Bob Thompson posted a response to Fred Reed's column that I linked to yesterday. Again, I find nothing to argue with. The lid coming off, to use Bob's phrasing, is one of the big reasons I have been planning and working towards getting out of Flint since I was in Jr. High. At my last job (Hurley Medical Center), you could cut the racial tension with a knife. The place was over-run with affirmative action hires that were not capable of doing their jobs. Everyone, including the affirmative action hires, knew who the affirmative action hires were. It was obvious, yet no one was allowed to say anything on pain of immediate termination. At least at work. The whites certainly said plenty to each other after work. I have no idea what the blacks said, because I never talked to them outside of work, and only then when it was unavoidable. Not because I am some racist that doesn't want to be anywhere near blacks, but because the blacks in the IS department requested (demanded?) and were given racially segregated offices. I drew the obvious conclusion from that and restricted contact to e-mail and phone, and only when absolutely unavoidable. In Flint, whites and blacks have very little to do with each other, and both sides seem to prefer it that way. Two nations living in the same borders.

And I will shut up before I say too much. This is, after all, America; where everyone knows what you cannot say and who you cannot say it about.