Race in today's America?

Being for equality is nothing short of socialism. I am for equal opportunity for all. If that equates to equality, it will do so if all work equally hard. Some will have more because they sacrificed more, invested in education and took risk. Others will not have as much because they did less with their opportunities. Of course their life styles should NOT be equal. Work hard = get more.

I do not personally know anyone who was a former slave, or their parent, or their parent's parent. People born in the last 40 years started life with the same rights and opportunities as you and I. The variable in the equation iw what was done with that opportunity.

Problems arise when people try to get special privileges based on their race, gender or sexual preference. Bottom line, they should not. Affirmative action is one such failure. Give the job to the most qualified candidate, color gender or preference not withstanding and end the nonsense.

As members of the dominant culture, you and I are not in a position to say that there's no racism, no discrimination, no inequality. That's like men saying that women are not oppressed or discriminated against.

Have you asked any of the 15 African-American kids at your school about their opinion on this subject? Do you and any of them know each other well enough to have a high degree of trust, that they could feel secure in answering your questions honestly?

I don't think you're spoiled in the usual sense, or self-centered in a bad way. I know that my identity is not built around the fact that my skin is pale - except that it IS. In the broader culture, if it wasn't pale, my life and identity in the world would definitely be different than it is today. I had the eye-opening, mind-blowing experience of moving from my small, all-white towns in rural Pennsylvania to a school campus whose racial/cultural breakdown was about 85% inner-city black youths, 5% rural black, 7% Latino, and 3% white *and other*. There were about 600-800 kids living there at any time, and I lived there just about a year. No one was overtly mean to me (any more than any other teenage school situation), but I definitely learned first hand what it means to be in the minority. I believe the majority there enjoyed the new balance of power, but I didn't feel that they abused it.

As long as you live in your white world, you probably will continue to not see the inequality - but that doesn't mean it isn't there!

Equality of opportunity, equal treatment under the law and within society, does not mean sameness. There are lots of differences and that's a good thing. The only thing that shouldn't be different is basic civil and human rights, but they are. Education and employment opportunities, police and judicial treatment, access to health care, all these vital aspects of life are very different according to your skin color, gender, sexual orientation, place of birth, native language, etc etc.

This is a huge issue, and it's going to be huge for many generations to come. The best we can do is try to understand our neighbors both near and far, and work toward justice for everyone everywhere.

You've raised lots of important questions, and this forum isn't sufficient for answering them fully. The article and video linked below express the basic foundations of both privilege and lack thereof, and everything that is built upon those foundations.

Thanks for asking!

no man or woman race/subculture motives the most crime. we are all people after all. the folk who reason the most crime are the ignorant, racist, selfish and stupid. regrettably its in mankind's nature to be all of those issues.