Sometime during the 1990s I read an article in the paper that said the average family income, adjusted for inflation, in the U.S. had finally gotten back up to where it was 20 yeas previous, only now there were two people in the family working to make the same money that one person used to. Notice, I said average. Much has been made recently about the widening gap between the richest people in the country and the poorest people in the country. I don't know if that's true or not, but I'm talking about the average income here. Truth be known, the government can't be totally blamed for all that, some of the blame must be assigned to big business and their eternal quest for cheap labor. On the other hand, it was the government that opened up trade relations with Red China and negotiated "free trade" agreements with other countries. If I didn't know any better, I would say that they're all in it together, but that would be just paranoid.
Some time ago, I came across an article on Wiki about the formation of Israel and Palestine. The year was 1948. The British mandate was about to expire, but they weren't sure to whom they should turn over the keys. The newly formed United Nations stepped in and brokered an agreement to divide the country between the two factions, but it wasn't a clean line right down the middle. I guess they were trying to give sections of the country to the people who were already living there, so they ended up with a gerrymandered patch work of territories, with the city of Jerusalem divided down the middle. Israel agreed to the agreement, but the Palestinians did not, vowing to "drive Israel into the sea". While the U.N. was still dithering about it, Israel unilaterally proclaimed their independence at 12:01 AM of the day the British mandate expired. They claimed the land that the U.N. had offered them, but reserved the right to acquire more in the future if the fortunes of war turned in their favor. The Palestinians immediately attacked, the Israelis fought back, and did indeed expand their borders as a result. The Palestinians subsequently lost the rest of their territory in the Six Day War of 1967. The U.N. and some other bleeding hearts called on Israel to give the land back. I think they did eventually, except for Jerusalem, which they vowed to keep forever. Since then, the Palestinians have attacked Israel numerous times, and Israel has periodically occupied the "disputed territories", more or less temporarily. I don't know the current status of all of them, but I remember when Israel gave back the Gaza Strip a few years ago, and the Palestinians have been intermittently chucking rockets from there ever since. I understand that Israel has recently re-entered Gaza to put an end to this foolishness, but I don't know a lot of details about that.
I saw on the news today that it has been determined that the plane in the Ukraine was indeed shot down by a missile, and that the Russian separatists are the most likely suspects. Putin has promised to cooperate with the investigation, and the separatists have surrendered the two "black boxes", which are actually orange. (I think they are orange on all planes, and I have no idea why they call them "black boxes".)
I may have to re-think my assertions about "taking over". When I lived in Chicago, the news media was calling it "integration", but I never heard a person in real life call it that, they all referred to it as "taking over". For all I know, those terms may have fallen out of common usage, and I don't know what they are calling it nowadays. It sounds like what you have in your building is true integration, with only 10% Black. I seem to remember you telling me that the North Side has always been integrated, and I have no basis to dispute that since, back in my day, I never went to the North Side. I was told that there was nothing there that I needed to see, and besides, the streets are too narrow and there is no place to park. I also remember you telling me that White people only make up about 1/3 of the total population of Chicago, so it sounds like the city as a whole has indeed been taken over.
I think you're right, though, that race is not a good way to identify people. "Hispanic" is not really a race, it's a nationality, and "gay" is certainly not a race. I guess what I mean when I say "we" in this case is "my people". The problem with that is, truth be known, I don't have any people, I'm in a class all by myself. Maybe that's what I mean, regular people like me who do not identify themselves as a member of any race, class, or social group that thinks they're better than everybody else and entitled to special privileges because of who they are instead of what they do. By that criteria, I suppose television hasn't be really taken over either, it just seems that way. It may be more accurate to say that TV has been integrated, and I suppose I can live with that, as long as the channel selector and the off button still works.
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