I will start this blog with a caveat. Racial and ethnic violence exists all over the world. It always has but the past does not have to predict the future.
When I went to Japan, I was turned away one night from a club by a doorman who said, “No Gaijin allowed.” In Hawaii, I was warned that Haoles were not welcome at certain beaches by natives. In parts of Mexico, I will be derided as a Gringo. In Europe for centuries, Jews have been persecuted and discriminated against.
My experiences differ enormously in severity from many people who face racism and ethnic violence in America, but they illustrate how people all over the world often draw boundaries between insiders and outsiders.
Prejudice and discrimination were not invented in America, and neither was racism. Nevertheless, in the Land of the Free and a country that prides itself on liberty, we should show the world what tolerance and inclusiveness mean. Instead, we talk one game while we walk another game. How many remember these words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal?
The New Colossus — By Emma Lazarus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Who approved these words? Did the Republicans approve them? Did the Democrats approve them? Or was it some radical group of communists and atheists who approved them?
Do our actions today with ICE and our immigration activities look like we are living these words? If not, would you be in favor of removing them from the statue? Wouldn’t it be more honest?
Do we still want the huddled masses? Do we really want the wretched refuse from other countries?
What are our excuses for the present way we are treating immigrants?
This brings us to racism. There are many who want America to be a White nation. A nation of European Whites.
Approximately 388,000 enslaved Africans arrived directly in mainland North America (the future United States) during the transatlantic slave trade, with an estimated 1.8 to 2 million people dying on the ships during the Middle Passage globally.
Do you think these people wanted to come to the USA?
For those who survived the crossing, the abuse continued after they reached American shores.
It did not stop after the Civil War.
It did not stop after World War 1 or after World War 2.
It did not stop after the Civil Rights marches in the sixties or even after the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964.
It has continued with restrictive voting laws.
States like North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, and Florida have enacted various combinations of laws implementing stricter voter ID requirements, reducing early voting days, limiting ballot drop boxes, and restricting assistance with mail-in ballots.
Critics and civil rights groups argue that these voting measures intentionally target minority voters.
Discrimination continues based on race in this country.
Arizona passed and signed the “stop to see your papers” law (Senate Bill 1070) on April 23, 2010. This law targeted many Latino citizens who were living legally in the USA.
The law was never rescinded but under the terms of a 2016 settlement with immigrant rights groups, officers are strictly prohibited from prolonging any traffic stop or detention solely to investigate a person’s immigration status.
In an effort to overcome the impact of nearly 250 years of legal slavery in the colonies and the United States, the US Government and many private organizations developed what were called Affirmative Action and Diversity Programs.
Many people saw these programs as a hand up to Blacks and other historically excluded groups, including Native Americans, Women, Asian Americans, Latinos and disabled people.
Other Americans saw these programs as unfair and a handout rather than a hand up.
I asked my AI assistant, whom I call Metis, to examine the research. AI can make mistakes and reflect biases, so its conclusions deserve the same scrutiny as anyone else’s. Judge this assessment by the studies behind it.
“Affirmative action and diversity programs have helped address the economic consequences of racism and exclusion. Research documents employment and educational benefits for historically excluded groups in several important settings. However, programs varied, and some diversity initiatives achieved little measurable improvement.
Research tracking more than 100,000 private firms found that affirmative action increased Black and Native American employment shares among federal contractors. These gains persisted even after firms stopped holding federal contracts. Recruitment, mentoring, and fairer advancement practices also helped women enter management and careers previously difficult to access.
In education, research on California’s affirmative action ban found that ending the policy reduced underrepresented applicants’ degree attainment and subsequent average earnings, with earnings losses driven by Hispanic applicants. In that setting, estimated benefits to underrepresented applicants exceeded the costs to white and Asian applicants at the admissions margin.
People with disabilities benefited from a related but distinct approach: workplace accessibility and accommodations. Employer surveys suggest that many accommodations cost little or nothing and can improve retention and productivity.
The broader economic argument is straightforward: excluding capable people wastes talent. America benefits when more people can develop their abilities and contribute. However, we cannot attribute all progress by women and minorities to affirmative action; education, antidiscrimination protections, and other social changes also mattered.
There were drawbacks. Preferences could disadvantage individual white or Asian applicants competing for limited opportunities. Programs could benefit relatively affluent minority applicants while overlooking economically disadvantaged people from other groups. Beneficiaries sometimes faced unfair doubts about their qualifications, and poorly designed initiatives could generate resentment.
Furthermore, diversity training did not necessarily change workplace behavior. Research suggests that mentoring, broader recruitment, and managerial involvement often accomplished more than brief training courses. Attendance at a seminar tells us little about whether hiring, pay, or promotion became fairer.
