By far the easiest type of prejudice, prejudgment and the like, relies simply upon the look of the man in question, to which, ingrained within the American milieu, those that are other than white in complexion, are invariably treated by the white ruling class with at best suspicion or perhaps a begrudging respect, sometimes with apathy, and to a large extent by a significant portion of the status quo with disgust, outright hostility, and categorical racism. Although overt prejudicial conditions within America have most definitely improved over time, that progress is quite deceptive, to which even a cursory glance at justice and injustice in virtually every community clearly demonstrates that minorities, especially minorities of darker complexion are far more likely to be incarcerated as well as poor with little real hope of progress.
The one thing in America that has not changed and is not subject to being changed, is the systemic attack upon minorities that are impoverished and are living in poor conditions whether ghettos or the equivalent to, with significantly high numbers of single parent households, anemic employment opportunities, pathetic and unequal public schooling, substantially higher incarceration rates, and substantially lacking all the positive accouterments that so many of us take for granted, such as safety, love, respect, positive role models, and so forth, replaced instead with being treated as less than human and unworthy of our respect.
There is though a rather disturbing tale that isn't told often enough, which is the hubris of the ruling class in regards to those that they feel are not worthy to sit with them at the same table and this is that the truth of the matter is that it is the circumstances of our life, that is to say, where we were born, who we were born to, our wealth or lack of it, our good education or lack of access to it, our good family or lack of one, and the complexion of our skin, that define so often the choices or lack of choices that we really do have.
There isn't any reason to cue the violins, because when you deprive a man of his self-respect, when you deprive a man of fair merit-driven opportunity, when you deprive a man a fair wage or even a fair opportunity to make a fair wage, when each day is a struggle, when you are in debt to your eyebrows, and harassed or targeted by policing authorities, when the area that you live in is both dangerous as well as dilapidated, when the laws are unequally applied specifically against you, and the color of your skin convicts you of crimes that you have not committed, you are going to basically get the results that we presently see in these communities that are forsaken.
While certain white people are inclined to feel high and mighty that they would never freefall to such depths, we know that it can't be because white people are created with superior stuff, because there is also an underclass of white people that are impoverished, ill-educated, and oppressed. When we take a look at those white people that have nothing, are nothing, and have no opportunity to be anything other than nothing, their lives intersect rather dramatically with blacks of the same milieu, signifying that so often it is the conditions that we are borne into and live with on a daily basis, that ends up becoming our identity and thereby our destiny.
While it is true that we are the masters of our fate, what is also true and extremely relevant, is that the dice held in the poor man's hand is dice tooled specifically to roll only snake eyes.