A brief history of race in America

First, we owned African-Americans in the United States. They were brought over by boat, sold into slavery and that's where they stayed, their entire lives, until they died. If they were "lucky", their master(s) weren't completely horrible and abusive and/or tortuous to them while in this state.

Keep in mind, too, that, during this lifetime of slave work, besides being paid nothing, they were also almost entirely uneducated, formally. Most didn't know how to read or write. The ones who did were taught how to read and/or write if and only if it helped their master(s).

Then we "freed" them, after 200 years of this slavery, in 1863 with the "Emancipation Proclamation." Of course, they weren't really freed as they owned nothing--nothing--and most had nowhere to go. Besides the fact that the defacto social and political system still held them very much down. Many black men, especially, in the South, were arrested for "vagrancy" and sold to corporations for their labor. Still in slavery. That lasted until the 1940's, too. (See link below).

All during this time, they were at least under-educated, still, if not uneducated, as the masses would have it. "Separate but equal" was declared the law of the land and everything was hunky-dory.

Then, finally, in the 1960's, they were, again, officially, given the right to vote and the right to "fair housing." Of course, this was only on paper and segregating this minority to its own side of town still went on, as we have learned or as we know.

So deep-seated racism permeated our country from our inception right up to today and yet still, so many people across the nation--mostly white but other races, too--think that somehow, some way, African-Americans are not supposed to have any problems today, culturally, socially, economically or otherwise.

Isn't that just a nice, tidy, convenient conclusion?

Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_Proclamation

http://www.slaverybyanothername.com