June 18, 2014--The Six Americas

I hesitate to bring him up, he was such a . . . you know what, but John Edwards, during the 2008 primary campaign, reminded us that there are two Americas--"the privileged and the wealthy and the America of those who live paycheck to paycheck."

He of course was oversimplifying--for example among the less-privileged there are the working poor and those, without hope of work, who live in unrelenting poverty. And then there are the "privileged" who are the wealthy one percent and the simply affluent. This could then be thought of as four Americas.

But his reductionist two-Americas lens was still a good one through which to see the United States. It continued to be as the Occupy Wall Streeters reminded us.

The two-Americas idea was not entirely new, not even in it phrasing. It was derived from the findings of the presidentially-appointed Kerner Commission, which, after the urban riots of the 1960s, in 1968, reported that the United States was "moving toward [becoming] two societies, one black, one white--separate and unequal."

The Kerner conclusion about race adds two more Americas for a total of six. And though the commissions findings were and are essentially true, they too lacked nuance. For example, the report barely mentioned how poorly many other millions of color, Hispanics for example, were doing. And it did not take even a glance at how women were faring or look at the stratification within the black community.

But as with Edward's summation, it too attracted attention, debate, and led to some palliative social policies.

Thus one could say that are more than two Americas. Six at least and even eight.

I've already noted that there is an America for most people of color, not just for African Americans, and that the socioeconomic divide if far more complex and its complexity is more important to pay attention to than Edwards' simple wealthy-versus-paycheck people.

And it may be almost equally important to consider the two ideological Americas, which also has a geographic component.

A recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center found that the partisan divide stretches way beyond Congress. Liberals and conservatives prefer to live near people of like minds and want their children to marry those with similar political views.

More distressing, beyond having differing views that are subject to debate and compromise (both essential to a functioning democracy), Pew reported that 27 percent of Democrats and 36 percent of Republican see the other party as a threat to the nation's well-being.

Then there are the two cultural Americas, both closely aligned with the two ideological Americas. Some have declared the Culture Wars ended with "victory" for the progressive perspective that, among other things, supports same-sex marriage.

It is true that in a crescendo of court decisions and actions by voters and state legislators it is now legal in 17 states for men to marry men and women to marry women; but in states and cities along both coasts, in contrast to pretty much everywhere in between, battles rage about what to teach children--evolution or intelligent design; abortion, in spite of Roe v. Wade, is available on demand in only four states; and various forms of Christian prayer at public meetings, recently declared constitutional by the Supreme Court, now occurs commonly in much of America, including in Congress.

So how many Americas do we have? Ten? A dozen? Much to understand. Much work still to be done.