>Do you think it's possible and worthwhile to change attitudes? Depends. >If we once believed (and no doubt some still do) that black people are worth less th

>Do you think it's possible and worthwhile to change attitudes? Depends. >If we once believed (and no doubt some still do) that black people are worth less than white people, and so black people were effectively forced to accept less (though nobody was holding a gun to their heads), was that an acceptable state of affairs? Yes. Westerners didn't arbitrarily decide that blacks were worth less to them, it was because they were. Blacks could not contribute anything to the westerners other than slave labour... and they were too ignorant of the western power structure to organize themselves to fight for equal worth from the states they were in. When they figured it out however, they did get the same worth from the states they were in. >What was in it for any of the (non-black) people to change anything about it? Not sure about all non-blacks but the Republican Party of the US which was founded by anti-slavery activists who believed in independence and freedom for all people. They already had examples of free blacks who were just as capable of learning and contributing to the society and letting some people own some of them and treat them as animals wasn't acceptable to them and a lot of others. So, they used it for political leverage and were very successful. >Given the stories we regularly hear from female employees in the tech industry (of being harassed and/or left out of the "inner circle") Nobody is stopping women from having their own niche occupation where they make their own inner circles... oh wait there are those occupations, they are called nursing and teaching. Men and women in general have different life goals and different preferences in their careers. Also, "harassment" happens to men too (specially when everything is harassment)... men just deal with it differently i.e. by not complaining about it to others and doing something about it themselves.