No. This is not me being narrow minded.
This is me knowing the area and the people who live in it.
This also doesn't reflect the unfair loan practices that caused a lot of the current "ghetto".
The fact is that people were denied loans based upon their skin color and that it did cause a huge inequality in wealth creation. That inequality in wealth is still felt today.
Certainly the black community has to do better or they will continue to be at the bottom, due to their own stupidity. The black community has to stop the bullshit I posted earlier or they will never achieve equality. No matter how many many policies to create equality are made.
Until the black community decides to stop acting like fools in their own neighborhoods, and work towards education instead of working towards tinting their windows, they will always be on the bottom.
Absolutely they have a large part in their downfall currently, and until they stop playing the victim and start truly working towards doing better, they will always be outside looking in.
This might be a controversial point, but I think the fact that blacks achieved "equal" status in the 60s under LBJ coincided with the rise of the welfare state in western countries. If you look at Ireland, UK... many EU countries you see we are almost at 3rd and 4th generation of families who have never been employed and leech every social welfare entitlement and pass this on, almost as a rite to their kids.
I don't doubt for a second that blacks experience prejudice in the USA, no more than I doubt a strong southern accent (think Maggie in "Million Dollar Baby") would also make people assume you are white trash - but I think this speaks to a wider prejudice (and here's my point) - if you're seen as sounding like or looking like you come from a shit background, you will be treated as such, irrespective of who you are and what you've done.
Obama is technically black but he is lighter skinned than me on melanotan, highly educated and was a professor in Harvard - and sounds like it too. Give Obama Mike Huckabee's accent and Ben Carson's skin and he would never have been elected - people would have assumed he was stupid/incompetent.
I'm not American, I'm not black so I can't put myself in your shoes for a day and see what it is like.