Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

I don't think there's an unknown, probably larger-than-you'd-think portion of the population who doesn't like coal miners.  That is the case, however, for our friends on your map. 

Yawn. Yep. It’s totally racism keeping those people down.

Not most of their local governments being ridiculously corrupt. Not the people committing crimes at a higher rates in those neighborhoods than other neighborhoods. Not all the single parent out of wedlock families where many men and women are having multiple children with different partners at much higher % than other groups. Not three to four decades of failed neo-liberal economic policy by a corrupt political class that couldn’t give two shits about them. Not a complete joke of an educational system. Not a complete joke of a health care system.

You’re right. It’s just that big bad racism.

Yawn. Yep. It’s totally racism keeping those people down.

Not most of their local governments being ridiculously corrupt. Not the people committing crimes at a higher rates in those neighborhoods than other neighborhoods. Not all the single parent out of wedlock families where many men and women are having multiple children with different partners at much higher % than other groups. Not three to four decades of failed neo-liberal economic policy by a corrupt political class that couldn’t give two shits about them. Not a complete joke of an educational system. Not a complete joke of a health care system.

You’re right. It’s just that big bad racism.

You're listing a bunch of effects and ignoring the cause.  Thank you for contributing.

OAM’s biggest problem is that he can’t fathom people have a different opinion than he does. If he deems coal mining a “shitty job” then he thinks it is universally regarded that way.

Every comment he makes regarding the subject is based on the belief that no one would want to do that for a living and the people doing it are incapable of change and just accept their plight.

Coal mining is hard and dangerous work and it isn’t something that OAM or me or maybe anyone else on here would want to, but some people do for the trade off of good money.

Let's define a "shitty job" as any job no one would choose if all jobs paid the same.  How about that?  Now is it a shitty job?  To me, the shittiness of a job has nothing to do with the paycheck you take home.

 the story is a lot more complex than "those lazy poor people."

Who used that word first?

So does mine.That is not the quote CWS and myself responded to

I know this. The one I responded to was different.

You're listing a bunch of effects and ignoring the cause.  Thank you for contributing.

I’m not ignoring anything. You are. It has nothing to do with racism. It has everything to do with class. There are two classes in this country- rich and poor. Rich people give the same amount of f##ks about poor white people as they do about poor black people: none.

What you’re seeing in neighborhoods like that are the effects of high paying, low skill manual labor manufacturing jobs being gutted and entire industries collapsing in a chain reaction. Detroit has under 700,000 residents today, it is one of the poorest cities in the country, and looks like a literal war zone. In the 1960’s it was a city of almost 2 million residents and the richest city in the entire world. That’s why Detroit became a major hub for black people- they were able to flee the south and head north and get good paying jobs in manufacturing that didn’t require skill. And other entire industries and economies built up around the manufacturing jobs. See: Motown, 1950s/60s Detroit.

All of the out-sourcing and capital flight with the financialization of the US economy hurt these people the most. A corrupt, morally bankrupt political class of Democrats- which they shockingly continue to vote for- did them in. All of this has very little to do with race. That’s just pure and utter bullshit and side-tracking and avoiding all of the many the real problems that exist.

When you have cities losing entire industries and enormous numbers of quality paying low-skill jobs, and corrupt politicians that do absolutely nothing about providing legitimate health-care or improving education- you get cities like Detroit. Poverty breeds crime, drug & alcohol addictions, and poorer people tend to have way more children and children out of wedlock as well.

To blame it all on racism and think that is the cause is just astoundingly small minded and stupid and it’s not looking at a big picture with a lot of moving, complex parts.

is just astoundingly small minded and stupid and it’s not looking at a big picture with a lot of moving, complex parts.

So is blaming one political party.  
Never did I specify that race was the only factor, nor that it didn't include moving, complex parts.  I give everyone here the respect enough to assume you understand racism exists and causes major problems.  Please do me the courtesy of assuming I know race isn't the singular issue causing all of the inequalities in our country.

Due to the posts leading up to mine, I pictured a handful of people from WV and a handful chosen from urban Chicago standing next to each other.  Yes, the initial, stark contrast of those 2 groups is going to be race.