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To: Gauguin who wrote (30538)	6/30/1999 5:25:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 71178

>We alienated city blacks ourselves, by providing no economy. We starved them, til they organized a hierarchy themselves. < The little pitchfork guy on my left shoulder contests this. We are providing the same economy to all - black, white, in between. But the price of entry is good grades. And that requires attendance at competent schools. Where I I I place the nub of that knot is in grade school. Granted - until a coupla decades ago there were unofficial barriers keeping blacks from easily getting into college and then a career. But a combination of gov't mandate (affirmative action - for better and worse) and dawning enlightenment at the corporate officer level is evening that field. In my own profession I'm stopped in my tracks by the near-absence of black colleagues. But I do NOT think our corporate culture has any bearing on this. The problem is deeper - the small proportion of black chem grad students, coming from a meager pool of motivated and high-scoring Af-Am undergrads. I am not a big fan of advancement thru entitlement. But I won't be dead set against it either - if I see a low-powered opportunity for a large effect.

To: Gauguin who wrote (30538)	6/30/1999 5:45:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 71178

I don't think people sat around and plotted how things are now. I think the way things are now is the result of countless individual choices, and that's the only way it's gonna change. Have you ever actually been in a store where everything is behind bullet proof glass, and the only way to get what you want is to put money in a little turret-shaped box that spins, and wait for the owner to turn it around and count the money and then put what you want in the little box and spin it back around? I have (in New Orleans), and I don't think people do it because they are "prejudiced," I think they do it because they are terrified. It's not against blacks, per se, because there are places in New Orleans that are also mostly black, and the stores aren't like that. But you've got to agree that no business person in their right minds would want to operate a business in a place where they were terrified for their personal safety. I grew up in a place and time where there were a lot of black people in the neighborhood, and the crime was almost non-existent, except for Saturday night fights. Everyone says it's about race, and racism. I can't believe that because it's different from place to place. I don't have a solution to the terror. Black people who live in other places than inner cities have a better time of it, and if I were black I'd do my best to get out of the inner city, that might be a good start.