How Long You Need?

Some of the descendants of slaves in the United States claim to still be suffering under the repercussions of their ancestors once being enslaved.

8 generations.

I find that odd.

There's historical examples of nations being conquered, the once free citizens being enslaved and their grandkids being citizens of the conquering nation.

Seems that those folks had a bigger grudge than African Americans, yet...

Two generations to members of society.

Perhaps it was the shorter time of enslavement?

Well, there's a caveat to that two generations deal.  Enslaved grandfather needed to behave, free, but second class subject father needed to behave and free and citizen son needed to behave or right back to slavery because enslavement was a punishment for some crimes.

Some families never did manage to get out of being slaves because grampa never got with the idea that if he toed the line, his descendants would be free.  Or worse, decided that if HE couldn't be free, then NOBODY would!

I wonder if we're seeing some of this psychology at play with race relations today.

I do want to point out that African-Americans had sorted themselves out after the Civil War and, for the most part, had been becoming Americans.

It's true!

There were many places where racist bullshit kept them from completing the task.  This is also true.

There were also many places where there wasn't such bullshit and they settled into the same nuclear American family model that everyone else used.  The experience of a black family was no different from an Irish or Italian one in these places.

But then we put racist bullshit back on the menu.

Redline districts and welfare did more to kill the solid nuclear family than anything Jim Crow conceived of.

Destroyed with "love" as it were.

And it's kept them from succeeding as the little enclaves get more and more isolated from mainstream American culture and norms.

The thing that stands out, from my observations, is every African American I know who's rejected the enclave and the subculture that thrives there to adopt "normal" American culture is successful.

They've jobs, mortgage, family, friends...  And them being black is no more noteworthy than me being Scots/Italian.

In many ways they emigrated from the enclave to America!

It's classic melting pot stuff.

The echoes of other cultures doing this are still there.  Little Italys and Chinatowns are where the Italian and Chinese ghettos used to be.  The places where, if you wanted to skip being an American, you stayed.  Want out?  Adopt our ways and welcome, citizen!

But there's some very rich, racist, bastards with a stake in the status quo of preventing Blacks from being full members of society.  Bastards of every color, but racist nonetheless.