[andy_card]

And you are incorrect in stating that African-Americans, or African immigrants, have not been 'offered that option". The only reasons you might suggest that are (a) Racist - setting black apart from all others, or (b) ideological. I'm hoping your conclusions arise from the latter source.

What are you talking about? The overwhelming majority of blacks who came to this country, came here involuntarily as slaves. As such, they weren't given the chance to assimilate into ordinary American society. I thought that was self-evident.

[norton]

So much for the eighteenth & early nineteenth centuries.

Immigration since that time has been voluntary or internal.

Internal immigrants are already part of the system - what part of that system is up to them and not me.

My ancestors came over both free and indentured, Irish and others. I've got problems too; but they are my problems and not subject to any reparations or guilt on the part of anyone whose ancestors needed Irish labor to keep the furnaces glowing.