>I saw it happen few times where someone's skin tone gave them
>an opportunity that someone else would not receive. I worked
>in a restaurant when I was young bussing tables. This couple
>comes in and I buss the table they're about to sit in. Cool,
>nothing happens. White guy that is a good dude mind you does
>the same thing. They see his plight and ask why he's working
>here. He shouldn't be working there and offers him a rather
>lucrative job offer. He takes it and the rest is history. Good
>for him and he's my friend to this day.
>
>The same thing happens at uni except for this time it's a
>pristine pure white sorority sister that meets a successful
>businesswoman. We served the same people but these people
>found something in common, i.e. cultural reasonance, with the
>people that served them and it lead to an opportunity that
>advanced their world.
>
>I'm not saying don't grind but let's not ignore the elephant
>in the room here. We know it exists because it happens all the
>time.

And, again, it's completely out of your control. Look, there's no way I should have got that engineering job I had in the defense sector. I have no degree and only IT experience, but the section manager I interviewed with was a brother. He told me later he gave me the opportunity because he felt I would push myself hard to fit in with the rest of the people that had engineering degrees. He also gave it to me because I'm a Black man trying to move forward against everything. I stood in front of him and knew I wasn't really qualified for the job, but I gave him a pitch that made him feel good about bringing me on board. I walked into that company a senior engineer, with white dudes with degrees and experience under me. I probably took a job away from some white cat that was far more qualified for the job, but I got it largely because of my skin color.

At the same time I KNOW I've been denied jobs strictly because of my skin color. Companies that wanted to hire me over the phone where a face to face was only supposed to be a formality 'cause I had the job. But when I walked through the door and was Black suddenly they wanted to interview other people, suddenly the jobs disappeared.

But, again, this is completely out of our control. We cannot change what race we are.

>This is not the same world I live in because I don't work at
>these jobs. The general apathy towards the plight of others
>and excitement towards this scenario is what separates things
>now from back then. We went way too far championing the stock
>market and this push for constant profit at the expense of
>people's lives.

whether you work them or not is moot. The fact of the matter is there were once plentiful manufacturing jobs here in the US, and now the vast majority of those jobs have vanished completely or have been moved outside of this country. The few that remain are on the short list of jobs to be replaced by robots in the very near future. It used to be that you could get your HS diploma and if you didn't want to go to college or pick up a trade you could at least get a job on an assembly line somewhere. Those jobs have largely disappeared. This IS the world you live in.

I think we at least agree that shareholders and wall street are partly to blame for the current lack of jobs. If they hadn't started rewarding companies for laying off employees to "boost profits" back in the 80's, we would still have a lot of those jobs.

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"Where was the peace when we were getting shot? Where's the peace when we were getting laid out?
Where is the peace when we are in the back of ambulances? Where is the peace then?
They don't want to call for peace then.