>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.

I never really thought it from this perspective as an African-American male. Don't take this as me speaking on your life or making any negative assumptions about you. Quite frankly, you're black so even if you did get in the door best believe you're working harder just to justify your existence because of white coworker envy. Again, no shots at all just saying as black people we have to work hard as shit to survive.

>
>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.

It is truth that we cannot change our race or the perceptions that come from it.

>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.

We're 100 percent in agreement about this. Another part of it is this post 2008 apathy towards people receiving government aid. How dare these poor black people receive aid from the government. This attack mentality on the middle class is sickening.

Thanks for the conversation. It's been really productive and conducive to actual discussion about the issue.