Thank you for your comments, Donnie. I firmly believe that our society would benefit from more open dialogue and fewer memes, so I try to respond to everyone who comments on my articles. A few reflections on what you wrote:

You stated that "The disparities that you speak of have been researched at length and are not attributable to discrimination or racism." That is a rather astonishing statement, since the disparities I addressed included acts of genocide carried out against Native Americans by the American military; the lack of clinics and other health care facilities in traditional black neighborhoods (a problem going back to the segregation era); the violent resistance to integration during the civil rights campaign of the 1960s; the recent resurgence in white nationalism; the higher COVID-19 death rate among Native Americans, Hispanics and African Americans; medical experimentation on minorities (as the late as the 1970s); voting laws that make it less convenient to cast a ballot in minority neighborhoods and hate crimes targetng Asian Americans during the pandemic. Which of these, in your mind, have nothing to do with discrimination or racism?

You also advanced the tired and simplistic argument that society has no responsibility to pass anti-discrimination laws because "different groups have different behaviors" and such laws simply make things worse. In other words, blame the victim and absolve society?

To support your argument, you claim that the African American community had made "unbelievable strides" until the 1950s, and then due to the War on Poverty--which led to the destruction of the two-parent black family--their progress stagnated and in many cases African Americans are now worse off. Let me be clear: my article wasn't addressing the status of the black family in the modern era--there is no question that the community has a great deal of work to do and that regardless of race, we all need to assume responsibility for our own acts.

But your description of African American history, and the impact of the social welfare laws passed in the 1960s is way off the mark. I don't have the time to educate you in that area, but you might start by reading about the disastrous 1896 Supreme Court decision, Plessy vs. Ferguson, which provided the legal foundation for segregation and was not struck down until 1954. Contrary to what you stated, most economists that I am familiar with agree that the Great Society programs of the Johnson administration helped African Americans narrow the so-called racial wealth gap, beginning in the mid-sixties and lasting for about ten years.

Between the end of the Second World War and 1975, America's prosperity was broadly shared--meaning that those at the bottom and middle income levels saw their incomes grow at about the same rate as those at the top. This was the era in which we built the world's most prosperous and largest middle class--and more black Americans were moving into the middle class.

Since then, however, the top 1% has managed to capture the vast majority of the nation's economic growth ... effectively taking some 47 trillion dollars out of the hands of the other 99% (and out of the economy as a whole). A black worker today, earning $36,000 annually, is actually earning $26,000 less than he or she would have, had the income distribution that existed up until 1975 remained in place.

By flattening growth for the great majority of Americans, our radically unequal economy--tilted toward the 1%--has locked both women and racial minorities into a secondary status with almost no chance of catching up.