I agree with what you said about poverty, and I feel as if the same is true of systemic unfairness. Perhaps the African-American (I do not like the term black, but that's for another discussion) neighbors you have really are treated very similarly as the rest, but stereotypes are powerful. I imagine most African-American people can't get others to treat them equally, even if the others truly do believe that they aren't racist. I think the horror around "unconscious racism" or whatever is overblown, though.