By Sami Jamil.
The other day, a friend of mine complained to me about America’s need for “White immigrants” and that America needs “White” immigrants and not immigrants from “Third World countries”, which prompted to write this article.
America and for a long time is a country of immigrants, mainly from Europe and for a long time, US immigrations favored and was tailored made to accommodate immigrants from Europe White” immigrants.
Of course, the economic and political situations in Europe changed over the years especially after the end of World War II, with Europe undergoing a big construction boom and with the establishment of the European Union allowing and funding many marginal and poor countries to improve its social and economic standards like Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece. Then came the fall of the Soviet Union and the great efforts of the UE to uplift many of these former Soviet republics like Poland, Hungary, Romanian, the Baltic States, the needs for immigrations from Europe slowed down.
For the most parts, countries that have been the major source of “White Immigrants” like England, Germany, Scandinavia, Ireland, prosper over the years and now enjoy much higher standards of living than that of the US.
Why would anyone from Europe immigrate to the US when most if not all have a standards of living that is the envy of most states in America, especially the poor states in Appalachia and the South and the Mountain States with European citizens enjoying universal health coverage, pension and retirement, 30 days vacation, less than 40 hours a week, free child care and paid maternity leave, free college education. Why would anyone in their right mind want to immigrate to America when Americans are denied these benefits, not to mention quality schools irrespective of whether the neighborhood is poor or with mixed populations?
Of course, my friend is afraid that “Third World immigrant” may have an adverse impact on his lifestyle and his standards of livings. Well, we don’t.
Not to disappoint my friend, his ills and that of tens of millions of “White Americans” are not the “Brown” immigrants from the Middle East, or the Far East or even from Latin America? The ills and misfortunate of “White Americans” are directly caused by America’s “White Institutions” from Congress to Wall Street to major corporations. It is “White America” that is in charge of the misfortune of “White” Main Street America.
Let us for a moment visit what happened to America since the end the big war.
America and until WWII was basically an agrarian country with agriculture as the basic industry with mostly small manufacturing and mining industry, and we have seen and lived that during the Great Depression.
Roosevelt’s New Deal and WWII came as a blessing for all Americans with the demands and needs of the war, transformed America into a major industrial, military and economic power, which continues to enjoy today.
Millions of returning war veterans came back to full employment in factories that converted from war industries to civilian industries turning out anything and every thing from housing construction materials, to cars, to home appliances, to radios and TVs, to vacuum, cleaners among many consumer goods.
Major factories such as the automotive industries experience a boom not see in generations with “America on Wheel” everywhere. Industries such as “steel” also enjoyed a boom with US Steel of Gary, Indiana (my hometown) had 40,000 employees working three shifts and add major steel companies like Inland Steel of East Chicago, Bethlehem Steel and cities like Youngstown, Ohio, and Pittsburg, Pennsylvania all enjoying a big boom. Cities like St. Louis, and Everett, Washington enjoying a big boom with the introduction of jet travel as the preferred travel in America, and now the basis of major military and commercial aviation.
That is how Main Street “White America” was enjoying its “Middle-Class” status with the head of household with only a high school education, working in these factories able to own a house, have two cars, afford to send his kids to college. Yes, these were the glorious days of high school educated “White Middle Class” America.
All that changed and thanks to America’s White Establishment through its political, economic and tax policies, it deprived White Middle Class America not only of its jobs but of its dignity and honor as well.
White Middle-Class America got the short end of the stick. National and international economies changed and with it major industries which were the solid base for White Middle-Class America moved overseas, through series of tax incentives and other policies instituted by America’s Congress, it is very own “White Institution” add to that another White America’s Institution” the US Presidency.
President Reagan while being labeled as the “icon” of and darling of “White America” was the one who truly failed “White America”. It was his tenure that saw the greatest shift in America’s economies and it was during his tenure that America began to witness a series of “looting” taxpayers in favor of big powerful “White” corporations. He was too busy making America feel great but never bothered to address the issues of loss of jobs, and the urgent needs to “retrain” America for the new international economies. Till now not Congress, not the presidency addressed these big major social and economic issues.
The demise of the White Middle-Class America began with Ronald Reagan and was not caused by Barack Obama though he is faulted by bailing out big time “White” institutions such as Wall Street and the automobile industry.
The General Accounting Office after reviewing the collapsed “Saving and Loan” industry in 1996, reported that taxpayers end up paying $132.1 billions to bail out “White” owned saving and loan banks.
