Two things I’d like to add to your great post:
1) IM2 goes on about how blacks have been victimized by whites for 400 years - as if there are 400-year-old blacks walkimg around. In fact, the converse is true: Any black under 60 today has spent his entire adult life enjoying favoritism over whites for college spots, for jobs, for promotions.
2) You are so right about it all being about making responsible choices (and having other traits - like discipline, motivation, intelligence, etc.). The blacktivists and leftists hate when I give this example, since it proves that you can’t blame failure on bigotry, but my parents (and their siblings) were the sons and daughters of uneducated, impoverished Jewish immigrants who fled European persecution. They grew up in tenements in the 30s and 40s, were so poor that dinner was a chicken wing and watered down soup, and lived through their European families being murdered by Hitler.
Despite all that, their families were self-sufficient (no food stamps and Medicaid then, either), and my parents and their siblings went from their youth in inner-city tenements to middle-class life in the suburbs in the space of 10 years. They still had plenty of obstacles - antisemitism was very strong in the 1940s - but they didn’t cry about it, and instead did what was necessary to move forward.
When I suggest that the black underclass should model themselves after the children of poor immigrant Jews of 100 years ago - studying hard and emphasizing higher education, certainly not having babies before marriage, and making sacrifices for future goals - they get all defensive and aggressive with the excuses.
Finally, I’ve asked this question dozens of times, and no blacktivist will answer: If racism explains why ghetto blacks can’t move forward, why have MOST blacks moved beyond that and live working-class or middle-class lives? What’s different about those blacks?