Compared to someone living under segregation he was.

My grandfather worked in steel mills in northwest Indiana along with black workers. I can't imagine their lives were terribly different. Who do you think had a better standard of living: a black person here in Chicago in the 40s or people living in Europe living through war, famine and then, for many millions, Soviet rule.

As Jew in the early 20th century, was barred from most trades.

It's the politicization of history. Most white people were struggling through extreme poverty for the majority of this country's history. I know you believe in this Disney view of history where white people were evil snobs living off the labor of noble black people, who just needed a chance to succeed, but we have largely a shared history in this country. There was a very small rich class, but the vast majority of people were toiling in the fields and factories struggling to make ends meet. So we need to stop with this notion that we are so different, and our experiences can never be compared.

My grandfather worked in steel mills in northwest Indiana along with black workers. I can't imagine their lives were terribly different. Who do you think had a better standard of living: a black person here in Chicago in the 40s or people living in Europe living through war, famine and then, for many millions, Soviet rule.

We are playing into the worst of extremes by pushing out this notion of permanent white guilt and black disadvantage. We had a terrible racist system in place for years, but we have taken steps to remedy it. And there are systems in place to fight racism. Racism again blacks was a terrible part of our history, but it was hardly the only atrocity carried carried out against the working class here in the United States. To only focus on racism as we tend to do in our culture is divisive.

Recently I met with a laborer from Ukraine who fled because of the war there, and he was saving up to send money back to bring his family over working 12 hours days doing home upgrades. White privilege indeed.

The Dems are at least equal opportunity. They have screwed all of us.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opin ... story.html

You aren't interested in common ground. You just demonstrated by attempting to make it seem as though your grandfather's was similar to that of African Americans from the same pd. Was your grandfather the victim of redlining? how about restrictive covenants? Was his home ever fire bombed? Were Housing Projects created as means of promoting segregation and poverty? Were laws created ostensibly to prevent him from achieving the American Dream? Were laws created specifically so that he could be imprisoned? Was he ever denied entry into any school because of his race or ethnicity?

How do you know what I'm interested in? Why do you assume the worst in people? As for my grandfather, most of his brothers died in German prison camps, after they went back to fight for Poland. And yeah, their homes there were firebombed there.

But that suffering doesn't matter because of redlining I guess. There is plenty of suffering in history.

What does that have to do with the U.S.? funny how we are all nationalistic until we aren't I guess. 2ndly I inferred it from your own words.