The looting of taxpayers continued with Ronald Reagan deregulations of airlines. While saving consumers $5-$10 billion annually in tickets fare, more than trillion of shareholder assets disappeared with the demise of such American icons like TWA, Pan American, Eastern, National and Braniff airlines.
Over the years America’s owned “White” institutions saw the biggest fraud cases in US history with shareholders losing over $180 billion in investor’s assets due to fraudulent accounting by the management of WorldCom and the loss of 30,000 jobs.
Of course, all of us remember ENRON with big friends in the White House that looted $70 billion in shareholders equity and pension, and looted California consumers out of tens of billions in overcharges.
Another “White” big time business was HealthSouth inflated earning by $1.4 billion and the only reason the CEO “White” was caught is because he sold $75 million the day before the case broke into the open. He was acquitted on all 36 federal charges.
“White” not “Brown Immigrant” also committed the biggest Medicare fraud cases in US history with Columbia/HCA headed by “White” Rick Scott (Governor of Florida) paying $1.7 billions in fine. Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay $2.2 billion “ for improper promotion of certain drug (2013) and Pfizer settled for $2.3 billion (2009) and GlaxoSmithKline settling for $3 billion (2012).
The president (White) of Tyco did not fare well, he was convicted of looting the company out of $150 million and investors lost $2.92 billion.
Then came the biggest financial fraud in US history. No thanks to Bill Clinton (White) who working with America’s White Congress and “White” Wall Street, repealed the Glass- Steagall Act in 1999 which directly contributed to the collapse of the entire America’s Financial Institutions “ White”.
“White America” bailed out big time crooks of “White” Wall Street to the tune of $800 billion. Bailing out companies like American Insurance Group under the leadership of its chairman Hank Greenberg (White) after it declared $61.7 billion in losses, though the company and for many years was paying fines because of its standard cheating. $ 10 million in 2003, $115 million to Louisianan Pension Fund and $725 million to Ohio Pension Funds. Ironically no one went to jail and it paid its executives $165 million in bonus.
“White” America took care of its own self, with Lehman Brothers hiding $50 billion in losses and booking it as “sales” and in the same year, it was named as the most admired security firm.
It is not so surprising that none of the executives responsible for the financial crises of 2007 went to jail, and this proves that “White” America takes café of its own. America’s White Congress allowed Wall Street to charge $100 billion in legal fees fighting the tens of millions of consumers cheated and thrown out of their homes rather than force “White” Wall Street to compensate the tens of millions who lost their homes, pensions, and jobs.
Of course there are many “White” great companies that uplifted millions of Americans and made America the great country it is, companies and business leadership like Bill Gates and Microsoft, Steve Job and Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, Larry Ellison of Oracle, and companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop, General Electric that makes America very proud.
Oh, sorry I kept going on and on about “White” America as the root cause of the anger and frustration of “White” Main Street and rural America.
Please “White America” don’t blame “Brown Immigrants” for the loss of 5.5 million manufacturing jobs, and it is not the “Brown Immigrants” that caused the closing of 500,000 main street shops in rural America to make the China having the most billionaires in the world, it is your very own Wal-Mart, and don’t blame “Brown Immigrant” because there are over $ 4 trillion in corporate profits sitting in offshore accounts, blame it on your own “White Congress” being the best the money can buy.
It is not the poor hard working Latino who is the cause of your problem and the cause of “White” America losing its economic powers with Latinos working in back breaking jobs in construction, in agriculture and in food service industries.
Certainly, it is not the hard working and smart Asians with several families living together, taking care of their families so they can go to the best schools and universities in America.
And it is not the Indian immigrant whose families work in dangerous areas so they can afford to send their kids to the best schools and universities.
For sure it is not the Arab or Muslim Americas whose family values help produce some outstanding professionals in engineering, in medicine, in sciences, in IT that are the cause of the misfortune of “White” American. The misfortune of White America lies with the White Institutions of America.
Like you, we “Brown Immigrant” work hard like, we pay our taxes and we don’t “mooch’ on free government services and many of us are not on welfare or food stamps. We are your partners, not your enemies. That is why it is up to you to team together and change the very “White Institutions” that is the cause of your anger and frustration. Time to stop complaining and get back to work. There is much hard work in construction, in agriculture, in food industries. American can use more doctors, more engineers, more IT specialists, roll up your sleeves and stop complaining about us “ Brown Third World Countries” immigrants.
