Maggot,
You are absoutely correct.. There are other causative factors in nearly any decision. Race alone is seldom the reason for anyone's lousy situation. Some of those factors are obvious, some not so obvious.
As you correctly point out, we cannot control everything in our environment. I believe we are ultimately responsible for the choices we make in response to what happens. Your example with the woman who is abducted, used, and made addicted to drugs is a great example. Of course, she didn't decide to have all that stuff happen to her, but she is not left without choices...even if those choices are really shitty ones like suicide, trying to escape and being beaten or killed as a result. But she still has choices...just not any readily apparent good ones.
Neither you, nor I caused her situation, so those who would try and assign some kind of white guilt to me for the horrible things that happened to that woman won't have much luck if they hope that I am receptive to accepting the white guilt they hope to assign to me.
I guess my point is that I am unwilling to say that everything that happens to that woman, or her response to it can be assigned to no other factor than her race...or the race of her tormenter.
You are correct, there are no easy answers, nor simple solutions.
I just have difficulty accepting that someone is better, or worse than anyone else simply because of their race. More people are jerks simply because they are jerks, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with their race. Many will, however, try and use race as a convenient excuse to avoid responsibility for their stupid choices.
