To: Catfish who wrote (61499 ) 10/8/1999 12:07:00 PM From: Johannes Pilch Respond to
Well. The article certainly hits on some very true and important points. It also contains quite a lot of bull excrement. It is impossible to separate the plight of the American black family from institutionalised American racism, particularly the sort once found in Jim Crow's south. We forget that a mere 35 years ago it was generally illegal in many places for blacks to enter the same restaurants as whites. There were separate schools, restrooms. Job discrimination was overt and everywhere present. That sort of ubiquitous racism did not just evaporate with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965. It is yet here amongst us, though, despite hiccups here and there its intensity has drastically abated. Many of those who bore the brunt of overt racism lived under a remarkably heavy burden, and they are still alive today, harbouring a chronic distrust of whites, bitterness and even self-loathing that will not die until the people themselves are dead. Even then, since the victims' children have now taken up these poisons (and since racism yet exists), the poisons will live for perhaps another 100 years. Fortunately after about as much time they will run their course and lose their potency, if they are isolated.
