Race Relations...

Let's start here... when black people blame systematic racism for their troubles, it's counter-productive... you can't drive an excuse, you can't live in a crutch, and lowered expectations that come along with a persecution complex are neither helpful nor healthy... additionally, this perceived excuse-making plays right into the hands of the massive counter surge against political correctness and white guilt... right now, many white Americans are pissed off about affirmative action, and any other government program that seems to give preferential treatment to people of color... so, when black leaders "play the race card" so to speak, it pours kerosene an a growing racist bonfire that threatens to engulf the recent progress we've made as a country regarding race relations...

That having been said, we need to also agree as white people that the two-fold common place arguments of "slavery was a long time ago" and "get over it" are equal parts highly insensitive, historically ignorant, and morally shameful...

As for the "slavery was a long time ago" thing, I'll stipulate that slavery is in fact several generations in the past, if the white population in general will stipulate that the end of slavery did not mean the end of discrimination... most fair-minded educated white people are aware of poll taxes, Jim Crow laws, lynchings, and segregation as common examples that make the case against the "slavery was a long time ago" excuse for racist white people to continue their hateful ideology... but some lesser known examples involve low interest but large scale federal lending programs for home ownership and college education... the federal government basically created a generation of college educated home owners but excluded American black people from participating in any of these federal programs... not until Richard Nixon's presidency were American black people eligible for federal loans to buy their first home or send their children to college... as absolutely any sociologist can tell you, all empirical evidence suggests that if your parents graduated from college and own their own home, your chances of doing the same increase tangibly and dramatically... in other words, the federal government manufactured a huge percentage of the American middle class, but did not allow American black people to participate... so again, I agree that slavery was a long time ago... but the rest of white America has to begin realizing that methodical and legalized discrimination didn't end until the 1970's... and the 1970's was not "a long time ago..."

As for the "get over it" argument, I want to share a quick story from the family history of one of my dear friends... his mother and her parents stopped for gasoline on a road trip to visit relatives... my friend's mother had to use the restroom, but the attendant told her they had no colored restroom... that story really personalized our racial history in my mind, and it really got me thinking about why many black people are pissed off at America... I mean, if I lived in a country that wouldn't let my mother use a public restroom when she was a little girl, I'd be pissed off too... and nearly every American black person between the ages of 25 and 45 had parents who lived through segregation... really try to walk in those shoes for a few seconds... really think about it... your MOTHER spent her childhood in a country where her legal status was as a second class citizen, and where many white people treated her with hate and mean spiritedness... your MOTHER... and then some c*cksu**er in a suit on Fox News verbalizes or at the very least insinuates that you should suck it up and "get over it?" Get the f**k out of my face with that bu**sh*t...

I really think that if American black people would collectively stipulate that using historical prejudice as a weapon to fight modern race-based injustice is counter-productive, and if American white people would collectively stipulate that historical prejudice has a legitimate lasting effect on modern race-based inequality, it would go a long way toward building an America that affords equal opportunities and makes us all equally proud...