Walter Williams Column: Today and Yesterday
Walter E. Williams
September 10th, 2020 2:45 PM
In matters of race and other social phenomena, there is a tendency to believe that what is seen today has always been. For black people, the socioeconomic progress achieved during my lifetime, which started in 1936, exceeded anyone's wildest dreams. In 1936, most black people lived in gross material poverty and racial discrimination. Such poverty and discrimination is all but nonexistent today. Government data, assembled by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, shows that "the average American family ... identified as poor by the Census Bureau, lives in an air-conditioned, centrally heated house or apartment ... They have a car or truck. (Indeed, 43 percent of poor families own two or more cars.)" The household "has at least one widescreen TV connected to cable, satellite, or a streaming service, a computer or tablet with internet connection, and a smartphone. (Some 82 percent of poor families have one or more smartphones." On top of this, blacks today have the same constitutional guarantees as everyone else, which is not to say that every vestige of racial discrimination has been eliminated.
https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/walter-e-williams/2020/09/10/walter-williams-column-today-and-yesterday
