Quote:
|
Originally Posted by ottopilot
Which institutional barriers are you referring to? How about making the argument only about racists without regard to THEIR ethnicity. The country will not move forward as long as we allow special categories for justified racism. Political correctness and ethno-centric rationalizations have neutered our collective sensibility for personal responsibility. We go forward by getting over it and moving on.
|
I made reference to a few of the more obvious institutional barriers in my earlier post:
* redlining (as well as rollbacks in the Community Reinvestment Act by the Bush administration) - that discourage investment in minority communities
* public education funding - a financing system based on property tax that creates spending disparities per/student in suburban (or high property value school districts) vs inner city (minority) or rural (white) districts. While this is an income issue rather than simply a race issue, it disproportionately impacts inner city minorities.
* the criminal justice system and sentencing disparities between white and black defendents
I can offer more examples when I have time, but if you dont think blatant and subtle racism and/or barriers to "equal opportunity" still exists, there is no point.
And if you believe that the only way to have an honest and open national discussion on race relations is to frame that discussion in terms of "good blacks" versus "bad blacks" or "its all THEIR fault"...there is no point.
Its easy to say "get over it and move on" as you suggest above....its much more difficult to say "despite the gains made as a result of the long overdue civil rights legislation of the 60's, there are still barriers that make it more difficult for all citizens to achieve the American dream."
And in either case, these are complex issues that need to be discussed without the fallback on such simplistic and emotional responses as placing all the blame on one side or the other.