I'll talk about it happily.
I've worked with black people, and native americans, and japanese people, and homosexuals, and even canadians. In my experience, some people are bastards, and others are decent human beings. So far, I haven't noticed any correlation between heritage and behavior.
What I have noticed is a correlation between education and behavior, and poverty and behavior, and life experience and behavior.
Getting a poor education can lead to people being ignorant pricks. Unfortunately, our government schools do a lousy job of educating people.
Being poor can lead to people being hateful pricks with no hope. Unfortunately, our economy is causing a lot of people to be poor.
Having little or no life experience can lead to people being ignorant, hateful pricks. Unfortunately, when you're poor and uneducated you tend to be lacking in life experience.
But while those things can lead to that kind of behavior, they don't have to. I've known poor, uneducated people who've never left the state who are kind god fearing neighbors.
Do black people face these problems? Sure. In some parts of the country. But you can find poor, uneducated people in other parts of the country who are white too.
One of my coworkers grew up in Chicago, and he used to complain about how the black people would move into a neighborhood and ruin it and drive all the whites out of town. Then they'd move into the next neighborhood over and the whole process would begin again. They'd drive down house values, and leave junk vehicles on their lawns, and do drugs and drink alcohol in public. He thought this was because they were black. I tried to explain to him that it had more to do with education and poverty than melanin, but he wasn't listening.
You can look around the city I live in, and find lots of white people who are uneducated, ignorant scumbags. They are a fine example of all the worst humanity has to offer. Drug abuse. Child abuse. Spousal abuse. Self abuse. And they're white through and through.
I get pissed when someone tells me I'm a racist because I take part in a system that's "inherently racist," or, "built on racism." I wasn't given an option to not take part in this system.
I get pissed when someone tells me that blacks, or asians, or muslims, or homosexuals are "the problem." That's crap. Personally, I think government is the problem.
I get pissed when people try to find excuses for their struggles in life instead of trying to find ways to work harder and do better. We've all got problems. Get over it. Get a second job like everybody else.
I get pissed when people use the terms bigotry, racism, and prejudice interchangably. They are seperate terms with seperate meanings. Bigotry is an irrational hatred of others because they are different. Racism is the belief that one race is genetically superior or inferior to another. Prejudice is a predetermined decision made about a subject without sufficient experiential knowledge. If I hate black people, I'm a bigot. If I think white people are smarter than black people, I'm a racist. If I think black people are all thieves, I'm prejudiced.
Life's hard. I'm sure it's even harder when you're black, or homosexual, or arab, or british when you live in America. I know it's hard when you're fat, or have long hair, or wear hand me down clothes.
Most of the people I've known don't really care about race or ethnicity. Some do. They're usually losers.
As to how I feel about blacks and crime, or blacks and poverty, I think the second qualifier is a lot more important than the first. Criminals are scum, poor people are struggling. Does it matter what their skin tone is? That's more a matter of demographics than one of cause and effect.
-Rob
