I was with you most of the way, and a lot of what you said is true. But since your thread is a little off-topic, allow me to take it a little further off…
It’s very true that during that period, life sucked for a whole segment of “Americans”. Blacks, Irish, Italians, Jews, Chinese, Native Americans, etc. There are a couple differences that affect how things are now though:
- All of those groups except the blacks chose to come here. (Native Americans were already here.)
- As race relations changed, Irish, Italians, Jews and any of the other European immigrants (or peoples of ‘fair’ skin) were able to be absorbed into the group that considered themselves white, absolving them from the ‘on sight’ abuse and discrimination endured by the races/peoples with darker hues.
I also agree that the rights that were fought for in the 50’s and 60’s were everything you listed there. Pretty much equal treatment for everyone to be able to go anywhere, eat anywhere, shop anywhere, sit anywhere. But while that equality might be in the law books, it’s definitely not practiced everywhere in real life. Discrimination still exists (obviously), and the Trump campaign is capitalizing on all those people who feel like they’re better than others because of the color of their skin.
What are we fighting for today? Equal educational opportunities. (before the collegiate level.) Affordable neighborhoods. The right to not get pulled over because we look like the one black person the police sketch artist knows how to draw. The right to not get shot because the white police officer who pulled us over grew up in the suburbs and has no exposure to minorities.
Again, I agree with many of your points and I feel your heart is in the right place, I just feel a lot of people really don’t understand the frustrations of minorities in our country right now. Especially blacks.
