And I'm also less optimistic than you are about the social mobility that blacks enjoy today. I agree that it is more than they did 50 years ago. But I suspect that it slipped in the last decade, and I don't see it going away in the next century.

As for your theory about how kids would be affected by that joke, I agree that the women who told it to me had cause to be unhappy, but I also think that the projects are full of black kids whose reaction is the opposite of the one that you'd hope for.

Cheers,
Ben