A friend recently sent me a link to a TED talk given by Heather McGhee with the catchy title, Racism cost America $19 trillion – then the entire economy collapsed. Heather is a self-professed policy wonk who has marinated in the milieu of progressive think tanks her whole adult life. As you can guess by the title of her TED talk, she believes that white racism has cost America dearly.
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Her TED talk starts with a story about a public swimming pool in Montgomery, Alabama, circa late ‘50s, that was filled in with cement by white city authorities rather than allowing it to be used by blacks—all this in the wake of a federal mandate ending institutional segregation in the South. If it happened as she said it did, then it could be construed as the spiteful act of a retreating army engaged in a scorched earth policy. In this case, southern whites wantonly destroying a public good as they retreat to their private domain. She uses it as a metaphor for what has happened subsequently across America in the public domain.
I won’t counter her assertion that the Montgomery pool closure happened in the manner that she described. Nevertheless, I contend that her metaphor is not characteristic of what occurred in the following years. She was too young to have experienced events that took place in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and the information that she has gleaned from sources undoubtedly is biased. On the other hand, events in the ‘60s and ‘70s were part of my lived experience.
A more fitting metaphor can be attained by focusing further on the fate of public swimming pools in the ‘60s. Growing up in Cleveland and Cincinnati during that period, I observed that public swimming pools were enjoyed by both whites and blacks alike, but as the ‘60s progressed those pools became more menacing places with an increase in thefts, assaults, and general intimidation by blacks. The conditions deteriorated to the point that many public pools became unkept, unpoliced, and dangerous. Whites, and many blacks at that point, avoided using the public pool. A public good became progressively unappealing to all but the worst element.
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Heather’s metaphor of a retreating army practicing a scorched earth policy fails to capture the essence of what truly happened on a wide scale. The more fitting metaphor is one of an invading army that plundered all that lay in its path and when that was destroyed, it moved on.
I was curious as to what Heather would have to say about my perspective, so I reached out to her to elicit her response. No response yet. My agenda is simple. I wish to get at the truth of what happened in that not-too-distant past.
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