Yes, this is not the '60s

Someone - possibly the president - commented after Dallas, after media sources, politicos & talking heads started shooting off their mouths about "race war," that "this is not the '60s."  This is not an age of systemic discrimination (although I must point out that it has been institutionalized to a shocking degree by SCOTUS decisions, the predilection of red state legislatures for Stand Your Ground & suffrage-limiting voter id laws), but it also features cracks in our social grounding no one would have imagined in the psychedelic '60s.

This might look like a race war, but that's not how it actually shakes out, as looking back fifty years underscores.

Fifty years ago, African-Americans were casually treated as not really full-fledged citizens by a stunning number of seriously intelligent people.  My mother believed that they had, by nature rather than nurture, lower intelligence than whites.  Mind you, Mom was born & bred in Baltimore, MD, which is far more southern in most of its attitudes than norther, but I still found that jaw dropping.  As for the civil rights legislation of the mid-'60s, it was Mom who took care to point out, "You can legislate laws, but you can legislate hearts."

Fifty years ago, American had a thriving middle class, had unions with political clout, offered a counter-balance to the financially elite. 

Fifty years ago, college was affordable to most Americans & graduates could expect to find good jobs at graduation.  Those who skipped college often did just as well as their more degreed friends, with factory jobs that offered great salaries & benefits. 

Fifty years ago, Americans generally knew what to expect from their neighbors.  For the most part, they could count on them staying safely in the closet if their sexuality deviated from the accepted norm.  Interracial marriage was legalized in all 50 states, but few took the risk of social ostracism.  We went to church on Sundays & sinning was done out of public view.

This is not the '60s & what we are actually facing isn't a race war.  What touched African-Americans 50 years ago - financial class opportunity inequality  - has spread to our once-mighty, now gutted, middle class.  And we don't have any language for how we are feeling.  For the anger, the sense of loss, the frustration & overwhelming sense of outrageous injustice.  There's no sense in railing against those who helped plummet our nation into debt through a disastrous war or those who drained our savings through their reckless financial games - we have no power against them, most of whom are either out of reach for blame or have their fortunes fully restored (even improved).  When we can't take out frustrations on the ones who deserve it, who are beyond our reach, the option is to vent our fury on those more accessible.

As a nation, our middle class has been - as far as I can tell - the key victim of the 2008 meltdown.  It basically is no more.  Salaries are flat, where they haven't plummeted or disappeared all together.  Benefits have become a joke.  The implied contract between business & workers has been torn up.  Carrier just moved another 2100 jobs to Mexico, its loyalty solely to stockholders. 

Parents who didn't think twice about paying for college see their high school grad children unable to afford tuition.  Those who can often put their savings & assets in jeopardy by co-signing for student loans, which can burden graduates with debt that can't easily be restructured & never voided.  Banks might be too big to fail, but too many families today find themselves to small to succeed.  For the first time in American history, it's expected that the generation after mine won't do better than their parents. 

As I said, there is no language for the anger & resentment that seethes out of the situation.  It's easy to turn an inequality problem that spans classes into one that's focused on age.  That's something to which people can easily related.  And it works well for the power-that-be to help the masses turn against each other than to look further up the food chain to see who's really benefiting - the very financial power brokers & big wigs who brought the economy to its knees in the first place. 

The media is ballyhooing a racial divide in the USA.  Civil war looms, they warn, never pointing out that the injustice transcends race, that it crosses over to class.  And that would benefit their corporate bosses, because whenever the peons fight among themselves, the elite grow stronger.

Yes, this is not the '60s.  The middle class have a voice & power back then.  Now, all many can do to feel better about themselves is to whup the tar out of some less fortunate someone.  If we let them, we will be played for fools & chumps.  It's going to be interesting, seeing how this all shakes out.