Slavery

Slavery or colonization did a hatchet job on people of color in this country.  It's something affirmative action,  civil rights, or higher education can't heal.  It's like being constantly beaten as a child and then cut loose at eighteen to succeed in the world.  Most will struggle to make it, and even those who do well will bear the vivid scars of Jim Crow and racism in the form of high unemployment, crime,  colorism, and low self-esteem.  It exists in every walk of life in the black community,  covertly or otherwise,  something an African American president or attorney general can't fix.  I don't view the past as a crutch or something to hang failures on,  but the aftermath of slavery or Apartheid in America,  which only ended in 1965,  can't be easily denied or overlooked.