Civil rights changed things for blacks, but changed thing in whites. For whites it engendered shame that we were not living up to the creed “all men created equal”. But in far to many blacks it created the mythology of perminent oppression.
As a kid in grade school in Aniheim I had no idea there was a “racial problem” until our fith grade teacher took a day out to teach us about it. I had friends and class mates from nearly every ethnic backround you could imagine. Black, white, hispanic, east asian, Inian/Pakistani, Samoan… you name it. I remember looking around my class as our teacher told us about how white people had been so mean to black people, the civil rights era, yadda yadda yadda. I also remember looking around at my class mates and each of us shrugging our shoulders thinking “yea, so what? That was my grand parents deal. How long til lunch? I want to finish that game of kick ball.”
Civil rights changed things in whites. Racism was purged from us inso far as being exceptable behaviour and allowed us to move into the future free of its disgusting grip.
While that movement freed most whites, it trapped blacks, trapped them in the past. For to many blacks it is always somewhere between 1950 and 1969. For them policemen are always waiting with attack dogs and fire hoses, the Klan and lynch mobs are always nearby, and most whites are conspiring against them.
If I lived with such a mindset I to might embrace the thuggish hip-hop culture, hate all police and cheer when one of my tribe got away with murdering the hated other.
