Hazlit, your “intersections” are not meeting on this issue. The number of black people who have “done well for themselves,” which is a vague and unquantified measure, is still ridiculously small compared to the number of white people who have “done well for themselves,” still a vague and unquantified measure. The average white family’s wealth is (are you ready?) 7.8 times greater than the wealth of black families. Why should black people have to do well despite disadvantages? If you admit that there are disadvantages for being black, then you admit that there is privilege for being white. Why is it necessary for one group to show “courage and resolve” when that is not the standard for others to succeed? We should not have to succeed “despite.” “Despite” should not exist.

From the economic statistics I’ve heard lately, the middle-class itself is a shrinking group, with the disparity between the top economic class and others growing wider each year. If that is the case (which it is) then I doubt that the black middle class is growing in any percentage greater than, or equal to, other groups. We are probably shrinking, along with the rest of the formerly middle class.