RangerDave wrote:
Studies consistently show that people (including black people themselves) are more fearful and suspicious of and less likely to trust black people, less inclined to hire black people, less likely to offer assistance to a black person, etc. Whether or not (or to whatever extent) those prejudices have some rational basis in statistics like crime rates and and so on, it's gotta suck for all the regular, perfectly decent black people who have that **** stacked against them.
Yeah, it has to. However, regular, perfectly decent black people who have that **** stacked against them still do well in America, despite all the bullshit. The only thing keeping the "black community" down is itself. If they stopped their voluntary segregation and assimilated with America...this would end.
In Canada there's no such thing as "black culture." Black is just another skin colour here, no more relevant than hair colour or eye colour. You can't tell by listening to someone born in Canada talk what colour their skin is. There is no racial divide, because there is no race. Oh, you can still tell with first generation immigrants - the Jamaican, Nigerian, Ethiopian, or Haitian accents will give it away, but that's not because they are black, it's because they are Jamaican, Nigerian, Ethiopian or Haitian.
In America, you have a problem. You've allowed two opposed cultures to develop based solely on the color of their skin. White people were initially responsible for this, but at this point, it's the black community that perpetuates it. This counterculture permeates even the language you speak. You find a black man who has fully integrated with the rest of American society, and close your eyes and listen to him speak, and you can no longer tell the color of his skin. I don't understand this aspect of American culture, but until you resolve it, your problems with racism are never going away.
Edit: I have no data or case study to support this, but I have a suspicion, that if three men showed up to apply for a job in St. Louis: (1) a well dressed black man with a typical St. Louis Missouri accent, (2) A well dressed black man with a foreign/African accent, and (3) a well dressed black man speaking ebonics, 1 and 2 are almost equally likely to get that job as a white guy. The 3rd guy can **** off. I don't think most "racism" is about race anymore. It's about language and culture.