These limitations justify careful evaluation and improvement. They do not erase the economic gains or the injustice these programs sought to address.
Social justice requires attention to both historical discrimination and present economic disadvantage. Effective programs deserve support; ineffective ones deserve revision or replacement. Our goal should be institutions that recognize and develop talent wherever it exists and give people a fair opportunity to build secure lives.”
The real truth is that racism and ethnic discrimination exist not only because some people are narrow minded, bigoted, xenophobic and fear that other groups will take away what little they may have. Racism exists because some people benefit from the exploitation of other people.
Generosity towards those not in their tribe or clan is not a characteristic of the racist bigots in this country.
There are three attitudes that I believe help sustain racism:
- Xenophobia: the intense fear, dislike, or hatred of people perceived as foreigners, strangers, or outsiders. Xenophobia and racism overlap, but racism can also target people whose families have lived in the same country for generations.
- Resentment: Fear that others will either take something that they perceive as belonging to their group only or fear that others will get something that they do not get.
- Narrow Mindedness:
- Intolerance of difference: Showing strong dislike or judgment toward people who hold different values, religions, or political views.
- Absolute certainty: Believing that one’s own opinions are absolute facts and that no other perspective could possibly be valid.
- Lack of curiosity: Showing no interest in learning why other people think or act differently.
- Quick dismissal: Rejecting new facts or arguments immediately without taking the time to understand them.
Conclusions:
Let’s conclude with the original question. Is America a Land of Hate, Racism and Ethnic Violence?
For 2025, law enforcement agencies reported 10,881 hate crime incidents to the FBI. Among victims of single-bias incidents, 55.6% were targeted because of race, ethnicity, or ancestry.
Although these figures demonstrate a serious problem, they do not, by themselves, establish the character of an entire country.
I do think they suggest that we still have a serious responsibility as citizens of a Democracy to help prevent any group from being targeted by violence regardless of their race, skin color, political or religious beliefs.
America has a history of racial cruelty and a history of people who fought that cruelty.
Which history are you helping to carry forward?
When someone is demeaned because of race, religion, or birthplace, do you challenge it, excuse it, or remain silent?
Our answers matter most in what we all do next.
My thanks to Metis, my ChatGPT AI assistant, for research support, fact-checking, and thoughtful editorial suggestions. The opinions expressed and final editorial decisions are my own.
Here are some of the studies that Metis based the above research on.
- Kurtulus, F. A. (2016). The impact of affirmative action on the employment of minorities and women: A longitudinal analysis using three decades of EEO-1 filings. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 35(1), 34–66. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.21881
- Miller, C. (2017). The persistent effect of temporary affirmative action. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 9(3), 152–190. https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20160121
- Bleemer, Z. (2022). Affirmative action, mismatch, and economic mobility after California’s Proposition 209. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 137(1), 115–160. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjab027
- Kalev, A., Dobbin, F., & Kelly, E. (2006). Best practices or best guesses? Assessing the efficacy of corporate affirmative action and diversity policies. American Sociological Review, 71(4), 589–617. https://doi.org/10.1177/000312240607100404
- Holzer, H. J., & Neumark, D. (2000). What does affirmative action do? Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 53(2), 240–271. https://doi.org/10.1177/001979390005300204
- Job Accommodation Network. (n.d.). Costs and benefits of accommodations. https://askjan.org/topics/costs.cfm
Donald Trump is not America. Donald Trump is a creation of a media empire that is out of control. A media that trends sensationalism, exploitation, fear and paranoia to feed a 24/7 system of so called news reports. A system of glitz, glamour, ads, sound bites, commercials, sex appeal and worthless trivia that has little or no educational or informational value. It is a system that neither informs nor educates. It is a system that thrives on the likes of Donald Trump. It is a system that thrives on the exotic, the unusual, the strange, the bizarre, the kinky, the outlandish and the far out. Donald Trump is all of these things but he is not America.
Donald Trump is not even a real Republican. The party he claims as his own is one he and his small band (less than 9 percent of the total registered voters in the USA)* has managed to co-opt. The Republicans that I have called friends over the years want nothing to do with him. They are as appalled as the Democrats are at Donald Trumps rise to popularity in the media polls. Americans however should not be surprised at this. It is not the first time that a fraud, demagogue and charlatan has captured the media stage. Looking back through US history, we can find similarities between Donald Trump and the likes of Aaron Burr, The Know Nothing Party, Huey Long, The Silver Shirts, and of course Joseph Mc McCarthy. None of my Republican friends would avow affiliation with any of these characters. They are not America and neither is Donald Trump.
