Every group of Americans have been considered second class by the people here before them until they prove themselves in various ways and become American.
"Irish need not apply" comes to mind, as well as calling Italians "WOP's" (With Out Papers), the Japanese went through a shitstorm and yet every single one of those groups rose above the prejudices, so why cant blacks?
Let's see now, 400 years of institutionalized racism... that's why they have a hard time. I love it when you guys try to claim that your immigrant ancestors (and mine, for that matter) had it "worse" some how.
Were they property? Could they sell their children? Come on, get real.
I understand the idea they didn't come here willingly,
No, I don't think you understand the implications at all. You see, you bring up the Italians, who did come here willingly. What you don't realize is that if they wanted to, they could go back, and about half the Italian Immigrants from the 1910-1930 period in fact DID go back.
Even IF all the above is true, it is THEIR fault they wallow in the misery, everyone else managed to find a way out of it and to rise above, why cant they?
Can everyone else change their skin color? You see, funny thing. My Grandfather came here from Germany in the 1930's. He changed the pronunciation of his last name and stopped calling himself "Ludwig" and started calling himself "Louis" . Today I am the last member of my family who speaks any German, and I speak it BADLY. So we gave up a lot to be Americans, but at the end of the day, it was our choice.
Blacks haven't been given that choice, that's the problem.
I am sorry but NOONE has owned another human in the STATES since 1865. I do NOT owe anyone a penny for slavery No person living today in the US that is not a Human trafficker does. No black has been a slave since 1865. No black alive today was is or will be a slave they are owed nothing from the US Government. Further more before the Democrats decided to SAVE them in 1965 and on Blacks were hard working PROUD people. Since then most are shiftless consumed by jealous and have no pride at all. Only a prideless people would demand others pay their way when those others owe them NOTHING.
I am black and I know better what blacks have been than your white ass. Slavery did not end in 1865.
After emancipation, Blacks were arrested, tried, found guilty and sent to prison for crimes such as vagrancy, cussing in front of whites, jaywalking and other minor or non offenses for whites. Because of this, they could be returned to slavery and were. This free labor was called convict leasing. There has been no amendment to change this part of the 13th Amendment meaning that in reality slavery could still exist in America today. After slavery ended:
Employment was required of all freedmen; violators faced vagrancy charges
•Freedmen could not assemble without the presence of a white person
•Freedmen were assumed to be agricultural workers and their duties and hours were tightly regulated
•Freedmen were not to be taught to read or write
•Public facilities were segregated
•Violators of these laws were subject to being whipped or branded.
And sent back into slavery. For people like Bill O’Rielly, convict leasing would be a great thing, because blacks got “free” meals and a place to live. The major problem with such an assessment is that free means you get something for nothing, not hours of hard labor. Convict leasing was a cruel and inhumane system rife with abuse. Using the laws of the state, blacks were sent to prison and their labor contracted out or leased to individuals or companies. This was free labor no different from slavery. It is an example of how whites have played wth the law in order to maintain a system of white racial preference.
Far too many people want to argue about things said without an understanding of the depth and length of things that have and continue to occur. “For example, among the county convicts working in the Pratt Mines of Birmingham, Alabama in 1890:
•24 men were incarcerated for using “obscene language,”
•Another 24 for “false pretense” — a statute used to punish black men who changed employers before the end of the farming season, and
•Seven for vagrancy, another ill-defined charge that left any unemployed black person vulnerable to arrest.
In Alabama, the convict-leasing system remained on the books until 1928.”