According the the main stream media, we live in an age of colorblindness. Across the board they repeat the refrain - the Civil Rights Movement created equal opportunity for all. Here are some recent examples. From the Washington Examiner - “Race relations in America have never been better." From The Economist - “Before the 1960s…most blacks were poor…almost none were to be found flourishing…None of that is true today.” And the Wall Street Journal, “The civil-rights battles of the 1960s have been fought and won…The racial disparity that persists today…is evidence that too few blacks…have taken advantage of the opportunities now available to them.”
The only blindness here is their own refusal to face the facts. In all measures of well-being, minorities face a system of inequality that denies them equal opportunity to achieve the "American Dream". Choose any area - quality education, access to health care, employment & income, housing, etc - and what you will see is deep, structural inequality. And by most measures, the situation is getting worse, not better.
Two statistics demonstrate how grossly unequal American society is. The first is wealth. In 2013 the average white American had a net worth (assets minus liabilities)12 times that of African Americans. The second is incarceration rates. Black males are 7 times more likely to be incarcerated than white males. These two factors alone (and unfortunately there are many, many others) have a devastating effect on the black community.
It's time for us to take the racial blinders off.
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