The data doesn’t back that up. Genetically, no one race is inherently more or less capable than another.
Considering that the “blacks” in the UK are West Indians and Africans who have vastly less in common with African-Americans than New Zealanders and Americans do that’s a really foolish question.
They aren’t remotely the same ethnic group.
Correct me then. Let’s find an ethnic group that is the same in different parts of the world. Trace East Africans, Hispanics, West Indians, Chinese, Jews etc, and see if the groups that are oppressed in the United States fare just as well as everyone else elsewhere.
It’s very hard to accurately measure such a thing. First, not all under-represented minorities or woman are admitted based on AA, so knowing who to look at is difficult. It’s not as if they tell you. In fact, they may not quantify it themselves. Second, even if you could identify them, their struggles, or lack thereof, do not only speak to their preparedness, but also to a number of other factors (eg. finances). Third, the whole idea of diversity is that everyone will gain some often immeasurable benefit from being exposed to all sorts of different people and perspectives. So even if your hypothetical AA student drops out more often, we are to understand that his presence helped even excellent students be better. Just as childless parents benefit from schools.
It is to some extent. You will notice that Blacks in cities and metro areas are often better off in a variety of ways than those in rural areas. That said, the reason why Jews and others were able to better assimilate the benefits urban areas provide is because they were usually allowed to observe, contribute to, and take advantage of those engines of innovation and prosperity. Blacks were/are often not. Also keep in mind that there is a big difference between a ghetto (yes, I am aware of the origin) and a city in this context.
What makes you think Blacks have not integrated into society? Do we not speak English, or share American ideals? Your amazement is largely due to your premises being faulty, not because Blacks are not “integrated”.
Secondly, since your standard was " a few generations", how about you stop complaining for a few generations. Even if you assume explicit institution racism has ended, the earliest plausible date for that end is 1964. It’s been roughly 48 years since then. There are still people alive who were not only sprayed with hoses, but also denied an education. There are also people alive who sprayed the hoses. I am under 30 and my uncle went to segregated schools. What makes you think that we should be further along in those 48 years (during which there has been a whole lot of racism) than we currently are? Why should we expect things to be better than they are?
The first few groups you mentioned were able to assimilate and co-opt the benefit s of being White as other groups became targets. It’s much easier to do that when you look like your oppressor.
Second, some people do hate Black people that much. Witness the level and types of vitriol directed at the President. That said, you are comparing apples and oranges. It’s also particularly telling that you think a group (Mexican-Americans) who mostly live in a handful of states, have varying levels of English proficiency, and are often not citizens of this country, are more “integrated” than African-Americans. Can I ask you what integration means in your mind?
Well, you are entitled to that belief. Regardless, it’s not a contest. That said, I disagree with you.
Chief Pedant, is that you? Jokes aside, if you are going to go down this road (“The blacks” are less capable of X, Y, and/or Z) I would suggest you to open up a new thread.
Since you’re new I’d like to inform you that this the message board has had a history of a few key posters hijacking race related threads to preach black-inferiority. This has happened so often the Mods have accumulated little tolerance to some posters advocating this (stupid and ridiculous) “hypothesis.”
I simply don’t understand what you are trying to get to?
That’s another moronic question.
There are groups that have had similar experiences, but their are none that are “the same”.
First, just because it is difficult to measure such a thing doesn’t mean that it isn’t important.
Second, I understand this. That is why the university should take into account many things, such as background, finances, whether your parents went to college… without needing to induce race. So if you are black raised in a white family with the same ‘advantages’ as a white person, you should have your race considered on your application? And vice-versa?
Third, institutions that receive public funding are not allowed to do this. In the workplace, you can’t justify hiring a black or white person over another just because of diversity, or “my office felt we needed a person of different color, we have some immeasurable justification”
Fourth, is there any proof that affirmative action is actually helping disadvantaged minorities, or just making the public feel good? If the latter is true then affirmative action hurts minorities.
You will also notice that ALL people in cities and metro areas are often better off in a variety of ways.
This is a bit of a silly question. Of course, a very large number of blacks are completely integrated into society as much as anyone else. However, I am not exactly sure what full integration would mean. And I’m talking about blacks “in general”, not at a specific community or a specific person.
