Dr. Walter V. Collier, a doctorate in public policy analysis, has had a long career in research and strategic planning for a number of significant educational and non-profit entities.
Here he addresses one of the most pressing problems of America in our time: racism and its origins. In the preface, Dr. Collier mentions that he wrote this book during the second term of President Obama, from 2013-2016. Much of the racially-motivated antipathy towards thwarting President Obama's agenda came from the Republican Senate, including preventing his Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, a White Jewish man, from even being considered. Ironically, President Joe Biden nominated Garland as his Attorney General and Garland now serves in that influential role, where he is working to undo the sham (and shame) of the Bill Barr Justice Department, a cesspool of corruption under the aberration of President-as-Emperor Donald Trump.
Dr. Collier addresses the historical economic issues that led to the Civil War as well as economic inequality in modern America. He discusses Whiteness and White Privilege, the psychopathology of racism and racists, the persistence of racism from generation to generation, political institutions and spiritual concerns and their impact on behavior.
I can only wonder what Dr. Collier might have added about the Donald Trump years, where we saw ever more outrageous behavior by White Supremacists towards Black Americans egged on and abetted by Trump himself, in no uncertain terms, leading up to the assault on the Capitol and our legislators on January 6th of this year. Sadly, some of those very legislators refuse to acknowledge what occurred that day, when most Americans were in tears over what they witnessed in real time on TV.
In addition, another variety of racism, against Asian-Americans, which rages on, came directly from Trump when he called the COVID-19 pandemic a China virus and other derogatory terms. Thirdly, during the Trump years, there was a substantial increase in anti-Semitic acts of hate and violence, highlighted by the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue, and now carried forward into the Biden presidency as Trump's evil legacy.
Over the past year, in the midst of COVID-19 (a plague causing nearly 600,000 American deaths with a preponderance of bad outcomes for Black and Brown people, along with Seniors of all races, and a resulting enormous economic disaster – all of which Trump could have taken steps to combat and control), we have seen the beginnings of change, as exemplified by the outrage and protests by Americans of all colors, over the wrongful and violent deaths by police officers, of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others far too numerous to name. Even now, after the conviction of Floyd's murderer, additional cases of police brutality and suppression of the truth are coming to light and most Americans are outraged by these injustices. But whether or not we will see real progress on racial inequality towards Black Americans remains an open question. There is no quick or easy fix to undo 400 years of a history of suffering by so many.
We have a lot of work to do in the United States to confront and address these issues and nothing will get better until we face our problems and take steps to move in a positive and inclusive direction. Dr. Collier has laid out the issues and their basis of existence and now we need to act on his research and observations, and also employ what we have most recently learned.
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