As such, the perhaps innocuous and well-intended efforts of the descendants of other ethic emigrants -- at comprehending the chronic social crises of Black America by comparing the experiences of their forefathers-- are invalid and far too simplistic to be of any value

In the predomidently white area I grew up in ...

Sound familiar?? Sounds like a black sharecropper's story ...

During this time period, blacks had a newly aquired form of protection in the form of quotas. Jobs were being held open for them, so in essence, I was re-living the same fate as my grandfather, being held to a labour position whilst blacks were hired anew and placed into craft and higher paying production jobs.

Do you mind sharing what part of the country YOU were in, where you witnessed this avalanche of Blacks holding the "coveted higher positions[?]"

your claim that Blacks were "hired anew" and placed in all these high-paying positions, seems highly-questionable, to say the least.

The reality, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, is that it's REALLY about education. Decent schools produce a competitive workforce.

In fact, a VERY credible argument can be made that affirmative action did WAY more to address discrimination grievances of White WOMEN than it did Blacks of either gender! In fact, a cursory glance -- EVEN TODAY -- at the supervisory, management, and executive ranks of virtually any domestic company of your choosing will evince that the "coveted, [higher-paying]" positions reflect very little African-American representation and are filled overwhelmingly by White men and women!

African-Americans in the Steel Mills

Before the Civil War, more than 2,000 slaves worked in the iron mill of the South, creating a skilled work force that the Northern iron companies were quick to exploit after the war. When a labor dispute shut down the industry in Pittsburgh in 1875, African-American workers were brought in to break it, setting a pattern that would continue for decades. Strike breakers were resented by whites for working for lower wages and, at that time, unions were not willing to accept minorities. In 1890, a union local in Pittsburgh ordered 400 of its 500 workers of their jobs to protest African-American employees.
Scene from 'Struggles in Steel'

African-American workers were flocking to the North not so much as strike breakers, but in order to escape natural disasters (the boll weevil scourge of 1914, the floods of 1916), racial oppression and the repressive class system of the south. Like the Eastern European immigrants who also were moving into the mills at this time, African-Americans shared one dream - the chance for equal opportunity.

African-American mill workers reached record numbers during World War I, and by the 1930's, white unionists depended on African-American participation in the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) to ensure the success of the Steelworkers Organizing Committee. But union membership did not insure equality for African-American workers. Discriminatory work practices sanctioned by the union, including department seniority rules kept these workers in hazardous, low-paying "Negro Jobs," for decades, continuing uninterrupted through the years of civil rights activism in the 1960s. As one veteran steelworker in the film recounts:

“A white man would come in and you had to train him. In two weeks - he was your boss.”

Through the years of partial gains and tremendous losses, African-American activists came to trust the government far more than the steel companies. Following a series of lawsuits based on Civil Rights legislation, a consent decree was brokered in 1974 by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the United States Department of Justice, nine steel companies and the United Steelworkers of America.

The decree established goals and timetables for the hiring and promotion of minorities, specifically African-Americans, women, and Hispanics; particularly in supervisory, technical, and clerical jobs and management training programs. The decree eliminated department seniority and replaced it with plant-wide seniority as the basis for promotions, demotions, and recalls in the industry.

This moral victory, however, did not translate into lasting employment gains for African-American steelworkers. By the 1980's, the industry decline had decimated most steel jobs, important gains attained by more than a century of steel employees and a new African-American labor movement fell by the wayside, as both blacks and whites stepped together onto the unemployment line.

...Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
...

Your own experience, however, is not the same as your grandfather's, since, as you said above, you were classed as a "white man" for promotion considerations; unfortunate for you at that time in history, but nonetheless a different issue from your grandfather's.

My friend Ray Henderson and filmmaker Tony Buba made a highly regarded documentary about blacks in the Pittsburgh area steel industry. Ray worked in the mills and collected the stories of his fellow black mill workers, the old-timers who were there before him

Through the years of partial gains and tremendous losses, African-American activists came to trust the government far more than the steel companies. Following a series of lawsuits based on Civil Rights legislation, a consent decree was brokered in 1974 by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the United States Department of Justice, nine steel companies and the United Steelworkers of America.

The decree established goals and timetables for the hiring and promotion of minorities, specifically African-Americans, women, and Hispanics; particularly in supervisory, technical, and clerical jobs and management training programs. The decree eliminated department seniority and replaced it with plant-wide seniority as the basis for promotions, demotions, and recalls in the industry.

Thank you for validating my long winded eye witness account of this sad story in my above post. This is the gist of a practise what some here claim as "highly-questionable, to say the least."

Thank you for validating my long winded eye witness account of this sad story in my above post.

Black Slavery ended in the 19th century.

Pushing one's selfish exclusionary agenda to the forefront whilst ignoring another class of victims...how convenient. Obviously, again, neither my grandfather, nor that victimised ethnic subculture, counts.

As for Rev. Wright, I don't condone all the crap he has to say. Neither does Barack Obama. The man DID serve this country for six years in the Marine Corps, however, and has many admirers/defenders in the community of white theologians and ministers. The Republican agenda will continue to keep stirring up the worst of the 'Wright factor' until November. They WILL try to keep us divided and keep us down so they can keep taking good care of their rich friends. And again nothing will have a chance to change.

And now-pathetic Hillary is only helping them!

And I invite anyone to take a look through the leadership/executive/management ranks of each of those agencies and see how "specifically African-Americans" have been so well served and are presently so well represented.

The bottom line remains that African-American do not enjoy any competitive employment advantage in this country and any efforts from the government to "create" opportunities for such minorities only exist in an effort to counteract the grossly disparate conditions that would continue to exist in the absence of those efforts. You simply cannot compel others to be fair; they have to possess that sense from within.

The undeniable difference between our cases and that of the African slaves' decendants is that, duh, WE are ABLE to assimilate in a generation or two, while they can't. They can't pretend that they're from the northern European gene pool very well with their tell-tale complexion, can they?