[Magdalen] Fwd: Re: [HoB/D] Charleston

[Cantor03 at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/23/2015 9:56:20 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, 

There is  also, sadly, Christian privilege, in the  US. >>>>
 
 
The picture of the USA being such a polyglot nation with a myriad
of racial and ethnic groups is, at least in my experience, a  relatively
new concept after 1968 and the passage of the Immigration and
Nationality Act of 1965.
 
It is a concept that I have come to embrace, but that polyglot picture  was
not what I thought of the USA prior to the Johnson administration in  the
1960's.  If you'd have asked me what the USA was in 1960, I would  have
said something like "an extension of European civilization in the New
World".
 
Sure, there have always been a variety of ethnic and racial groups in 
the USA, but with the exception of Blacks, they were marginal and
not mainstream.
 
Who would have thought that a US President from Texas would sign
legislation that amounted to a complete rethinking of what the USA is
all about, and open the floodgates to non-European immigration?
 
These changes were not given a lot of notoriety, and relatively  quietly
commenced without any real public debate, which is odd considering
they initiated a profound turn of direction for the USA.
 
The concept that the USA was primarily a Christian nation, which was
associated with the Eurocentric idea prevalent before 1965, was,
of necessity, jettisoned.  That, in particular, is very hard for some  to
fathom.  
 
I, for one, am happy with the browning of America, but it's important
to remember how far some of us have come in the past half-century.
 
 
David Strang.