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In response to
"Depending on how you look at it, that is a long long time."
by
TFox
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Yeah ... there's a point at which the absolute numbers become kind of ludicrous.
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But even if we go from the Emancipation Proclamation to the Civil Rights Act of '64, that's roughly 100 years. Or if we look at just modern history -- say early 1900's to the present -- that's somewhere around at least 50 years.
The problem is that we (and I include myself here) often overlook how entrenched and how relatively recent the history of segregation is. E.g., there was a special on Oregon Public Broadcasting about the history of racism in Oregon, and people my parents' age told some of the most riveting stories I've ever heard.
So, maybe the rule-of-thumb measurement is a person's lifetime? If the average human lives 77 years, then maybe we go 77 years from 1964 to 2041?
I dunno. I don't think anyone can put down a bright line and say "racial inequalities stopped *here*, on this very date." But, speaking personally, my gut instinct still remains that America hasn't made up for the history of racism, segregation, and racial inequality in our country.
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