# Equality of opportunity does not lead to equality of results **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 19, 2019, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088 "2019-12-19T15:59:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Sirreal72](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Sirreal72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sirreal72)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/201 "2019-12-23T17:49:13Z")
It seems to me that people are arguing whether Nature or Nurture leads more to success. The obvious answer is that they both matter. And the definition of “success” is a factor as well. Ex: In a physical fight, an untrained, large person is more likely to win vs an untrained small person. But a trained small fighter as a better chance against a larger untrained opponent. Yet a larger trained fighter will have the advantage over a smaller trained opponent. That is a classic example, but it limits the variables to 2 factors: size and skill. But obviously experiences play a role, as well as context. A trained boxer would have an advantage against a mixed martial artist in the square circle, but be disadvantaged in the octagon. Different rules define how “success” is measured. Arguing about race and culture/sub-culture is basically trying to compare Nature vs. Nurture. Charlie Pride is a successful country singer, Eminem a successful rapper; Which was more important to their success? Their race, or their immersion into the respective music cultures? It does not matter if a person is black, white or purple…if they come from a family of bankers/musicians/coal miners then they are more likely to end up working as bankers/musicians/coal miners. You can try to regulate opportunity, but you cannot manufacture success unless you can find a way to change culture. Good luck with trying to get people to agree to that. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/202 "2019-12-23T18:08:22Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > **iiandyiiii** - thanks for the cites. > > If that were the case - that there was something inherent about the group - the illegitimate birth rate wouldn’t vary as equality of opportunity varied. Which is very much not the case - the illegitimacy rate used to be much lower among African Americans, but increased markedly at the same time as Jim Crow and overt discrimination was reduced or eliminated. [Cite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Family:_The_Case_For_National_Action). > > Black illegitimacy rates were always higher than those of whites, but in 1940 it was less than 20%. Currently it is over 70%. I don’t think it can be credibly argued that black people have the same or less equality of opportunity in 2019 than they did in 1940. > > Regards, > Shodan So the question remains. The underlying assumption (which I agree with) is that there is no inherent superiority or inferiority in a particular race. Therefore, if Group A is 12% of the population and Group B is 88% of the population (let’s keep it simple), in a society where there was true equality of opportunity, then we should see that roughly 12% of doctors, lawyer, engineers, plumbers, etc. are members of Group A. If not, why not? Therefore why do you feel that the black out of wedlock birth rate is so much higher among blacks? It’s not a lack of equality of opportunity as you point out that it increased after Jim Crow was abolished. It cannot be an inherent inferiority for racial reasons because racism is not a valid scientific belief. Why then, the high illegitimacy rate? ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/203 "2019-12-23T19:16:01Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > What country are you talking about? > > Are you udner the impression that children in this country suffer from malnutrition? Or lack of health care? > > Bwana indeed. > > What arent the potholes slowing down the nigerians? The sacrifices the Nigerians are making are the equivalent of saying if you want to be in the race you have to fill in the potholes by yourself with your own asphalt (ie do things others don’t have to just to start out even) ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/204 "2019-12-23T19:54:33Z")
> [@Chingon](#): > > There you go. Can someone translate this for me? It’s not obvious to me what Chingon is trying to say and repeated attempt at trying to get him to clarify have been fruitless. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/205 "2019-12-24T02:18:59Z")
I obviously cannot speak for another poster but I can speak for why that comment there made sense to me - To the degree that you are stating that culture is a significant factor to academic success I don’t think there is much to argue against. But you paint that cultural brush with such broad generalizations and positive v negative, superior v inferior, value when the reality is that cultural impacts are very granular, much related to specific peer group, over family, and each impacted by the impact of societal stereotypes held both by others and self-internalized, by lived experiences among role models available to you, and also not so clearly straightforward of one value or the other. Let’s pull back some and just establish that culture impacts how our minds work and what we put value on. Let’s look at a group that you lumped together - Asians, and look specifically only [within China.](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/05/08/310477497/rice-theory-why-eastern-cultures-are-more-cooperative) Really interesting study looking at the differences in cognitive patterns and values between Chinese of Northern China which culturally was more wheat farming historically, and those of the South, where rice farming was predominant. > [@](#): > > … Because farming rice paddies requires collaboration with your neighbors, Talhelm tells The Salt. Self-reliance is dangerous. > > “Families have to flood and drain their field at the same time,” he says. " So there are punishments for being too individualistic. If you flood too early, you would really piss off your neighbors." > > Rice paddies also require irrigation systems. “That cost falls on the village, not just one family,” he says. “So villages have to figure out a way to coordinate and pay for and maintain this system. It makes people cooperate.” > > Wheat, on the other hand, as well as barley and corn, doesn’t generally require irrigation — or much collaboration. One family alone can plant, grow and harvest a field of wheat, without the help of others. > > So wheat farming fosters cultures with more individualism, independence and innovation, Talhelm and his colleagues say. Self-reliance and innovation are rewarded. … > > … For generations, the people in the northern half of China have generally grown wheat, while those in the southern half have focused on rice. … > > … Talhelm and his colleagues gave simple psychological tests to about a thousand college students from both parts of China. Students in the north answered the questions more like Americans and Europeans: They tended to be more individualistic