Every country in the world has its right and left-wing extremists. It has been this way for hundreds of years. Fortunately, in the USA, our political system usually kicks out the extremists and the middle ground or centrists have always trumped the left and right-wing fanatics. Due to our political system, we have escaped such maniacs as General Franco, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. There are many drawbacks to our political system and chaos often seems to be a major characteristic of it. There are many people who would discard such a system in favor of stability and security. These people would buy such a political system at the cost of freedom and liberty. In many nations throughout the world, citizens select benevolent dictators rather than trying to deal with the vagaries and uncertainties that are often characteristic of a US style democracy.
Donald Trump says that he will create the largest wall that the world has ever seen, but it won’t keep out immigrants. It will only keep out ideas and innovation. Donald Trump supporters include the misguided and fearful who believe that if we only had less poor people, less immigrants, less refugees, less minorities, less disabled people and less women in power that “America Would Be Great Again.” This is a delusion held by those who dream of a bygone era when “Father knew best, Blacks knew their place and women stayed in the kitchen.” The myth of “The Good Old Days” is almost impossible to kill in a population fed on media mediocrity and where real history is either not taught or understood. Donald Trump will not bring back the “good old days” because the good old days where not really that good. Donald Trump will not “Make America White Again.”
What all of Trump’s bombastic speeches fail to note is that America is still great. Unfortunately, the things that make America great are hidden behind the media pronouncements of Donald Trump and his ill-advised followers. The ceaseless stream of bad news, crime, bizarre and weird news that titillates so many also deprives us of being a well-informed populace. In addition, our outlandish media system simply serves to hide the many great values that the USA stands for.
The message of hatred and intolerance that spews daily from Trump is something that one could pity Trump for if it were not so dangerous and belligerent. It is hard to feel sorry for the bully that is kicking other people when they are down. Somewhere though, we know that such bullies are really cowards. Their intolerance and lack of compassion towards others is driven by fear and insecurity. No matter how big and bad the bully seems, they are the biggest cowards in the playground. It is time to put Donald Trump and his followers in their places. There is no room in America for bigots, sexists and racists who are intolerant of and lack compassion for others. We need to keep America great by letting the world see the true values that guide our nations and not the distorted hate filled messages that the media loves to display.
The abyss It is so big that there is no bridging it. None of the sides can see the other side. None of the sides has any common ground with the other side. None of the sides understands the language that the other side speaks. We might as well be earthlings talking to Martians. There is no lingua franca. Many of the “well-meaning” experts exhort both sides to try harder to bridge the gap or to work more diligently to listen to the other side. It seems to be assumed that all it will take to jump the gulf is good intentions. I cry bullshit on this. As the old aphorism goes, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” It will take more than good intentions to heal the wound that infests our country.
The wants advertised on the TV and in the media are never fulfilling. We have a nation of brainwashed consumers who mistakenly think that more toys, bigger houses, more guns, and luxury cars will make them happy. We are a nation on a never-ending treadmill of consumer materialism where like rats we keep spinning the wheel and hoping to find happiness, but happiness never comes, and drugs take its place. 
As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, the tensions in society grow ever more divisive. We see more road rage, more senseless shootings, more violence between men and women, less loyalty between employers and employees. The underpinning of society that should be based on human integrity and morality is replaced with an opportunism based on an amoral value system. Whatever we can get as long as we break no laws is considered to be moral. We see most politicians that have no commitment to anything except to collect more money so that they can stay in office. Their highest goal is to help the rich get richer, which of course includes themselves. 
I am not talking about the devil here or about spirituality. I am talking about a kind of insidious propaganda that has been spread by many groups and individuals. In this propaganda, one side of America is labeled as moral, ethical, righteous, and just. The other side is the opposite. The other side is everything negative. The other side is a composite of all the demons and evils that Americans believe in. The other side are communists, fascists, atheists, anti-democratic, anti-patriotic and un-American. One side is good. The other side is evil incarnate. You cannot talk to evil. You cannot discuss with the devil why he wants your soul. You cannot debate with Satan over the values that he has. Heaven and hell do not have weekly discussion groups. The language heard today, and what the media publishes drips with hate, innuendo, and disdain. The language fosters violence. I doubt the Founding Fathers ever conceived that the First Amendment would protect such speech. There are three elements that contribute to a hate speech culture that demonizes the other side: 
Malicious labeling is the name calling that goes on between both sides today wherein each side is labeled. You can hear it on almost every talk show program in America today. Name calling and name labeling. Commie pinko leftists! Intellectual elites! Radical socialists! Racist rednecks! Fascist dictators! Politicians, commentators, newscasters, and radio talk show hosts all use malicious labels to insult and demean those they disagree with. What have we let this country become when we allow such name calling? This kind of hyperbole demonizes the other side and creates a divide that cannot be overcome by rational conversation.
