What divides us as a nation?

We are all looking for an answer to the social disparities in our society. We tend to reduce the issue of racial inequality down to a single number, the percentage of people of some color. It’s simple, so we readily accept it. We then take out our hate of social injustice on police who are of all colors. They are at the end of a terrifying problem: violent crime. Those in law enforcement have to clean up the mess that has been caused by the policies of feckless politicians who have no shame in blaming them for protecting us all from serious crimes.

The truth is that through their ineffective policies, politicians have created a permanent underclass in our society. There are the poor that live in communities riddled with violent crime. There are about 16 million White Americans, 9 million Black Americans, 2 million Asian Americans, and 11 million Hispanic Americans that are poor. Is this inequality a result of racism?  This notion makes no sense. To solve this serious societal problem, you cannot focus on one color because the problem is colorless, involving about 40 million human beings. They should all matter to us as caring and compassionate people. Not to do so is a social injustice to our nation’s poor.

If you believe that the greater percentage of African Americans in prison versus White Americans proves we are a racist nation, you still have to explain why there are other races and ethnic groups in prison.  There are also more White Americans and Hispanic Americans than African Americans that are poor.  By failing to explain these disparities, we have an incomplete and potentially dangerous misconception of what divides us as a nation. The consequences of this lack of understanding have had horrible effects on the destruction of lives and livelihoods, as we can see today.  If you devalue the lives of the poor, then that is the way their lives will be treated.

 It is a well-established fact that violence and crime are much more prevalent in poor communities.  So, could it be that the conditions of poverty and the culture that goes along with it affect the occurrences of arrests and incarcerations?   It is known that poverty and its culture are pathogenic. That culture is passed on from generation to generation independent of race.  I saw it and experienced it growing up on the streets of the Bronx. This very serious life and death issue should bind us together as a society to do something about it. Instead, because of political opportunity to win votes and improving viewer ratings, this social divide persists and along with it increasing emotional strife. 

Some may think this is just an attempt to explain away the deeply held belief that we are a racially divided nation, but you would be turning your back on a much bigger societal problem.  Unfortunately, this labeling of racial prejudice has all been reduced to a prevailing narrative that hides what politicians and some in the media do not want to discuss. They do not talk about it because the real issue affects us all and future generations.  By discussing it, politicians would lose votes, and the media would lose viewers. These people will exploit any story they can make up to serve their narcissism and lust for control of the way we must think. It all boils down to vested interests and protecting business models that rely on the flow of money.  They make a living by getting us to hate each other.

There are common factors that cause social disparities in our nation. I can shed some light on this issue through the experiences of my family, who were immigrants to this country. It’s one of many only in America stories. 

My father came to America from a small town outside of Naples, Italy.  He was from an impoverished family. They were so poor that my father had his first pair of shoes when he was seven years old. Those shoes were given to him by nuns from a local church.  He had a 3rd-grade education and could not read or write; however, as a young man, he learned how to grow flowers, plants, and make floral arrangements from his uncle. This skill would enable him to escape poverty when he came to America. However, that journey to America would involve many risks.

My father was full of ambition.  When 21 years of age, he had a strong desire to establish a flower business in his town, but his uncle prevented him from the power he had in the local flower market at the time. So, at the age of 21, he decided to join the Italian Navy.  That decision would completely change his life.

During 1928-1930, serving as a sailor on the Italian battleship Libya, my father circumnavigated the world several times.  He spent most of his time in Asia, in particular Japan and China. However, he did visit America and many other countries in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere.  This experience gave him a sense of what the world had to offer.  During my childhood, he would tell me many stories in his self-stylized broken English, which you could only understand if you spent time with him.  He used words and phrases that, by conventional standards, were incomprehensible.  Most people who listened to him thought he was illiterate and stupid.  But behind this illiterate façade was someone with ambition and enormous imagination.

Shortly after his time with the Navy, he decided to join the Italian merchant marine because there were no opportunities for him to start a business in his town. He knew from experience that America was the land of opportunity, while Italy in 1930 was the land of fascism and oppression. The availability of opportunity was the key element to my father’s success in America, but it was not all that easy to find.

So, in 1930, he jumped ship and entered the U.S. through Canada as an illegal alien.  He resided in the Bronx with a family he knew from his town and assumed their last name.  The timing of this transition was far from optimal because of the Great Depression.  He struggled, as did many others, during this period with little hope of making a living.  I remember as a child finding polished horseshoes in our small apartment in the Bronx that he refurbished and sold as good luck charms.   

My father was a very handsome man.  He looked like Errol Flynn, the Hollywood actor famous for his role as Robin Hood.  Using his good looks, he met a wealthy woman who loaned him some money to start a business.   He started a dry goods business in an area of the Bronx called Arthur Avenue, where there was a vibrant Italian community.  His small store was very successful, and like all such businesses, he had to pay the local Mafia protection money. If he didn’t, they would shut him down.

