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I tried really, really hard to stay out of this conversation because it is nauseating. So I thought I would skip all the preliminaries and just ask the question that always begs to be answered but all concerned are too chicken shit to touch.
I want an explanation as to why the existence of urban ghettos and rural 'black neighborhoods' (they were normally called nigger towns when I was growing up in the '70s but, you know, that is totally irrelevant) is the result of a lack of 'personal responsibility' on the part of the black Americans who live in them and not the lingering results of reconstruction and racism? That's what these arguments always need to come down to so why do we stop pussyfooting around and cut to the chase.
What is it about black people (that is unique from white people) that keeps them so disproportionately numbered in ghettos and 'black neighborhoods'? Being that things are equal and all, you know. Surely there must be something, uh, special about black people that makes them choose to live there...what is it? Because if you believe that the perpetuation of these places is the result of a failure of the people who live in them to take 'personal responsibility' for their lives then you must have some equally simplistic views on the motivating factors that keep them there. Therefore, they should be simple to explain here. Somehow, no one ever seems to want to go there though. It's so odd. They think the snide road ends at 'personal responsibility' with no need to take it to its logical conclusion. Wow, how very conservative meme-like.
I beg to differ.
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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce
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