Prompt: Troy’s complaint about the unfair job system shows his frustration with racial discrimination. How did this conversation make you think about fairness and opportunity in society today? If you were in Troy’s position, what would you do?

The conversation didn't really push any further thought. To dig further, I mean the most obvious observation is that our modern society is a lot more fair and provides much more opportunity for everyone, regardless of race or gender. The thing is though, its not fully there. I won't say its a false sense of security, but it's undeniably yet almost completely unspoken the way that these old prejudiced views and actions still linger in our modern society. Subconsciously, amongst everyone, you go in with a story. Its not just the "single story" we talked about, it's seemingly harmless YouTube videos some little kid watches, commentating over bodycam footage of a black man being arrested, making micro-aggressive remarks and jokes. Then its little teases and jokes at the front of the world's stage, little racist remarks, all slowly trickling down to the deepest level of the brain. Its the movie being played in front of a random 6 year old, where the cast is all white and the dumber "funny" characters are black, and the criminals are too. It's the video game that kid, now 10 years old plays, where the older teenagers start making racist jokes in the global voice chat. Its hundreds nearly thousands of little impressions and interactions. That kid, a kid no longer, now 30 years old, is a hiring manager, sat with 2 resumes. He only has one position, the two resumes are nearly identical, two 26 year old guys, near perfect records; but something he doesn't even realize guides him to choose the 2nd guy. The 2nd guy feels safer, the second guy looks "reliable", he looks like "less of a risk". Coincidentally, or maybe not, the 2nd guy is white. That's the danger, the idea is repeated thousands of times to this now grown man, maybe he made racist jokes in high school and at his fraternity all the time, maybe the N word was a part of his vocabulary, and he didn't think he was racist or prejudiced; he just didn't see it as a problem, everyone says stuff like that! 

Maybe that first guy had something on his record, and maybe that cop, watched those same videos with their "jokes", saw those same little "harmless" jokes at the Grammy's, sat in that same US server in BO2 hearing those same "jokes" from the older kids, which lead him to; at the age of 30 years old, pull over and stop that 1st prospective employee. That man was just minding his business, walking to his friend's house, maybe with a little bit of weed. He doesn't even smoke often, but its his first time meeting this friend in years, and he thought he'd make it a little special, a little like when they were back in high school, yet even then he strayed away to focus on his studies, he did all he could right; and now this cop is using his appearance, gait, and location, as enough reasonable suspicion to search and find that weed.

The prejudice, the blocking, the disadvantage, it lives on in our society, in our minds, in the minds of the youth, and a little stronger in the minds of the old. It will not be eliminated for a long time. Fairness and opportunity today seem much better, and arguably they are, but its just that the voices of hatred have when from screaming at the top of their lungs; to whispering among themselves. They've went from hounding the black man minding his business at the bar and throwing drinks, to saying the N-word when there's no black people around; to making jokes about their colored co-worker being lazy. It's turned from "You know damn well I'm not giving a n***a like you a job for a white man", to "I'm sorry, but after further review, we have to kindly decline your application. We appreciate your enthusiasm and want to get a position here at our institution." The part that makes it worse, is now you really don't know at all if the problem was the color of your skin, the area code you grew up in which they ran through their "Employee Scoring" AI which flagged as a "High-Risk Location", or if you really just lacked the credentials and skills.

Either way,

If I was in Troy's position, I would do the only thing you can do, which is to push on as hard as you can. Not giving up, not accepting defeat in the face of the system, but trudging on, trying to get that job. Doing everything I can. That's all that you can ever do.