Yes, that's right.

You say, "I don't ever expect "the oppressed" to behave any differently than anyone else."

Ha! Neither do I...now. But when I was young, naive, and full of the most idealistic dreams I DID expect the oppressed to behave differently. I absolutely expected it. I think we all did back then. We were dreamers in the days of youth.

Maybe you were never that naive, but I sure was.

"they don't seem any more less venal than any group of white people I've ever been around" No, probably not. But are they carrying a bigger chip on their shoulder? If so, that in itself can lead to problems.

The people I was around in the AIM were carrying a much bigger chip on the shoulder than the average middle class White person I know...and it did lead to problems, mostly of the self-inflicted sort within the peer group itself, as I said.

"The dynamic you describe about native people you knew also sounds like life in the suburbs"

Yeah, it does, doesn't it? ;-) I've always detested life in the suburbs. I prefer living in either the city or the country...in either case there's some chance of escaping the kind of competitive quasi-incestuous mindgames that go on in a suburban neighborhood.

"Everybody acts like a jerk at some point or another, is cruel, greedy, ugly. I've seen it all, and it is me and you and (the) egg man."

Dead right. Nothing I can add to that.

You see, on the one hand, I expected too much. On the other hand, many people could have behaved a lot better than they chose to...and would have been far happier had they done so.