TheWesDude said:
so when people talk about white guilt for the current black or other minority socio-economic situation, they are doing it with the express intent to avoid the real cause and to remove the ability to talk about the actual causes.
No, they view (rightly, in my opinion) historical racial circumstances as a vital part of the explanation. And as I've shown throughout this thread, that's pretty much the case. The fact that you repeat "real cause" over and over again does not mean that you've actually found that real cause.
And really, you have to be extraordinarily shortsighted to not see how centuries of oppression can't just disappear in 40 years, while some of that discrimination continues.
This doesn't mean that people aren't responsible for their actions. But from a sociological perspective, there are reasons for those actions. And to address those actions, you need to understand those reasons. You don't. You just say that it's a choice, satisified that you have solved the problem and found the "real cause", satisfied that you can justify to yourself not spending money on the issues.
Writing it off as "white guilt" is just a blanket dismissal. You're not engaging the argument, you're just using a cozy denominator to scoff and write it off. Even though guilt has nothing to do with it. I don't feel guilty about the oppression my ancestors caused because I have dick-all to do with it. But I can still recognize the effects it has in this day and age.
As I've noted over and over again throughout this thread, if the issue *is* the black inner-city culture (and that's a big if, not a given), then the solution doesn't change. Because that culture arose for a reason, and to change it you need to change circumstances.