We Are All In This Together

 When I grew up in the Bronx the world was defined by ethnic boundaries.  The West Bronx was an Irish enclave and if you lived there the expectation was that you might be a cop, fireman or other public servant. Being Irish gave you an "in".  Italians had the criminal world and certain construction areas.  Jews were going to be bookkeepers or teachers generally.  Blacks had a lot of service jobs like doorman, train porters etc.  The final division was the the construction unions and each of them tended towards a particular nationality which got you into the apprentice program.

Hardly anyone thought this was wrong, it was simply the way it was, and it was expected that each group would take care of its own.  Clearly not everyone fit into these neat categories but many did and it helped if you weren't a rebel to live a pretty good life.

The way out of this was going to school, specifically college which was the path to a brighter future if you could afford it.  It was a tradeoff, the other jobs paid you something now while college was going to pay off in the future.  Something I heard a lot when I was a teenager was I like to work with my hands so college is a waste.  This all started to break down in the 60s and the greatest revelation for many was the time spent in the Service.

You might have went in as an Irish New Yorker but you came out as an American.  For many of us it was the first time we had interactions with people who didn't share our exact backgrounds.  Whatever our differences we had being American in common and while we were going home when we got out, if we got out, none of that mattered then.

I'm not sure where this happens now for the the people who don't go to college.  In college you have a somewhat similar experience without the danger, but if you grow up and simply get the expected job after high school you inhabit an insular world defined by people like you and everyone else.

Without any real scientific basis I think this explains why we see such divisions now-a-days.  The way people vote and the views they hold reflect this division.  We need to figure out how to make everyone realize we are all in this together and an American is an American even if he disagrees with you on something.