What’s the life expectancy for black guys?
The system’s working effectively, that’s why!

from Kanye West (Ft. Jay-Z) – Murder to Excellence Lyrics on Rap Genius

Black men in America have a much shorter life expectancy than white men. Yeezy makes the powerful point that this is not an aberration or a flaw in an otherwise healthy system, but is in fact the racist way the United States political economy was designed to work. This, rather than black-on-black crime, is arguably the real genocide

The irony is a system working effectively is usually a good thing — in this case it would be better if it was ineffective.

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