Thanks for your thoughtful reply, Doug. Racism has deep historical roots wherever it exists. Canada's with indigenous peoples is abysmal. Our prime minister said yesterday the murder of a 15-year-old girl shouldn't be seen as a "social phenomenon" and refused to order a federal inquiry of the 1,000 other murdered and missing aboriginal women. It's a national shame as black accommodation to civil society is yours.
Although guilt is always with us for our abusive neglect, my point is that blacks at the point of federal bayonets barely got their foot in the door to opportunities 50 years ago. They were considered subhuman and treated as such. Not to be disrespectful, I think of the analogy of older citizens looking upon the younger today as slack in observing the verities of work and responsibilities, "children bringing up children."
Ed's examples had a head start with educations, as did Obama. Most black Americans are offspring of downtrodden survivors or remember "this half-forgotten history of a system that bartered dignity for dollars, a painful reminder of the capacity to remain complacent in the midst of injustice," as MLK wrote in Why We Can't Wait and shook the nation to its foundations. No US group has made as much social and political progress over a generation.
Racism remains. Extremists will always be with us.
