Quote from Rearden Metal:
I know that it's impossible for us non-blacks to truly understand what it's like to be black in America, however...
<b>Can you name a few of the biggest misconceptions that non-black people have on this subject? Which misconceptions bother you the most?</b>
Also, am I wrong in thinking that young whites tend to be far less racially biased than old whites... so therefore the trend is more or less headed in the right direction overall?
1. Intelligence - It took the whites that I know years to realize how intelligent (not smart, that's a different attribute) I am, it's like they were shocked and would always say "you're different".
2. How deeply certain mis-perceptions and mis-conceptions are ingrained in White America. A lot of people can't help thinking the way they think, it's how they are programmed. This goes hand-in-hand with your perceptions of young whites being less racially biased than the older whites ain't necessarily so. They are taught from a very young age to be leery of african-americans.
3. Many whites have a sense of entitlement, arrogance and pressumption that they "know" everything. Not true. They know what their experience in this life has taught them and the feedback they get from their actions which is in part determined by the "reality tunnel" in which they live.
4. The difficulty of "making it" in venues where you are not in control. You might get your foot in the door ... but you'll have to work very hard to stay there, and will most likely be the first to get the boot when times get tough. I don't doubt that this in part is the reason many blacks who otherwise would try to achieve some of their loftier goals ... don't (instead of a 60-70% success rate, you get a 30% success rate).
5. The concept that "all blacks are the same". Making a blanket statement like this is as foolish as saying that all whites are the same, you have many different groups (Italian, German, French, Russian, etc.) and of course, sub-groups within those groups. And then you have the economic divisions. It's the same with african-americans and all of the other different nationalities. It's even more complicated when you are mixed-race / bi-racial. Because then you will assimilate both cultures.
6. Being educated and having knowledge will help in many things, but you will still face the reality of everyday oppression which exists in culture. This is a weird phenomena and the best description I can give traders of it is when you get what looks like an ideal setup, everything looks cool, you enter a position ...
and the market reverses and totally fucking hoses you.
Now, this happens over and over and over again. It would make you very very wary of ever entering the market, and likewise, it makes you very wary of trusting whites (well, you do, but only to a degree).
7. Blacks should work together to better their lot.
Shrug, if they could by now, they would have. They can't. Blacks have a "King of the Hill/Top Dog" mentality, and everybody wants to be the King/Big Dog. So you catch it coming and going ...
all the time.
***
Ultimately all education does is
maybe give you the tools you need to achieve your goals. What you discover through living is that you are going to have to find your own way, bust your hump and be nice to women, because they tend to be the only ones who will care about you or give you the "benefit of the doubt". Everything else is going to be pretty much "doggy dog" (dog eat dog).
As far as your comment about timeline is concerned, I belive it takes centuries to effect human change on a macro level. On a micro level, there are many other countries that blacks can go to and receive more hospitable treatment than America ... and they do. I'm lucky that I got to experience a few of them along the way.
Thanks for listening.
