One of my best friends for the past 25 years is a very successful black man - a medical doctor, hospital administrator, and finance nerd. Back when he was in med school, he got arrested in a dormitory laundromat for <i>stealing laundry</i>. Cuffed and kept in jail overnight, because someone else left their socks in his washing machine. That sort of thing just doesn&#x27;t happen to white medical students. The kind of aggression and neglect he and others like him suffer at the hands of authority is stunning.<p>As for &quot;They work harder&quot;... consider the impact of multiple generations of success, versus multiple generations of failure. I grew up what southerners call &quot;poor white trash&quot;. I escaped, but barely, and mostly because I was very determined and very smart. When I landed at a high quality private college, I was utterly unprepared for the experience. I grew up listening to my father refer to the wealthy men he worked for as &quot;educated mow-rawns&quot;, in that thick Kentucky accent of his. Going to college, surrounded by the children of lawyers and professors and the like, their family life was as alien to me as my dad bouncing in and out of jail was to them. I was embarrassed and ashamed.<p>Now, throw in the past century of crap that has kept even hardworking and talented black families down, and you can see where the problem might start.