And there never will be true equal opportunity. The brother, sister, son, daughter, cousin, in-law, school buddy, etc., etc. will always be first in line sometimes, regardless of their qualifications. There will always be somebody who hires based on race, sex, religion, etc. This fact does not mean we shouldn't be doing our best to limit the discrimination, but the fact that it does exist does not excuse racism/race baiting by either side, politically speaking.
1965 ain't exactly recently. However, I would argue that Jim Crow lurks in the minds of many a white man, and many blacks would say it never ended at all. Depends on your personal experiences.
Perhaps a analogy from fluid dynamics will help. Ever notice on the highway that you occasionally hit a big slowdown, and after you pass through it you note there is no sign of an accident? It seems "mysterious". You learn later that the accident was a couple of hours ago. Why are cars still slowing down when there is nothing in the way and nothing to see?
The last remnants of Jim Crow are in the urban cities. The style of racial politics that the Southern Democrats crafted for over 100 years in the deep South has found its home in the Democratic urban cities. Separate but equal, cut the Black communities out of the economy of the city. Lock them in their neighborhood by not getting them proper ID to travel, but fight like hell to allow them to vote for that very same politician without ID's
It does not matter how much you give them. It will never be enough. There will be constant whining and complaining. It will always be someone elses fault. That idea is engrained from birth. Second, how come countless immigrants can come this country without any money and a lot dont speak english, yet they still manage to thrive. I will give you a great example. I recently went to a large indoor market in Baltimore. The patrons of the market were about 75% black and the people selling from their shops were almost all asian. WTF? If you went and bought something the asians all spoke broken english and it was quite obvious they lived the majority of their lives in another country. They came here and they are busting their tail for a better live. They had no head start, they face discrimination, they face people trying to take advantage of them, they are in a completely foreign place, but they succeed. If that guy is getting off the boat from asia with no money and broken english, and 5 years later he doing better then you, sorry but you are a loser.
I'm not so sure it's the back end coming in faster than the front end can get up to speed. Sticking with your traffic jam analogy, it's more like we've gone from, I was late this morning becasue there was an accident, to, I'm late becase there was an accident yesterday, last week, last month, last year. Let's quit focusing on the yesterday's accident and get in today. Full disclaimer, I'm guilty of this myself.
You can't fix debt with more debt You can't fix economic inequality with Great Society give aways. You can't fix under achievement with programs designed to make you stay at home and have kids without dads. The incentives are all wrong. The dems have captured and stifled the urban underclass with programs which provide incentives to be idle and non productive.
The majority of those were not subject to Jim Crow. And typically immigrants don't thrive so much as they survive. Their children do better.