An Army of Normal Folks - The Carpet Capital of The World

Episode Date: July 26, 2024

75% of the world's carpets and rugs are produced in Dalton, Georgia. For our latest "Shop Talk", Coach Bill tells the community's powerful assimilation story that's made it possible.  Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney, Shop Talk Number 18 headed your way in just a few minutes. We're going to talk about a hot button issue, but maybe with a little twist on it. We're going to talk immigration as it pertains to carpet right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. It started with a backpack at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games, a backpack that contained a bomb. While the authorities focused on the wrong suspect, a serial bomber planned his next attacks, two abortion clinics, and a lesbian bar.

But this isn't his story. It's a human story. One that I've become entangled with. I saw as soon as I turned the corner, basically someone bleeding out. The victims of these brutal attacks were left to pick up the pieces, forced to explore the gray areas between right and wrong, life and death. Their once ordinary lives, and mine, changed forever. It kind of gave me a feeling of pending doom.

And all the while, our country found itself facing down a long and ugly reckoning with a growing threat. Far right, homegrown, religious terrorism. Listen to Flashpoint on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever carried a torch for someone? It's all about the athletes. Simone Biles is about to be taken on the ride of her life astrologically. Anthiculture. I'm Matt Rogers. And I'm Bowen Yang. We're the two guys.

Listen to Two Guys, Five Rings on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app. Search Two Guys, Five Rings and start listening. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the all new podcast, There and Gone. It's a real life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck and vanished. Nobody hears anything. Nobody sees anything.

Did they run away? Was it an accident or were they murdered? A truck and two people just don't disappear. The FBI called it murder for hire. It was definitely murder for hire for Danielle, not for Richard. He's your son, and in your eyes he's innocent, but in my eyes he's just some guy my sister was with.

In this series, I dig into my own investigation to find answers for the families and get justice for Richard and Danielle. Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, immigration. Boy, are we arguing about that right now. And let's be clear, I think the vast majority of people, regardless of where they fall on the immigration issue, really what we're talking about is illegal immigration. I haven't found anybody that's anti-immigration. But how we handle the southern

border has become basically a political football. And I don't want to get into the politics of it. I really don't. Because I'm going to be just really candid here. I do think the Biden administration has largely failed on immigration issue. But also believe the Trump administration failed. I believe the Bush administration failed. I believe the Obama administration failed. I believe the Obama administration failed. I think we've been failing on the immigration issue for two or more decades and probably even longer. So this conversation is not about the political football. It's about the humanity.

I've really hesitated to even do this because I understand why it's such a hot topic. And I also understand that an open border can lead to all kinds of problems. And I'm happily readily to admit that if you don't have a secure border and you don't know who's coming into your country, you can have all kinds of issues. I'm also hoping the same people that say that understand that human beings that just want a better life still deserve an opportunity at that life. And we have a thing called the Statue of Liberty that proclaims that our republic welcomes the tired, the hungry, and the huddled masses. And our strength is our diversity. And throughout our time, we have had different groups of people from different areas of the

world dominate the immigration question. At one time, it was the Irish. Another times, it was Italians. Today, it seems to be Hispanics. We can talk about the issue in political, open, reasonable policy discussions and argue that. But I'm not here to do that. What I'm here to talk about is the humanity of it. What does that have to do with carpet? Well, you may know this, but Georgia is the carpet capital of the world. In fact, by the turn of the 21st century, four countries controlled more than 80% of the market for carpet being made in the United States. And all four of those companies were based in Maston, Georgia, in and around the area of Dalton, Georgia. Now, Dalton, Georgia is as southern, southeastern, kind of as you get. It's, it's, we're not talking about a booming metropolis here, but we are talking about an area that makes a lot of carpet. And the leading carpet maker there, Shaw Industries,

has been owned and led by this small businessman you might want to have heard of, might have heard of before. His name is Warren Buffett. It's got this company called Berkshire Hathaway. They're holding company, probably the most famous investor in the carpet business in the world and as such invested in Dalton, Georgia. What's important to understand is, is that the carpet industry had a serious labor problem back in the 80s into the 90s. In fact, manufacturers believed that the labor shortage threatened the existence of the carpet industry, especially in Georgia.

And so while trying to figure out what to do about this labor shortage, they recognized back then that, hey, there's all this Hispanic labor looking for good jobs. And so, Gautam, Georgia invited Hispanic labor to its area to man the carpet mills because it was such a massive part of the socioeconomics of that area of Georgia. And when they did, Hispanic workers came, many of them illegal immigrants. They started moving in large numbers. By 2000, the Georgia, the Darten area school district was Latino students were prior to 2000 Latino students were only 4% of the school's total population by 1995 that number increased to 1178 students representing 27% of the school's

total population and by 2002 Dalton Public Schools number 2987, 2,987 Hispanic kids representing 55% of the student population. Now some would say, oh my goodness, the Latino community is taking over the Dalton school system. Yeah. And Dalton invited them because their largest industry was faltering without them so much that according to Textile World magazine mill owners said the Hispanic workers were the saviors of the industry and it allowed the mills to remain in Dalton and keep labor costs in check and the truth is the people in Dalton, other than the Hispanic laborers, wouldn't take those jobs anyway.

So the point was, we invited the Hispanic labor here to take jobs that people from that area wouldn't take to the point that the owners, and we're talking about large companies here, Shaw Industries, owned by Berkshire Hathaway, said that the Hispanic workers were, quote, the saviors of the industry. Without them, that industry probably would have gone overseas. These do not seem like people that we should vilify, yet we do. So around that time in early 2000s, they started noticing a problem, which is assimilation. The Hispanic kids were struggling in school. The parents were struggling with their kids.

