gainesvol82
Wifey scrunch face
- Joined
- May 7, 2008
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Many of the poorer European immigrants to the United States would probably disagree with you as they tried to eek and scratch out a survival in their ghettos and slums. But hey at least they were white and had all that privilege.
I am not discounting the horrors and evils that black folks have had to endure over the years. I am merely pointing out that the problem is much more of a socioeconomic problem than it is a race problem. If it was then there wouldn't be a diverse set of people in Congress, playing professional sports, sitting on the boards of companies, running their own businesses, etc.
Rich folks tend to have more opportunity and poor folks less. The question is how do we help poor folks have more opportunity. I don't know the answer but I know the gubment is definitely not the answer. They've been screwing it up since they started trying to fix it.
This is also a good post. I do think systemic racism exists in certain institutions in America but I know firsthand that having or not having money/opportunity is the biggest contributor to quality of life and how you are treated by police, courts, banks, etc.
I have a great life now but I have been on the short end of the stick with the justice system when I was in a place where I didn't have money/opportunity. I did time for something that anyone with enough money to hire an attorney would have never spent jail time for and then got hit with years of probation...you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you what is was for.
Now, I take responsibility for being at a place in my life where I had very little money, no opportunity(no vehicle and living in a community with literally no jobs and no public transportation). I made some mistakes to end up there. My point is that people in situations and places like that have very little margin for error. One thing goes wrong and you are in a very difficult position to get out of and the system is designed to keep you in it. People in communities like this are treated the same regardless of race....they are all treated like shite because they are poor.
I got lucky and someone let me use their vehicle to drive to a job 45 mins to an hour away. I worked hard, got back on my feet, got a better job, moved to a better area and made 6 figures last year. Would that person have let me use their vehicle had I been black? I doubt it. Would my current employer have looked past the probation if I was black? Yes, but only because of the skills I had from years of success in my field. I wouldn't have those skills if I had grown up in the community I lived in at the time.
I agree that the bigger issue is socioeconomic but man...being poor sucks but being poor and black is even more difficult to overcome, especially when you are born into hopelessness and it's all you've ever known.