But then, when you leave the school you are again part of the bigger
community. It's hard for non-whites to escape the powerlessness of
their situatiion.

I'm not calling all whites or all of you whites racist, but I do say the
problem isn't something to be dismissed, exists at a bigger level and
discussing it will cause me to lose the last few friends I have here.

A price I'm willing to pay, though. I have strong feeleings about this
unpopular topic.

Mike O'B,

I know you're more of a Malcolm X guy than a MLK guy. I tend to default the other way. So we're in the same playground, just you like the slide and I like the swings. (I was originally going to type monkey bars -- a perfectly fine piece of playground equipment -- but immediately realized the unintended message. That could have been a massive faux pas!)

I don't know if we can substantiate the premise that the white poor benefit from racism. If you are of extremely low income in this country, there cannot be a better quality of poverty if you are white versus black versus any other ethnic background.

I assert there is a greater community-of-interest based on the commonality of economic level as opposed to skin colour. I will grant the point, however, that differences in skin colour is often used as a wedge issue to drive these natural collaborations apart. That's what made MLK so dangerous in the last years of his life, the possibility he might unite the huddled masses in the quest for economic justice.

If Osama is killed by a soldier, be it American, Canadian, British or any other he will become an even greater martyr. A couple of things may happen. Al Qaeda could splinter with infighting between those who want to lead or it will harden it's resolve to fight the Western powers. The best option is to have him put on trial like Sadam was. It lets the people of the Middle East know they are in control of  their future.

Look - this is hard to accept because we tend to personalize things. I
get that; it's only in the last few years that I no longer considered
myself "poor". I'm not rich by Obama's tax standards, but I keep a
roof over my head, dress nice, eat three times a day and can afford
luxuries. I think I'm rich. But I get that even at my poorest, if I
worked hard and did the right thing I could advance to the middle
class standard that I'm at now, and I also realized that whereas it was
possible for my black friends, it wasn't a guarantee.

I too grew up poor in a minority community - like Donald, I too saw
how the way the odd man out gets treated. I hated being the only
blonde kid in school.

But I also saw other things. I was never harassed by cops for doing
nothing, as my friends were. I never had people lock their cars doors
or women clutch their purses as they passed, as I saw happen to my
friends.

The black man is made to look scarry in our media but the kids I saw
get profiled? All sweet kids who only wanted the same things I did -
to laugh, play with toys, talk to girls, dance to music...

I could walk away from that environment; they couldn't.