Mr. Chupa, I commend you and your family for raising yourselves out of dumpster diving poverty. It is no small feat in America's class society.

However, I must comment that you had one, tiny advantage: You are white. Your priviledge is that other white people - who hold the keys to the kingdom in this here country - were likely sympathetic to your cause. Sympathetic in a way they most certainly would not have been if your skin was brown. Have you ever read /Black Like Me/ ? About a white man who colors himself, then reports on the way whites treated him?

Do you remember, about 7 or so years ago, all those black church firebombings? How many were there, something like 30? All across the South.

Did the FBI ever find the persons that set those fires? They didn't make much effort to do so. Perhaps a few were caught. This indicates that white-on-black violence is "tacitly" condoned by the authorities.

You cite the mayor of N'awrlins and some other tokens as being black. Yes, some blacks have made it into the power structure. But look at the example of Colin Powell: Intelligent, relatively powerful. But what did they make him do? He was forced to lie through his stinkin' teeth at the U.N. General Assembly. He was required to humiliate himself in front of the entire world.

This is the fate of blacks in America.

It's more than money. It's race. The blacks (and the poor and homeless in general) are used to keep everyone else happy they have their shitty $5.25/hour job at Wal-Mart.

Once we Americans accept this fact, the faster we will be able to resolve it.