Reply #36: Absolutely.

[JDPriestly]

I lived in the south in the 1950s. We are a world further on race than we were then. There is no comparison. Intermarriage is accepted with no problems at least in California.

We may have a bigger problem with age discrimination than with race discrimination at this time. Attempts to open job opportunities for minorities in the corporate world have not been as sincere or as successful as they should have been. But the plight of older workers is worse.

Some of the racial inequities are due to historical disadvantages that determine the culture and education of our children. Some of the top names in banking, for example are the descendants of white people who made their fortunes in the 19th century. Some Americans still live on land that was owned by their great-grandparents. Very few of them belong to minorities. The grandparents and parents of many minority children were not given good educational opportunities. How much a child's grandparents read can determine how easily the children and grandchildren learn to read. And entry into top schools can still be very difficult for minorities yet that is the big ticket to belonging to high-level clubs and jobs in some areas of the country.

But, if you pretend that applicants are equal in these cultural and other ways and then compare the difficulty that an older applicant with x number of years of experience and training has in getting hired with that of a younger applicant who belongs to a racial minority, the older applicant has a much tougher time getting a good job.

So, there has been unbelievable progress in terms of race relations in the country. It is still not enough. There is much more to achieve in this area.

But now we have a lot of age discrimination. The economic downturn has made it worse.