Continued to from part 1...
I say this to say that America has not truly changed as much as many would like to believe. Yes there are fewer lynchings, but they have not completely stopped. Yet the number of African Americans that get shot down – unarmed – or beaten by police has risen dramatically. Public transportation and schools and other places are not segregated anymore. That is de facto segregation. Public schools and inner city schools are routinely under-funded and ill-equipped. Not one of my siblings, nor I, went to a school with books nor other materials that were even remotely current. Oddly enough those same schools were predominantly non-white in their student over-population. Yet schools a mere 3 miles away with a different demographic did.
I can be in a car with a mix of people in it, but as I have recounted on my sites and posts if I am in the ‘wrong’ neighborhood I have had police pull me over for no reason to get a ticket. Or I have had guns pulled on me by police officers as the white occupants of the car are asked if they are ok, and if the vehicle is theirs. I’m not talking about these actions happening in a ‘ghetto’ or poor or high drug area. I mean West Hollywood, the Jersey Turnpike, Downtown Manhattan, the Westside of Binghamton and other areas.
Unemployment, Teen pregnancy, dropouts, jail sentences and drug abuse are all over-weighted and disproportionately affecting Black Americans, Hispanics, Latinos, and other minorities.
This is not to say there is no forward progress. Interracial dating exists and is not wholly despised. I do not get routinely assaulted with racial slurs. I have held, and hold, prominent positions in business. I own my own business and am unimpeded in my operations. Other members of my family have had equal, and are becoming even better, successes.
But the impression that there is no racism is abound like mana from heaven. Many of the youth feel that nothing holds them back. Many think that all the ‘talk’ about racism is old news. The reason is because the trappings are different. One Black man being harassed at gunpoint by the police is just an incident. One African American being shot to death while unarmed is tragic. But both of these items being repeated through out the nation many times are endemic of a problem. One Latino being charged more for a car purchase, one minority being given a higher interest rate on a mortgage is a bad negotiation. Millions being given these disproportionate rates is systemic.
The fact is that unlike the 60’s and 70’s the media do not connect the dots that so many live under. For all the technology at the hands of the youth today, there is no connection to facts in action. With so much information, applied like buckshot, many events don’t get coverage and are thus assumed to not exist. The Sean Bell case received less than 1/10th the airtime that the death of Anna Nicole Smith has gotten so far. Drop out rates have barely been mentioned in reports of how education is performing in the nation. The justice system is so convoluted that no one notices or reports the inequality there.
Continued in part 3 ...
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