In Black, Latin, and Native American communities, police repression, homelessness, hunger, unemployment, disease, and constant TV reminders of unattainable comfort crush hope. Drug dealing, theft, alcoholism, and omnipresent gang hostility shatter dignified daily life. Toy guns are out.
Real guns are in.
The price of rebelling is being beaten, jailed, or shot. The price of obeying is starving plus being beaten, jailed, or shot. Elites refuse to improve dismal services, provide minimal housing, redress rotten schooling, or raise the minimum wage. Yet they still need minority community members as service and assembly workers and as preferred consumers of the liquor, cigarettes, and other deadly garbage they market. Examining budget allotments and public rhetoric confirms what analyzing history predicts.