Kenosha

[Walter Sobchak]

People of color who still don't have equality in our society have been saying this for 4 centuries. Fuck right outta here with your couple of months. You should be thankful that the goal is equality rather than revenge.

I quote Lincoln's second inaugural address:



And Thomas Jefferson:

dude come on, black people are not systemically oppressed in America anymore. and I don't know if you know this or not but most of these rioters are WHITE losers, I'm not trying to say this is a black problem

I disagree with this but leaving that aside for the moment, the cumulative effect of our history has never been accounted for nor has any significant effort or resources been put into undoing their effects.

Real question, from a white dude’s perspective, seems to me that blacks in the 60s pretty much had their shit together, they just wanted equal rights and would have been fully capable of being successful. Now all of a sudden, 50-60 years later, this generation claims that the wrongs of 400 years ago won’t allow them to be successful thus they should be given a bunch of free shit. I guess my question is, why do the blacks of the 60s seem far more advanced?

Extremely complicated question. Deserves its own thread. Let me first say that you're right.

A lot of the answer has to do with the reduction in social mobility in recent decades. Routes from poverty into the middle class are not there like they were at that time. Just having a job, basically any job, and one income per family was enough then and it is not now. This is not unique to blacks and it affects millions of poor and disaffected whites too, who have many of the same problems but they manifest differently and also are not treated in our discourse in a racialized manner in the way that problems in the black community are. Trump's appeal to whites in this category in contrast to Hillary's complete lack of understanding of the situation is what got him elected, even though Trump doesn't actually give a fuck and is busy making things worse. Not to derail it and make it about Trump.

Another part of it is the shift in recent decades toward a crueller, more punitive society. Cut mental health and education, build more prisons. Don't address housing and affordable health care, and so on. It's a recipe for disaster, and again not just for blacks though it does disproportionately affect people of color.

Ok, I'll enjoy jousting with you gents more on this topic soon but I gotta get some work done. Somebody has to pay taxes and subsidize those freeloading red states.