I work from time to time in Boston's great medical-educational complex, the center of which is on the edge of a black neighborhood. At work I have seen young adults who have pulled themselves up and moved out of the ghetto, and others who still live there and find themselves in a sort of bi-cultural bind--they "act white" at their jobs in the hospital, the jobs that are their keys out of Roxbury. But it is to Roxbury that they return at night, and they face the resentment of those who either haven't yet figured out a way to leave, or those who through weakness or pride or hatred would prefer to stay put.
When the cities were burning in the 60s, blacks and whites couldn't talk about this stuff. Now we can and do, and whenever there's anything that can be said to offer these kids encouragement and support, it is my observation that the conversation goes both ways, and no one resents any of it.
I suspect that the "multi-cultural" crowd prefers poverty to hope, so that they can keep their constituents in line.
Still rarer is the man who thinks habitually, who applies reason, rather than habit pattern, to all his activity. Unless he masques himself, his is a dangerous life; he is regarded as queer, untrustworthy, subversive of public morals; he is a pink monkey among brown monkeys -- a fatal mistake. Unless the pink monkey can dye himself brown before he is caught.
The brown monkey's instinct to kill is correct; such men are dangerous to all monkey customs.
Rarest of all is the man who can and does reason at all times, quickly, accurately, inclusively, despite hope or fear or bodily distress, without egocentric bias or thalmic disturbance, with correct memory, with clear distinction between fact, assumption, and non-fact.