The following is an excerpt from the Thom Hartmann Radio Program, 5/22/2015, which I edited for brevity and clarity. Thom discusses how neoliberalism (free trade) is racist.
Thom: The reason why poverty in communities of color has been going up for the last 30 some odd years is because of Reaganism and free trade. The reason that parts of Baltimore and Detroit are a wasteland is because of these free trade deals.
As evil the Cleveland police were in trying to say Tamir Rice was "a criminal guilty of aggravated menacing and inducing panic"... a 12-year-old kid playing with a toy gun in a public park.
As evil as it is the Cleveland police were saying that the victims of Tamir Rice were the State of Ohio, Officer Loehmann who shot and killed him and Officer Garmback who drove the vehicle.
As evil as that is, you would not have poverty in that neighborhood if there was a good factory there. You would not have these problems if there were good union wages available. And they have left this country because of this so-called free trade dimension of Reaganism... embraced by Reagan, embraced by Bush Senior, by Clinton. Embraced by bush Junior, and is now being, not just embraced but pushed by President Obama.
This is a racial issue as much as any other part of this stuff. When you destroy the Middle Class of America, when you reduce the standard of living in the United States, who goes first? People of color.
Minority communities are impacted hardest and disproportionately because they don't have 20 generations of White privilege of accumulated cultural and financial equity as it were.
Folks are electing Democrats because they're hoping the Democrats can push back, but the problem is that we have a national trade policy... I mean, no matter how much the mayor of Baltimore Stephanie Rawlings-Blake wants to revive Baltimore [she can't]... Baltimore used to be a big manufacturing town.
Literally, from the George Washington administration to the Reagan era, they made things in Baltimore. ... they don't make any of it anymore. It's all made in China.
[End Thom Hartmann Rant]
Note that Thom does not say the words "free trade is racist" and the title of this commentary is mine and is my characterization of what Thom said. Although I think you absolutely infer that is what he's saying. "Free trade" has negatively impacted middle class Black families, Detroit being an example of free trade destroying good paying jobs.
What this shows, IMO, is what utter BS it is when the free trade supporting "fiscal conservatives" blame "the policies of the Left" for the decline of once prosperous cities. You can't have prosperity without jobs.
SWTD Tags: Black Lives Matter, Free Trade, Republican Racism, Thom Hartmann.
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