His progress came to an end when the U.S. entered WWII.  I once found an arrest warrant for him in a shoebox.  At the time of WWII, if you were an illegal alien in the U.S., you could be arrested for espionage.  My father met with F.B.I. Agents in downtown Manhattan and he explained how he entered the U.S. They believed his story; however, he could only stay in the U.S. if he joined the armed services to support the war effort. My father had two weeks to comply, so he sold his business at a loss to serve in the U.S. Army.  This commitment to defend America is how he became a U.S. citizen.

 While serving in the U.S. Army, he was injured and given an honorable medical discharge.  He never claimed a disability benefit because he felt that others with more severe injuries were much more deserving.  Shortly after his discharge, he met my mother through the family he lived with when he came to America.  Like my father, my mother was an immigrant to this country from Sicily.  She came in 1905 at the age of one and a half years in her mother’s arms through Ellis Island.  As a woman in a Sicilian family, she worked most of her life, giving what she earned to her family.  She was a seamstress who worked in sub-standard sweatshops for menial wages and made clothing for the rest of her family.  She managed to get a 6th-grade education that enabled her to read, write, and do arithmetic. This minimal education became a valuable factor in their lives.  When she married my father, she did not even have a nickel to her name.  All that she had earned went to her family.

The fact that my mother could read became essential to my father’s search for a job.   She found a job listed in a News York newspaper at Judith Garden Flowers in downtown Manhattan.  They were looking for a florist to design and produce flower arrangements.  So, my father decided to go back to the skills he learned as a young man in Italy. This opportunity changed his life and my mother’s in ways that they could not imagine.  He became a well-known Madison Avenue florist.  So much so, that he became the personal florist to the Duke of Windsor, decorated the wedding of Elizabeth Taylor to Nicky Hilton, was a florist to many Hollywood Stars, and eventually decorated the White House for President Johnson’s inauguration.  He even met President Johnson.  Only in America could something like this happen.

Having lived through WWI, the influenza pandemic of 1918, the Great Depression, and WWII, I learned many things from my father.  He often told me that if you have no money in America, people will spit on you.  This statement captures the plight of the poor. I believe that the memory of being poor was always on his mind. I also think that this horrible memory compelled him to think of new ways to make a buck.   My father also told me that without ambition, you could not succeed in life. As he said to me many times, I had a choice of either using my brain or my back. It was up to me.  By watching my father make floral arrangements, and being involved in his numerous ideas, I learned the importance of having ideas. As an example, he once told me that he wanted to grow pink pineapples. When I asked him why he said everyone would want to one.  He worked on this idea until he was 85 years old.  Today it has been accomplished through genetic engineering. This passion for ideas stayed with me throughout my life.

 While I was a good student in school and received a decent public school education that was available at that time, I grew up in the northeast Bronx, mainly during the 50s and 60s, when New York street gangs were prevalent. These gangs were a part of folklore passed on by those, like myself, who hung around street corners. Songs, like The Wanderer sung by Dion DiMucci, captured life on those streets through the words:

“Oh well, I roam from town to town
I go through life without a care
And I’m as happy as a clown
I with my two fists of iron and I’m going nowhere“.

Unfortunately, I eventually became a part of this culture. I started with hope and aspirations like most kids, but over time this optimism decayed through self-doubt and the security offered up by a Bronx street gang. This decay eventually immersed me in violence and the dark side of growing up on the streets. My participation in a very serious crime put me in jail. This experience nearly destroyed my life. However, the tragedy of it ignited my spirit and courage to eventually transform my life to one of value to myself and others.

As fate would have it, I managed through redemption and hard work to escape from the streets of the Bronx. I attribute this to the unconditional love of my parents and an unrelenting personal desire to seek meaning in life. I eventually discovered a passion with the help of some teachers. Looking back, the pathway out of what anyone would call a total waste of life was fortuitous. Nevertheless, that path took me on a transformational journey to a doctoral degree in physics from MIT, which provided life-changing opportunities I could never have imagined growing up on the streets. If you were to tell me when I was 17 years old that I would accomplish this, I would have told you that you were out of your mind. Nevertheless, I managed to mentally move from street culture to a highly intellectual one, never feeling completely comfortable with the transition even to this day.

The main lesson from this short essay is that what divides us is the horrible gap between the “haves” and “have nots” and the terrible disparagement that goes along with being poor. It’s a systemic problem that has to do with our values. Without opportunities to create a better pathway through life and a decent education for their children, the poor live in a constant state of despair. Despair and boredom can lead to anger, and anger can lead to violence. We have seen this happen in many third world countries. If our weak and ineffectual politicians would have some courage, instead of pandering for votes, and our storytelling media would focus on facts that could matter in the lives of people, our nation could then concentrate on the challenge of overcoming impoverishment in this country.  For example, try providing the youth of the poor with quality education, quality recreational activities that build character and civilized social camaraderie, and a belief in themselves and their God-given abilities.  Try that for a start instead of trying to make us hate each other.

I am often reminded of the caring thoughts of John W. Gardner, who dedicated his life to public service, that capture the problem we have,

“We don’t even know what skills may be needed in the years ahead. That is why we must train our young people in the fundamental fields of knowledge, and equip them to understand and cope with change. That is why we must give them the critical qualities of mind and durable qualities of character that will serve them in circumstances we cannot now even predict.”