I do not think that the Founding Fathers of our nation believed that Government was evil. Certainly, they felt that there could be too much government intrusion on the rights of the populace. They invoked certain safeguards to protect both human rights and states rights. Nevertheless, they did not demonize government and not a single one of the Fathers ever referred to government as evil. Edmund Burke, the famous English conservative said, “The government that governs best is the government that governs least.” He never said, “government was evil.” It has become common place to hear refrains denigrating the role and necessity of government. This steady drumbeat of antigovernmental rhetoric has created a group of people that have no value for government and who support the idea that government should be abolished.
A few years ago I began to wonder why groups like the KKK, Aryan Brotherhood, Antifa, The Proud Boys and many other such groups advocating violence against the government were not labeled as Terrorist Organizations. I asked a lawyer this question and he replied, “it is all politics.” I found that almost all the groups listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “hate groups” were designated as “extremist groups.” This means that they are not illegal, and they have the right to organize, march, rally and basically spread their hate across America. In 2019, The SPLC listed 940 hate groups across the USA. If any of these groups was labeled as a “Terrorist Group,” they would be on the same list as the Taliban, Boko Haram, The Mafia, Mexican Cartels and Al Qaeda. What is the difference between an extremist group and a terrorist group? It might surprise you to learn that a terrorist organization is defined as follows:
If this definition does not apply to the groups that tried to storm the US Capital on January 6th, 2021, I do not know what does. Just yesterday the Canadian government labeled the Proud Boys as a Terrorist Organization. This delegitimizes the group and takes their rights away. For Canada, it is a start. I am wondering when we are going to get started in the USA on such an effort. The First Amendment was never construed to allow hate speech and the advocating of violent actions to overthrow the government. Why do we not have the political will to outlaw these groups? We seem to have little compunction in penalizing Black groups like the Black Lives Matter Movement or the Black Panthers. We have a different standard when it comes to White Supremacy groups. 
The newspapers, TV and the Internet are today the major carriers for the hate and vituperation that has spread across America. On one side of the divide, we find the NY Times, the Washington Post and CNN News. On the other side, we find the NY Post, the Washington Examiner and Fox News. There are countless other purveyors of extreme and fanatical views. Each side reeks of headlines supporting nonobjective views and biased reporting. If objective reporting ever existed in the USA, it has been murdered and buried by the most pervasive media to ever exist. The media carries the hate and violence that is created by politicians, pundits, radio commentators and hate groups and ensures that it gets widely disseminated. Without the media, much of the divide would never have occurred. Hate needs a platform to be spread and the media is more than happy to host anything that it believes will sell itself and its advertising. 
At one of our mixed support group meetings, a gay man from our group challenged the rest of us, mostly the straight men to go out to a gay bar. A popular one was the Gay Nineties on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis. We accepted the challenge and decided that after our next support group meeting, we would all (straight and gay men) go to the Gay Nineties for a drink. 
A Rabbi, Iman, Pastor and Buddhist Priest were all discussing the issue of peace in the world and in particular peace in the Mideast. The Rabbi said there could only be peace in the Mideast if all the Muslims left. The Iman said that there could only be peace if all the Jews left. The Pastor jumped into the argument and said there would only be peace if all the non-Christians left. The Buddhist cleared his throat to interrupt the argument and said, “There will never be peace anywhere as long as there are Muslims, Jews, Protestants, Catholics and even Buddhists in the world.” 
The peaceful person does not use violence against others. The peaceful person is a diplomat who solves problems with his/her brain and not with tools of aggression. The peaceful person is confident because they have integrity. The peaceful person has serenity because they have no fear. Fear is the enemy of peace. When the world is on red-alert, people live in fear. People become fearful of others and fearful of living. Racism, sexism, discrimination, greed, and militarism create fear. With fear, no one can be at peace. 
We should all be grateful for peace. This means we need to appreciate peace and understand that it cannot be taken for granted. Peace is up to us to create. It is too important to leave to religious leaders and politicians. If we want peace in our lives and peace in the world, we must create it. There can never be peace for anyone if there is not peace for everyone. 
If you think about the ideas or premises or nostrums that guide your life, you will soon notice that we have many ideas that along our journey we have adopted. The sources of these ideas are vast. Fairy tales and children’s stories give us ideas such as “A stitch in time saves nine” or the “The race does not always go to the swift” or “Those who do not plan ahead may starve in the winter.” Many of our ideas about living no come from our parents and family. My mother used to say such things as “Ignorance is bliss” and “If you give them enough rope, they will hang themselves.” My father was fond of saying “Believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see.” He also used to like to say, “You have nothing to fear from the dead, only the living.” These two later beliefs have guided a great deal of my life.