The communities around the schools were starting to struggle and it was because largely Hispanic speaking kids going to American schools being taught by teachers who didn't speak Spanish and it caused a problem. And there is where we start having these problems with immigration and assimilation because we have two cultures colliding, one inviting the other, the other happily coming so that they could make better lives for themselves, yet a cultural and communal issue that becomes contentious. And of course, the opportunity to vilify the Hispanics was there. Instead, in this area of the world, an interesting idea came up. And that interesting idea was brought forth by a United States congressman at the time, who was a World War II veteran by all counts of purposes, a very southern gentleman, always

wore seersucker suits or Alex, what are those suits called? Not seersuckers, but they're linen, white linen suits. I mean, you can imagine a Southern congressman in seersucker suits and white linen and the hat running around. And he went to visit schools and he noticed the enormous amount of Hispanic students in the schools.

And then he talked to the teachers and he talked to the people in the community and found out that there was this assimilation problem. And instead of vilifying the Hispanic people, he went to them and found out what's the problem. Well, the parents couldn't speak English, the kids were having a hard time speaking English, the teachers were having a hard time reaching them. And so as a result, there was a disconnect and there were behavioral issues and all of that.

Instead of saying, well, we got to deport him, we got to... He weighed the truths. And the truths were this massive industry had to have labor. That industry thusly invited labor to that area of the world. And then the systems, once the people got to that area of the world, weren't set up to allow them to simulate. So Erwin Mitchell came up with the Georgia Project. What the Georgia Project did, interestingly, was he was introduced to a guy by, well, the

owner of Shaw Industries, the president of Shaw had a relationship with a professor at the University of Monterey in Mexico. George Shaw introduced Congressman Mitchell to this guy in Monterey. And they came up with a plan and it became the Georgia Project and what that plan was, is they brought Hispanic teachers from Monterey into Dalton to help the kids start to learn English. And then they sent teachers from the Dalton County school systems to a one month intensive program during the summers to learn Spanish and Hispanic culture down the University of Monterey and brought them back to school with that knowledge.

So what happened was the Hispanic speaking students started speaking better English as a result of the Monterey teachers coming up and helping them. And the American teachers from Dalton started speaking a little bit of Spanish, at least understood it, understood culturally where these kids from, and they were able to start actually teaching the kids. And the most amazing thing happened. They started to assimilate. Not only did the teacher exchange help improve grades and education. The Latino children attending doctors public schools started having improved behavior. They started getting involved in

student government. They started getting involved playing sports. They started getting involved in the key club. They started getting involved in all kinds of stuff. And here we are 20 years later in Dalton, Georgia, of all places, because of the carpet industry needing labor and the labor finding their way to Dalton. And instead of villainizing one another, finding a way to work together, now there is this robust community of Hispanics and non-Hispanics living and working in Dalton and having their schools and their children in those schools be successful as a result of finding common ground as normal people recognizing the humanity and the need for one another and working out a way to come together.

The solution of the Georgia Project is the answer. Normal people recognizing the humanity in each other, regardless of where they came from, recognizing their need for one another, and coming up with solutions to make it work, rather than to separate into their corners, vilifying one another, and tearing one another apart. After its initial success, the Georgia Project

continued to expand and develop programs for the Latino children of Northwest Georgia. It continues, the Georgia Project continues to serve a successful model, a binational and multicultural, inspiring educators and community leaders throughout the United States. All born from a guy named Irwin Mitchell, a congressman from the South, a Southern gentleman, seeing the need for these kids to simply get an education and fully believing that if we could figure

out how to get them an education and get them assimilated, that beautiful things could happen. And today in Dalton, Georgia, the carpet industry continues robustly. The labor in and around that area continues to be borne largely by Hispanic workers, but they don't have nearly the cultural strife that many of the other areas of the world do with this one simple solution of immigration, which is working together and serving one another so that everybody can get what they need. I think it's a beautiful example of what our answer to the immigration issue is. Yeah, we got to have square borders. I agree with that.

But we also need to remember that we're dealing with human beings and that there are answers that normal people can come up with to serve one another so that we all benefit from the beauty of the American dream if we simply put aside all the preconceived notions we ignore all the narratives coming out of DC and New York designed to Divide us and we seek common sense, normal people driven solutions so that everybody wins. That's Shop Talk number 18. I hope you'll think about it the next time you hear

one side of the others complain about immigration and understand there are always workable solutions, but they come from normal folks serving one another. I'm Bill Courtney, I'll see you next week. Back in 96, Atlanta was booming with excitement around hosting the Centennial Olympic Games. And then, a deranged zealot willing to kill for a cause lit a fuse that would change my life and so many others forever, rippling out for generations.

Listen to Flashpoint on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. iHeartRadio is the exclusive audio home of NBC's coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics. Listen to what's happening right now at the Olympics on Two Guys, Five Rings, the essential iHeart podcast for the summer games. Have you ever carried a torch for someone? It's all about the athletes. Simone Biles is about to be taken on the ride of her life astrologically. And the culture.

I'm Matt Rogers. And I'm Bowen Yang. We're the two guys. Listen to Two Guys, Five Rings on America's the all new podcast, There and Gone. It's a real life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck and vanished. A truck and two people just don't disappear. The FBI called it murder for hire.

But which victim was the intended target and why? Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.