The black memory in question is of white racism. It seems obvious that many African-Americans carry a residual anger against whites and against America as a result of centuries of slavery and racism. They therefore vote for the party most associated with policies (such as affirmative action) ostensibly designed to fight racism (meaning, always, white racism), and which frequently condemns alleged ongoing white racism.
If these memories accurately assessed today’s white, Christian and right-wing Americans, Jews’ and blacks’ overwhelming support for the Democrats would surely make sense. Indeed, they would mandate such voting. But these memories do not apply today, and therefore they are having a paralyzing effect on America’s Jews and blacks.
The fact is that most white Americans have changed; most are no longer racist. Regarding race, most white Americans would probably like nothing more than to forget about race, as they no longer deem either their own whiteness or blacks’ blackness to be of particular significance.
One reason is that most Americans are decent people, another is the non-racist education they have received. A third is the unprecedented personal and media exposure to blacks that this generation of whites has received. And a fourth reason is that in order to believe that skin color determines a person’s traits or worth, you have to be not only evil, you have to be an ignoramus; and regarding race, most Americans are no longer ignoramuses. They know too many wonderful people of all races.
As for Jews’ fears of American Christians, they are even less fact-based than blacks continuing anger at whites. American Christians were never the anti-Semites of Jewish memory. Those were European Christians who persecuted Jews for all those years, precisely the Christians that America’s (Christian) founders fled to establish this different society. American Jews’ fears of American Christians are therefore simply irrational, especially now when Christian Americans (outside of the National Council of Churches) are the Jews’ and Israel’s most loyal friends.
Memory also explains American Jews’ irrational fears of the Right. Because the Nazis are widely deemed far rightists (yes, Nazism stood for National Socialism, but no leftists or socialists considered it an ideological ally), Jews continuing to only look rightward for anti-Semitic threats is both silly and dangerous.
It is silly because it is like looking only to the right when you cross a two-way street because your grandfather was killed by a car coming from the right. And it is dangerous because since World War II, and at this very moment, the greatest anti-Semitism has come from the Left.
The result of all these misperceptions on the part of blacks and Jews is that the Democratic Party understands that in order to maintain its overwhelming black and Jewish support, it must abet black anger at whites and abet Jews’ fears of Christians and conservatives. And this they do well, to the great detriment of the country.
