Consider the following extended argument:

First, if Reverend King was alive today, he'd insist that the U.S. is a racist society. During his life he admitted he thought the U.S. would remain racist for at least another hundred years. Second, the country remains racist partly because the general public is unwilling to address the nation's economic inequalities. When someone attempts to discuss these inequalities, people generally repeat a tired, misleading cliche' such as "In this country you can do anything you want to do"; and most people still believe poor African Americans "simply don't try as hard as everyone else." And most people do still believe that. We asked 1,674 people if most poor people "simply don't try as hard as everyone else," and 72% of them said yes.