When I first started on the internet I was with a forum group that was a pretty diverse bunch. We had college students, high school students, working people, and even this 14 year old Indian girl. (Indian Indian, not American Indian.) This Indian girl was always asking us what Americans thought about this, that, or the other thing. She was frequently surprised that, if she got a half dozen responses, all from Americans, no two responses would be alike, and sometimes we would get down right divisive about it. Now India is a big country with lots of different types of people, so I don't know why the diversity of opinions among Americans should have surprised her, but it did. The fact that she was 14 years old might have had something to do with it, but she seemed intelligent beyond her years and spoke better English than we did.
You may be right when you say that France doesn't have as many minorities as we do, but then again, France doesn't have as many total people as we do, which might have something to do with it. When they had those riots a few years ago, I think that most of the rioters were Black. They all lived together in neighborhoods like they do here, and they were protesting their poverty and lack of opportunity. I seem to remember that France had some kind of deal with their former colonies that allowed lots of their people to immigrate to France, and that's probably where all their Blacks and Muslims came from.
You may also be right when you say that American Blacks are, on average, poorer than American Whites, but there are lots of poor White people in this country too. I remember, back in the late 60s or early 70s, there was a court case in the Upper Peninsula about somebody who was denied welfare benefits. Her lawyer claimed that she was the victim of racial discrimination because lots of Black people in Detroit were getting welfare, and his client was just as poor as they were. I never did hear how the case turned out, but I know that the lawyer later became a judge and also ran unsuccessfully for the state legislature. I have also heard stories from some of our local people who grew up poor and their families didn't even know they were eligible for welfare until there was a big uproar about the Blacks getting it, which inspired our local poor to go down to the court house and see what they could get too. Okay, this is anecdotal evidence, but it's all I've got right now.
In those days I was against welfare, and the fact that most of it was going to Blacks probably had something to do with it. Back then, unemployment was low and there was a general belief around here that the Blacks didn't want to work and were milking the system. It's different nowadays because it's hard for anybody to find a decent job anymore, no matter what color they are. I now believe that any civilized society should provide some kind of safety net for any of its members who fall on hard times. The thing is, though, somebody has to pay for all this, which means that there needs to be decent jobs for enough people to support the system. The way things are going, we're all going to be on the dole some day. Who's going to pay for everything then?
We're going to my daughter's tomorrow and will be getting home late, so I won't be going online till Thursday. Merry Christmas!
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