Segregated living communities, much lower college graduation, much lower income, much higher violent crime rate, different culture. By the way blacks speak English but it is completely undeniable that a very significant number of blacks speak a different dialect, regardless of location.
Why? Let me ask you this. How have blacks fared, the ones who always lived in the north, never enslaved, and did not receive the (same level of) brunt of racism. I don’t know the answer to this, and it may not be measurable, but it is an important question.
And the last few? Jews look different than Europeans, and the Chinese are as different from whites as blacks from whites.
Apologies for the Mexican comment. My intention was to say that it is too early to tell with the Mexican population, they haven’t been here long enough. I missed that. Mexicans aren’t very integrated. They have a separate culture.
Even 1964 is too early. Brown v. Board of Education was decided in 1954, but it wasn’t until 1980 that even 50% of Southern public schools were fully desegregated (and the number of segregated schools has been steadily increasing since 1985 due to the Supreme Court’s change of heart in the 80s.
Did I opine about its importance? I just said it’s hard to measure accurately.
As long as society at large is “using race”, I don’t see why colleges should not.
You misunderstand the role of AA at colleges. Race cannot be used as a criteria in a “mechanistic” way. What happens these days generally involves more outreach and other programs, not extra points for Black people. Workplaces do those things all the time, so the distinction is not a clear as you make it seem.
What “proof” would you want?
And? That was my point.
It is.
Do you really think Blacks are generally self-segregating? Please do a bit of reading on White flight and gentrification.
What does that have to do with societal integration?
Why is different culture a bad thing? Most groups have different culture. That said, if you want to argue any minority group has had more impact in broad American culture than African-Americans, I will have to disagree with you. If nothing else, that speaks to integration more than anything.
The other points you make are largely a function of poverty. It’s pretty absurd to act as though any of those things make Blacks less integrated or un-American.
I disagree with your notion that lots of Blacks speak a different dialect, and that those who do still speak standard English without issue.
What are you talking about?
Jews are generally white. Jews look no more different from WASPs than Italians. The point was that the definition of White was broadened to include those who could pass. The Chinese, who are successful, are largely recent immigrants.
Of course, you are right. I was perhaps too generous in overlooking the detrimental effects of the things you mentioned in addition to sunset towns and failures of busing programs, etc.
It’s not measurable and it’s an extremely ignorant question. Slavery did exist in the North and blacks in the North always faced heavy amounts of discrimination and vastly more discrimination than white ethnic groups even in states where slavery was illegal. To give an obvious example, prior to the Civil War, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana had laws forbidding blacks, whether slave or free from entering and well into the 1960s there were many “sundown” towns in the North where blacks weren’t allowed to enter after sundown.
What the fuck are you talking about?
This comment is even dumber than you’re earlier ones.
Mexicans have been “here” for centuries and had their land stolen by the US.
Why do you think we have so many cities with Spanish names such as San Diego, El Paso, Los Angelos, and San Francisco? Hell, why do you think New Mexico is called New Mexico?
OOPS!!! That paragraph (and the one before it was actually in the post i was responding to and I forgot to delete it before I posted.
NZ? Wait… what? How did we get involved in this? 
I just want to say that as a white male, and the father of two more of them, I am fully enjoying watching Asian interest groups now bitching about affirmative action. This is especially enjoyable to me after being told at my children’s majority Asian school that I should not expect my child to be at the top - since they are up against the best of Asia.
The data is not clear. There does seem to be an IQ gap and we can discuss how much of that iq gap is genetic but what IS abundantly clear is that much of if not the majority of that iq gap is NOT genetically based. So yeah, maybe affirmative action can never achieve equality but we aren’t even close to closing the gap caused by environmental factors. Most notably socioeconomic but also a bunch of other social factors that are the result of being black and have nothing to do with genetic IQ.
You’re acting as if race isn’t a myth.
You aren’t reciting the history here very well. It’s more like “Reasonable people bring up the race/IQ studies in threads where discussions of those studies would be relevant, and then the usual hand-wavers come by and insist that those in the first group are all racists and the studies can’t possibly be correct (trotting out tired objections that the studies deal with very easily). Sometimes a mod steps in.”
It isn’t. Perception is reality.
Lol, wot? The winner of the 2004 Curt Stern award 2004 Curt Stern award can clear that up.
Do you think gender is a myth?