My white grandpas went to college on the GI Bill

I’m proud of both of them. They both served our country (during the Korean War and in the Air Force ROTC). My great-grandpa was a translator in WWI.

They both went to college on the GI Bill and learned how to be engineers. In fact, they both obtained advanced degrees from Steven’s Institute of Technology, although they didn’t meet until years later when my parents started dating! One of them got to attend a lecture by Einstein, which I think is so cool.

They both have patents related to engineering: for telecommunications infrastructure, for radio antenna designs.

They both made sound home purchasing decisions and retired much wealthier than they started out.

I’m proud of them and they earned what they got through serving our country, through study and hard work, and through good financial judgment.

They also had doors open to them that black GIs their age never had.

After WWII, black (and women) GIs were technically allowed to pursue degrees and purchase homes at the federal level, but state implementations for veterans were implicitly, and often explicitly, designed to prevent that from happening. Black GIs were funneled into vocational schools (nothing wrong with vocational schools but for those who wanted higher degrees, this was a missed opportunity) and neighborhoods with the least economic opportunity.

Racial justice isn’t about tearing down or feeling ashamed of my ancestors’ accomplishments. (You do not have to feel guilty. Feeling guilty has no practical good effect.) It’s about looking at the whole system with both eyes open, and building up our neighbors who were artificially kept out of it in the past.

—The Polite Liberal