Can what happened over 100 years ago really be the cause of problems today?

When reading the article "Technology Versus African Americans" by Anthoney Walton part of me couldn't help but become agraviated. The piece opens up talking about a man who has started a business that design and constructs web sites and how this business is well suited for African Americans. I found that to be great and how they adressed it being a good thing for high school aged students to get involved in. However, I found it agraviating when the author started explaining why it is so hard for African American's to advance in the society.

A good chunk in the middle of the article was devoted to talking about the past of African Americans, and how they have delt with slavery and difficulties for the past 400 years. This however, made it feel like more of and excuse that "Blacks make up 13 percent of the population i htis country, yet in 1995 they earned a shockinly low 1.8% of the Ph.D.s conferred in computer science, 2.1% of those in engineering, 1.5% in the physical sciences, and 0.6% in mathematices" (103). He also makes sure to state that "blacks have traditionally been poorly educated-look at the crisis in urban public schools- ad deprived of the sorts of opportunities that create the vision mecessary for technological ambition" (102). I sit here and question why it is just the black people of the urban communities that are deprived of the good education. There are many white people and those of various other races that live in areas like that also, where they might not recieve the best education and will also suffer from it. There is another passage in the article that also sounds like exuses are being made: "Poor whites, non-black Hispanics, and Asians were not dragged from their native lands to work as slaves and then buffeted for hundres of years by the vagaries of technology and an ecomony that they did not control" (99). These all seem to be an excuse to me as to why they have not been able to advance as far as some of them could have wished. This may seem to be awful, but it was hundreds of years ago and the world has advanced so much since the time of slavery. Although there is still discrimination, and unfortunaly always will be, it can't be an excuse for how the the black community is advance in 2009, almost 2010.

Although there were some excelent points made, and I agree with portions of the article, the tone of how it was written doesn't appeal to me.