That sad truth is that racism, while mostly different than what we experienced during the Civil Rights Movement, is alive and well. The real problem is that is goes all directions from all people groups now yet few are willing to admit it.
I grew up in the south. My first "girlfriend" in 6th grade was black. As a result, a grown man pushed me in front of a moving car in front of my school as I tried to walk home for being "one of them n* lovers."
My very white father was almost shot by a very white City of Atlanta police officer for daring to drive "one of them n*" home late one night. My mother and my older sister, who was then an infant, was with him at the time.
I was raised to judge people by who they were and not what they looked like. I took that heart to the point when I was trying to describe one of my friends singing in a youth choir being broadcast on TV I described his clothes, which row, which seat, etc... finally my mother asked, "You mean the black kid?" They were 50 kids in the choir, there was one black kid, it never occurred to me to say the black kid. Then the world changed.
I drove through Atlanta as a young real estate agent looking for a house I had a listing appointment with. I was nearly attacked by a young black man with a baseball bat near the Atlanta Zoo for asking for directions. My black friends from high school would no longer talk to me, or any other white friends, because that wasn't cool with their "peeps." Every time I turned on the TV or radio some yahoo was telling me I had no choice but to be a racist because I was 1) white, and 2) from the south. The double death! (cue dramatic music)
Then along came rap and the "thug life," which many very mature adults embrace and uphold as well as younger generations, and we have a divide that can seldomly be bridged. The question is, why?
I heard a Southern Baptist preacher on the radio as I passed through Franklin, NC once. He said something that many will find offensive. "When you treat people like animals, tell them they are less than animals, abuse them, hate them, for centuries, don't be surprised when they start to believe it." We have spent a great deal of America's history telling black people we think they are less than animals. They are worthless, garbage. This is reflected in the thug culture. "Get yours cause you ain't gone live that long cause you don't matter anyway." It's easy to kill and die when you have been conditioned to think of yourself as worthless. And we white folk wanna get all shocked and shaken when it comes back to bite us in the butt...
This is another reason other people groups find such attachment to the thug life. Hispanics have lived their lives on entire continents where they didn't not matter. Life and death meant nothing. They come here trying for something better, and rather than welcome them and give them a new start, share the hope we have in freedom and God's grace, we reinforce the belief that they are garbage. "Pick our vegetables but don't you dare live next to me, shop in my stores, eat in our restaurants."
It is what is and those who deny it are the worst of the worst. I am sure I have offended people on both sides of the argument, that is not my intention. I know nothing here describes entire people groups and it is mostly all my opinion.