of the oldest cultures in the world. They have produced millions of engineers, physicists, doctors and that's just off the top of my head.
Doctor Martin Luther King brought about the civil rights movement. He suffered dearly and died for it.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was Irish and a good president, who in the most dangerous time any president ever faced, during 13 days in October of 1962 saved us from nuclear war. No one else can make that claim.
Italian immigrants were treated horribly in the early 20th century. They worked in sweat shops in New York city for wages that barely kept them fed, yet when WW-2 started, they volunteered in huge numbers to fight for this country that still had bias toward them.
Finally, women, they have from the beginning done the same jobs as men but have been paid less. During WW-2, without women the massive buildup of weapons that won the war would never have happened. Women worked on every manufacturing project done in the war years. Women flew the B-17 bombers (picture below) from factories in the U.S. to England to help win the war. They flew into combat areas as nurses on C-47 aircraft to save the lives of combat soldiers.
Politicians today fear women in politics. Why you ask? My belief is women think about issues and oftentimes come up with different ideas. They are not afraid to buck the trend and they don't blindly follow along the good old boys club doctrines. Women in politics are not willing to be lemmings and run off a cliff just to follow party doctrines.Copyright Bill Weber 2006-2019 and beyond.
No comments:
Post a Comment