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Post by garry on Jun 3, 2020 8:46:01 GMT
Is America broken yet? I would assert that the phrase "more broken" would be more apt. That said I have rose tinted spectacles of my teenaged summers in the USA - we were very "middle class" and had all the kind of things, lifestyle you see on American TV shows but my first arrival was a trip through downtown Newark, courtesy of my step-dad. Houses with no windows in, fires burning in the middle of living rooms, kids playing in the fire hydrant water, the odd pimp-mobile (brand new flash car) and lots of old wrecks parked about. "This is what happens to you in America when you don't make it" he told me. That was 1981 so it's always been the land of opportunity, which of course means it has to also be the land of desolate failure as not everyone gets opportunities or can be a success. This is where my initial thinking was when I first posted this topic. Your experience of the states resembles what I see there today. What we’d think of as the professional middle class is a really nice place to be in the states - big house, big cars, high salary. But the majority aren’t living like that. For them it’s a pretty bleak existence. I’ve though put for a while that America will break because of inequality, and I see covid as potentially one of those tipping points that will expose the extremes of inequality that turns into civil unrest. |
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Post by Tim on Jun 3, 2020 9:34:35 GMT
Its the lack of mixing within different social/economic/race groups that is the problem in a lot of the states. Luckily as we all live on top of each other in the UK we have no choice but to deal with people from all walks of life which hopefully breaks down these barriers. I remember an American being interviewed on some radio programme, probably at least 15 years ago, and he made the point that the black people were creating their own 'ghettos' within middle class areas - once one family moved into a street whenever a house came up for sale another reasonably well off black family inevitably bought it and so on. It was only at the end of the article that it was pointed out the interviewee was a judge and was himself black. I don't think particular groups of people have any desire to integrate. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2020 10:37:27 GMT
Mostly we are integrated on the estate. We have our morons (Racists) too but will hopefully get rid of them soon.
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