Like we did for the asians, irish, and indians?


>>Having said that, I return to an argument I've made many times before and that is that we already live in a virtual color-blind society and that the greatest future for everyone is to stop talking about race, get rid of affirmative action, and get folks more involved with individual accomplishment. Want to know what good race relations are? Treat everyone like a human being. Make all opportunities equal. That's the big secret.
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>John - I agree that the goal is a color-blind society (or more accurately, one where color is simply a descriptor of appearance), and I see hopeful signs for it in my kids' generation.
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>However, I also thought that Obama was on the money when he talked about the ways in which discrimination in the past has influenced people today. Rather than try to paraphrase, I'll quote two paragraphs:
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>"Legalized discrimination — where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments — meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.
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>A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families — a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods — parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement — all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us."
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>We need to address the results of those inequities and help black families catch up before we can decide that we're done.
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>Tamar