[AlwaysRock]

Yeah. This is an issue that a lot of folks cant seem to grasp. For almost all Americans this is the best time in our history to be alive. One could argue Obama's years were better for some people groups but generally things are better than they've ever been for every single type of person.

I know there's still a lot of change that needs to happen but I wish people would pick their head up and realize this once in a while.

[thisiszilff]

The underlying idea seems to be that the economic reality is worsening and this is true for every group. Meanwhile some groups have had more and more artificial barriers removed that make it easier to access that economic reality as say someone who is middle class and white (not necessarily equal, but let's just take white and middle-class as a standard for comparing). So yes, it is better for certain groups, but to continue the analogy of the hill, these groups have had artificial barriers removed that make it easier and easier for them to climb, but that hill itself is getting steeper and steeper.

So on the one hand those barriers are getting torn down slowly, which is progress in one dimension, but the economic reality is worsening for everyone. For example, people of color mighty be competing with other individuals on more level ground when it comes to getting jobs, but the supply of those jobs, the quality of life they support, and the security they afford seem to be decreasing, and the all important question isn't what it's like now, but what it'll be like on 20 or 30 years.

As a side note, worsening economic conditions can result in a flare up in racial tensions which might undo the progress that has been made.

[rexpop]

Artificial barriers are only removed as they become irrelevant in the face of greater, more subtle and less infamous levers of control.

As the internet offers greater surveillance, phone taps become less relevant.

As offshoring jobs to nations w/o union protections, where beatings and murders of organizers is less punished, working conditions in the US can improve without cutting too deeply into the bottom line... just until they close the factory.

As manual labor is increasingly done outside our borders, or by precarious undocumented immigrants, as laborer reproduction is increasingly done by their wives, more white women will be allowed into management, executive, and leadership positions. Did you notice, all the heads of the Military Industrial Complex firms are now all women? (1) What allowed this to happen?

1) https://media1.s-nbcnews.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Video/201901...