...and I don't necessarily disagree with many of your points here. I wish I was better versed in sociology to be able to respond with better authority.

I agree that racism isn't the major factor that contributes to whether an individual succeeds or fails. At least not in this day and age. But there are wilder factors. Such as racism resulting in far higher levels of poverty among blacks, and that having a compounding effect. I think poverty explains more of our societal ills than any single other factor.

The one thing I noticed when I was younger and did more volunteer time at homeless shelters was that many of the people there just had a sense of defeatism. To the casual observer, it's easy to blame them for having this attitude, but once you start going into their life history, you can see how a series of events put them in that place. It's hard to be optimistic, much less be a hard worker who seeks to thrive, if you live in a household where parents teach their children to shoplift from grocery stores to get food.

All I'm saying is that these things don't happen in a vacuum. You're not going to trust the police if the idea of fearing them has been continually reinforced in your head with examples of police brutality and selective prosecution.

I once read about a fascinating experiment someone tried in some city (I wished I remember which) that had some nasty section of town, I guess they dubbed it skid row. The street was literally just litered with crack pipes, needles and condoms because the only people who would hang out there were dealers, junkies and hookers. Somebody got a bright idea, raised some funds and got a few volunteers, and overnight they swept the place up, painted a few buildings, and their biggest focus was on planting flowers along the curb. Guess what? The very next day the dealers, junkies, and hookers didn't go there. Now, they looked out of place and were uncomfortable being there.

I understand the idea of white resentment. It's a feeling that at one point in my life I shared. So I understand it. It is frustrating to think of all we've had to sacriface and work for to solve race relations, only to see less progress than was hoped, and then be told more needs to be done.

But we do face serious problems. One could go to the inner city and notice the place looks like a shit hole. You could blame the residents for it looking like a shit hole, but would you blame the residents of a suburb if a suburb looked unkept? I realized that I had, without knowing it, adopted a double standard when it comes to the poor, to Hispanics, and to blacks.

And the left certainly isn't blame-free on this. There are a lot of people on the left who say their goal is to lift the conditions of the poor, but will criticize anyone who shops at Wal-Mart, eats at McDonalds, or pays attention to sports.

All I can say is that this is a complex issue that's not going to get solved on a hooker message board, lol.

-- Modified on 10/31/2012 11:25:28 AM