Why the U.S. can't solve its race problem

Is the Unites States a racist society? This is a question the nation wrestles with as one young black man after another is killed by the police. But the question may in a sense be irrelevant. The current turmoil may be due less to lingering racism than to the ignoring of history.

To explain, allow me, as this is Stanley Cup season, to use a hockey analogy. Let us assume we want to play a pick-up game. We manage to round up some friends and, taking care to balance abilities, we create two teams, A and B. A has six players and B five. The game is on. At the end of the first period, Team A is up five goals. How can this be we say, we took such care to balance the teams skills. And then we realize Team A has an extra player. We agree that's not fair, so we find another player for Team B. Now are the teams equal? Many would answer yes, but they would, of course, be wrong. They would be ignoring the five goals.

So to make things fair, someone, probably a socialist, suggests taking away Team A's goals. But then others, possibly conservatives, jump up and say you can't just take away their goals. They worked hard for them, they have earned them. So the socialist says, OK, then let's give Team B five goals. The conservatives jump up again and say you can't just give them goals, they have to work for them, just as Team A did. So you are stuck. And so is Team B. They will be losers as long as the game lasts.
 
And this is exactly the position of blacks in the U.S. The generations of brutal oppression they suffered did not magically disappear when the civil rights movement, with victories in the courts and legislatures, brought them legal equality. Legally, a black American has the same rights as a white American yet, in 2011, the median household income for whites was $67,175, for blacks $39,760. That alone illustrates a huge disadvantage, a disadvantage that will remain until the mistakes of history are corrected.

The only way to make Teams A and B equal is to take away goals from Team A and/or give goals to Team B, i.e. by some form of affirmative action. You have to correct history. And so it is with blacks and whites in the United States. The refusal of Americans to accept full, including material, responsibility for the mistakes of the past is the root cause of the current turmoil. The police may be racist but they are also at the sharp edge of a very unequal society, victims too in a way. Until Americans take up the challenge of that ingrained inequality, the racial problem will persist. Compensating blacks for generations of free labour that went into building the country would be a start.

We, too, have historical errors to correct, specifically with our Native people. High crime rates among young Native men, for example, lead to wasted lives for them and grief and expense for the rest of society. History is long with us. You can ignore it, but it won't ignore you.