“Out of many; one people”
America is a nation of immigrants, and as a leading nation we have come a long way in combating prejudices and discrimination. However, we still have a long way to go.
In a special documentary aired on NBC, Tom Brokaw explores Americans civil rights progress and introduces new champions of change.
NBC News Special Correspondent Tom Brokaw will share his assessment of the nation’s civil rights progress and how Americans are addressing key issues based on his reporting for the upcoming special documentary, “Tom Brokaw Presents Bridging the Divide,” premiering on USA Network, on Friday, December 10 at 7/6c.
“TOM BROKAW PRESENTS BRIDGING THE DIVIDE”
Premieres Friday, December 10, 7/6c
The one-hour special, hosted by Brokaw and produced by Peacock Productions, looks beyond recent inflammatory headlines, sensational stories and politicized rhetoric to where our increasingly diverse country really stands on a range of civil rights issues. Speaking to a wide array of renowned experts, Brokaw explores the status of racism, gay rights, access for people with disabilities, bullying among kids and discrimination towards immigrants. He also introduces champions of change, ordinary citizens doing extraordinary work in communities around the country to help put an end to social injustices. The stories point to new direction and ways everyone can help to reach across barriers, overcome odds and foster a more united USA.
Geoff Garin of Hart Research Associates (D) and Glen Bolger of Public Opinion Strategies (R) will also release the results of the second annual “United or Divided” nationally representative survey, revealing American attitudes on many of the civil and human rights issues raised in the Brokaw special. Both the documentary and the poll are part of USA Network’s Characters Unite public service campaign to combat prejudice and intolerance.
Garin and Bolger will address:
Do Americans feel that the country is more or less divided today?
Has the economic recession made people more or less tolerant and accepting of others?
How do Americans grade the country on a year-end civil rights report card?
After a year of controversial headlines, how do Americans view Muslims in America, gay rights and bullying today?
Is President Obama or Sarah Palin, Republicans or Democrats, considered to be doing more to unite or divide the country?
How have attitudes changed since the first survey a year ago?
In an interview, Tom Brokaw shares the progress of America as a nation.
The Intolerance on Blacks vs. Gays in America:
Tom Brokaw: When you look at how African Americans were treated, they could not go to the same school, they could not drink out of water fountains, they were not given opportunities in education or higher education or in the corporate workplace. I lived in Omaha in the 1960’s, I do not remember a black retail corp downtown or if you went into a bank, there was not a teller that was black.
I worked at a station which had only one black employee and he was the janitor. There were no other people who were African Americans working. We do not have that kind of discrimination in this country when it comes to gays and their opportunities in the workplace. They are still subjected to too much discrimination but it is not on par with what is going on with African Americans. The fact that we are now dealing with people who are now coming out of the closet in a much more open and honest fashion than 20 years ago. It really began in the late 1960’s that this movement began to lift off and people with every passing year have an enlightened attitude about it. We have made considerable gains, but there is still a long way to go.
Outlook on Intolerance in America:
Tom Brokaw: People have enormous anxieties about their personal economic insecurities and they tend to retreat behind their own ethnicity-their class. They do not have as much tolerance as they do during good times. This country has made enormous strides in almost all of these areas, but we still have a long way to go. If you look at the young people who are in schools now, they are far more color blind and far more tolerant, because they are going to integrated schools, they are seeing integrated television commercials, integrated television programs and they are seeing artists in a much different way in our media. A lot of this can break down along generation lines, but it is a slowly rising tide. The tide is rising slowly for a lot of people and that becomes frustrating, but it is engaged on a regular basis, and that is how we will make progress.
Comparing the United States to the world on discrimination and intolerance:
Tom Brokaw: There is nothing like us. We are an immigration nation. No other nation in the world has the kind of multi-cultural population like the United States does; in the dimension we do. People come from all over the world here, and bring with them their faith, their skin color, and their cultures, and we find a way somehow to work together. If you go to Western Europe, there are huge problems with the Muslim population. I was in Germany last year (2009) and a young Turkish student went into a coffee shop and was treated disdainfully. I was stunned by how the German clerk behind the counter was so dismissive of this person and not at all to me.