So simple a formula. “I’m right, you are wrong, and a bad person.” It must be very comforting to wrap yourself in the smug progressive blanket of ignorance.

She’s the very epitome of pearl-clutching progressive women. People like her weaken our country.

I have great conversations with an African American employee who works for me about these topics. He’s the brightest guy in the division, I hired him, I promoted him, I’ve shoveled him huge bonuses and raises. Why? Because he’s the brightest guy in the division. I give no shits about his race, just his output. He…

So true! And the proper use of “heads up tackling” as shown in the video is sure to ward off any ill effects of CTE.

Quite right. I’m suggesting that from my modern perspective they were valid because the state was arrayed against blacks. Now the state is not. Men are, some of them, but the laws and structures are not.

Never said racism is over. Said it is in men’s hearts and will likely remain there for a long time. What I said was, the laws that posed barriers have changed. Someone who acts in the way you describe does so on their own and not because the laws or the institution are set up that way. Big difference.

Try being a 3% minority in a small southern city. Just try it.

LOL, they can when you go to senior staff meeting with ashes on your head! CEO wanted to know WTF and when the three of us told him he laughed and said, good, now I can keep track of you..... Probably should have gone to evening Mass.....

Nope, the laws changed not men’s hearts. That is a longer slog and may never happen. But at least there are no longer separate bathrooms, segregated lunch counters (are there even lunch counters anymore) and that kind of thing. People hate me because I’m a Catholic. Was a big deal in the south. I didn’t let it stop me…

All fair and well enunciated.

Define systemic racism please. Let’s take wealth. If blacks can go to school, vote, work, live anywhere they like, get loans, what is stopping them? What systematic barriers are there, really? Disparate outcomes? Certainly, but no real barriers anymore, right?

Far too long overall, but yes. Please tell me something tangible that stops an upright, smart, hard working black man from achieving anything...anything, like running American Express or leading the UN or being president of the United States?

Oh, yes, your empathy is way more powerful than their actual, um, policing.

Settle down, Beavis, the car wasn’t on fire.

No, they weren’t, you are right. There were and are virulent racists who hate blacks without any reason. This will likely never change. But the overreach of the modern “race hustlers” who demonize all whites as bearing some shameful privilege or denounce institutions (instead of people) as racist is disgraceful.

Well, separate but equal facilities were rightly removed. It became illegal to discriminate in housing, voting, employment, etc. So now folks have an equal opportunity to pursue happiness.

The protests in the sixties against ACTUAL racism that blocked opportunity for all are not only acceptable they are historic and laudable.

Wait, are you an advocate for affordable housing, or not?

If these men are dangerous criminals, surely we don’t welcome them. You are quite right that the poem does not invite all, but rather those who will embrace our collective values. Ours is not a multi-cultural society. Ours is an American culture that welcomes all who embrace what it stands for.

As Spinal Tap says, the bigger the downside cushion, the better the deal they are pushin’....