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peterwwillis

It is not my responsibility to teach you basic American history. But here's some things to get you started.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/white-fl...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight#United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Migration_(Africa...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_African-Americ...

Read them or don't, I don't really care, but if you want to be less ignorant of how this developed these are useful starting points.

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So what should white people have done/what should they do, to not be guilty of these terrible social sins that appear to be their fault no matter what actions they take?

In a sentence? They need to do something to help.

In a larger sense: they should recognize that the entire American society was splintered a long time ago by racism and it never un-splintered. A metric fuck-ton of work needs to be done to rehabilitate the communities and whole socioeconomic strata that have been affected by this. It will probably take 20-50 years to undo, just because so many people have this "It's not my fault, so fuck it, I don't need to do anything" attitude.

Societies do not self-heal.

I don't know about you, but I am responsible for my own actions. I don't need a hug from Whitey or anyone else to know the difference between right and wrong, or hard work versus sloth. If you do, I feel bad for you son. I choose the action, I choose the consequence, same as pretty much anything else on this planet.

When you chose to leave Michigan, were you faced with endemic discrimination while looking for a place to live? While buying a home? While shopping? While walking around town doing nothing wrong? While driving while black?

It's not that Black people's choices are bad, it's the racist responses to those choices that are the problem.

Endemic discrimination while renting an apartment? Nope.

Owning a house? Haven't achieved that yet, but I haven't exactly been trying.

While shopping? Nope.

Walking around town? Nope.

Driving? If I'm speeding and/or driving like an idiot, I get attention from the cops. My driving record isn't exactly squeaky clean, but each infraction is because I was making the choice to not follow the rules of the road.

Sorry if my experience doesn't fit a different narrative, but in my experience if I'm looking/acting like an idiot I get treated as such. Nothing that is outside of my control though.

Are you uninterested in familiarizing yourself with the data that show that people of color have an unfairly different, damaging, and too often deadly experience?

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