on 8/17/03 7:01 PM, Michael Atherton at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > N.I. Krasnov wrote: > >> Can the academics - and you - explain how my parent's >> generation - those who lived through the Depression - >> were somehow able to live in poor but safe >> neighborhoods, get an education, go on to Brooklyn College, CCNY, and >> Brooklyn PolyTech to become successful citizens of this country? > > For most of us our ancestors made a choice to come to > this country and when they arrived here they were able > to form communities (ghettos) that helped provide cultural > continuity for the two or three generations it took to > become assimilated.
The Irish had a choice: either leave Ireland, or perish in the potato famine. Don't forget those who arrived as indentured servants. The Jews left Europe after centuries of Anti-Semitic savagery, expulsions, forced conversions, blood libels, pogroms, revolution, typhus, and cholera. Some choice. > The ancestors of African Americans were brought here by > force and dispersed across a wide geographic area > and not allowed to maintain cultural or familial > continuity. Blacks were kept in their own ghettos. De jure segregation. <snip> > Doug Mann wrote: > >> I also think that institutionalized racism has always had >> its broadest and deepest support among the propertied classes. >> Poor whites and poor blacks have a lot more in common with each >> other than they do with rich people who look like them. > > The problem with Mr. Mann's argument is that rather than > a ruling class, the most populous propertied class in America > is middle class. It is not the rich that have to be convinced > of the need to establish educational equality, it's White Middle > Class Minnesotans. There is equal access to educational opportunities. Has the State closed all schools in north Minneapolis? Nope. They're still open. And with the Supreme Court's recent blessing of using race as a qualifier for entrance to a college or university, more than equal access for a member of a <gag> protected class exists. <snip> N.I. Krasnov Loring Park TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
