To Liberate Speech on Campus, Pop the 'Bubbles'
As opiate addiction rates have soared among displaced working-class whites in such previously unlikely places as Vermont and small-town Ohio, some of us cannot help but notice the increased interest in treating addiction as a disease, not a crime, as it usually was when the crack epidemic ravaged low-income black neighborhoods in the 1980s and '90s.
What a difference perceptions can make on public action. That's why I, as a liberal African-American, was thankful to see "Coming Apart" confirm an argument I had been making for years: Poverty, despite some media-driven perceptions, is not an issue for minorities only.
Unfortunately, the "cognitive elite," as Murray calls us, his fellow members of the college-educated classes, have become increasingly distanced and alienated from those who have not benefitted from an economy that rewards brains over muscle.
As a result, the elite's isolation grows and deepens as we pull back into our "bubbles" of self-interest and tribal loyalties.
That's why a lot of us received a jolting wake-up call on election night with Trump's upset victory. He's not the best messenger for the woes of economically struggling Americans, but he found the right message to win their votes.
Now, as Republicans struggle to find a way to replace Obamacare with "something terrific," as Trump promised, Grand Old Party leaders are surprised to find how divided they are over values and ideas within their own party. Bubbles everywhere.
That, too, offers a lesson to today's students. If you want to succeed in the next America, get out of your bubbles. The world outside needs you.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
(c) 2017 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
