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NO ONE has “dealt with it” more that American black people. That is the reason some of you can alledge that there is racial equality in America. We have dealt with it, and prospered in the face of institutional, overt, and covert discrimination. Take Ms. Loving here, for example.

I think the disconnect is that you all can’t (or don’t want to) make the distinction between making an excuse and giving a valid reason. There isn’t a movement of black people saying, “give us money, we used to be slaves”. There isn’t a black majority that calls black people to arms or advocates civil disobedience for reperations. Farking Affirmative Action is so yesterday that it hasn’t been mentioned ONCE in a presidential election battle between TWO DEMOCRATS. The whole argument that blacks use slavery as a “crutch” is simply a way to undermine the significance of its impact. No black person has ever gone to court and alleged that they committed a crime because their ancestors were slaves. No one has ever alleged that slavery made their child under perform on a test. To understand its effect you only have to look at these threads to read the opinions about black people.

Racism was necessary to keep this country finacially stable. White people had to dehumanize blacks so that they could commit atrocities against them with a clear conscience. Its hard to sell a woman’s child if you think of her a a person. Well, I’ve read a lot today about changing the attitudes of blacks, but no one has mentioned that white people need some re=education as well. You don’t think of people as inferior to you for 400+ years and then just magically let go of all of your foolish misconceptions and bigotry. It goes both ways.

Cultures develop. Values get passed down. Immigrants in this country taught their kids “Work hard, and you can get ahead.” Slaves in this country taught their kids “Work hard, and all that you have will be taken from you and you’ll be beaten for being uppity.” White people taught their kids “they can sing pretty, but they’ll never be as smart or as skilled as we are.”, and added in a whisper “and if they ever get smart or free, god help us all because they’ll raise up and kill us in our beds.” These things get passed down in overt and subtle ways.

You are correct that people who make excuses for their lot in life are going to fail. What you seem to be missing is that some people who make no excuses will also fail, and sometimes by no fault of their own. Fate does that to some of everyone. Institutionalized racism does that to more black people than white people. It expresses itself in bad schools, in police harassment, in dismissive treatment, in neighborhoods with few opportunities, and the absence of social safety nets that make it possible for them to pursue opportunities, extra notice given to race, and also in overt acts of racism.

Poverty and every other ill associated with it affects descendants of black people kept as slaves in America at much higher rates than any other group. You either believe that that is a result of the treatment of their ancestors and their treatment in the present day, or you believe that they are, as a people, disinclined to work to improve themselves despite being given the same advantages as all other racial groups. Even if you believe that the latter is true, doesn’t it seem reasonable to think that the culture created by slavery and segregation might have something to do with the emergence of maladaptive behavior or attitudes?

What other explanations are there?