and use more analytical thinking. Those in the south aligned more with the cultures in Japan and Korea. > > One test, for instance, asked a person to draw his social network, with circles representing himself and his friends. Americans tend to draw themselves bigger than their friends, about a quarter of an inch bigger. But Japanese draw themselves, on average, a bit smaller than their friends, a previous study found. > > “America is No. 1 when it comes to self-inflation,” Telhelm says. “We draw ourselves much larger than friends. We take that as a measure of self-inflation.” > > When Talhelm gave the same social network test to Chinese students, the amount of self-inflation depended on where the students lived. People from wheat-growing regions drew themselves slightly larger than their friends, on average. Students from the rice-growing regions drew themselves smaller than their friends. Like Westerners, people whose ancestors farmed wheat tend to inflate their own importance more. … You also might be interested in the book [“The Geography of Thought”](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0743255356/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=78477699294066&hvqmt=p&hvbmt=bp&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_55gquhymmi_p) by Richard Nisbett. There is no doubt that there are often complex cultural and subcultural impacts on how we think and what we value (just as much as individuals impact what the culture is in return). One does have to be careful though not to go from there to gross negative stereotyping and excessive generalization, lest it be observed that … there you go. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/206 "2019-12-24T20:44:48Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > “With hidden hunger, officially known as micronutrient deficiency, people eat enough calories, but fail to get essential nutrients such as vitamins and minerals.” > > So it sounds like your first link is saying that eating junk food leads to manutrition despite sufficient caloric intake. Is the sort of "malnutrition that people were complaining about? This seems like the result of poor choice not lack of resources. From that link: > [@](#): > > micronutrient deficiency is rarely discussed in the US. However, it is a serious and growing challenge in all segments of our population, particularly among those with low and middle incomes, who have limited access to – or simply can’t afford – the extra cost of essential nutrition. It’s an issue of access to quality food; and of money to buy quality food; and of time to cook, and of access to cooking facilities. It is not solely, and in many cases not primarily, an issue of choice. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The second link only mentions health consequences of things like poor education and poverty not lack of health care. And from that link: > [@](#): > > Compared to higher-income Americans, low-income people face greater barriers to accessing medical care. They are less likely to have health insurance, receive new drugs and technologies, and have ready access to primary and specialty care. Low-income workers are more likely to be employed by organizations that do not offer health benefits: Less than one-third of low-income workers obtain health insurance through their employer, compared to nearly 60 percent of higher-income workers. Even after implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), more than twenty-seven million Americans remain uninsured—the majority of whom are low-income people. Those without health insurance are less likely to have a regular source of medical care and more likely to forgo care because of cost concerns. So I don’t think either of my cites at all fits your description of them. But I can go hunt up a batch more if you want. Might take me a while; I’ve got other things I need to be doing. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > If rural blacks communities have a different culture than urban/suburban black communities then that’s does’t really negate anything I am saying except to point out that there is an exception to my statement in the form of rural blacks. > > Exceptions don’t negate rules. They sometimes prove the rule. Exceptions most certainly can negate rules; and they never prove rules in the sense of ‘confirming that the rule is true’. The fact of an exception can prove that a rule exists in the sense that, for example, if a sign says “no parking this side of the street on Tuesdays and Thursdays”, that means that parking regulations allow parking there the rest of the week. Or it might arguably ‘prove’ a rule in the sense of testing it – if the rule says moths will be the color of whatever they most often perch on, and someone finds a species of white moth that perches on dark trees, then either an explanation needs to be found (maybe the trees are only dark from recent ash deposits, usually they have pale bark) or else the rule is wrong and needs to be withdrawn, or at least modified. But if you have a rule that says ‘all x are y’, finding an exception disproves that rule. If you have a rule that says ‘most x are y’, finding one exception doesn’t disprove it; but finding lots of exceptions most certainly does. You said “culture is a significant difference between races”. There are so many exceptions to that supposed rule that there isn’t any rule left. I repeat: Every group identified as a ‘race’ contains multiple widely varying cultures. (Not just two. Trying to lump all black people into either one monolithic ‘black rural’ or one monolithic ‘black urban/suburban’ culture doesn’t work either.) Most cultures contain members of multiple ‘races’. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/207 "2019-12-24T21:10:28Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > You are absolutely right-We should never have appointed **TimeWinder** to be our official spokesperson. If you could ask the Mods to put a hold on this conversation until the General Liberal Convention in Dubuque on May 17th it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > You should be asking TimeWinder to explain himself rather than asking why all liberals believe something that we’re all telling you that we don’t believe. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Did you ask to see TimeWinder’s liberal card when he said that? Remember, it doesn’t count as an official statement of the liberal position if he doesn’t show the card. Timewinder didn’t see this thread until now, and was busy not beating his head repeatedly against a dead horse until now, so he’s late to this thread. To state again my “controversial” position: “Equality of opportunity is the same thing as equality of results,” I continue to stand by it. But, since the short form of that apparently instantly derails into stupidity like “This specific black guy can do something that this specific white guy can’t do, so obviously you’re wrong and ‘race reality’ is right, h’yuck h’yuck h’yuck,” let me try this again. OVER LARGE POPULATIONS, we have not achieved equality of results, and in fact aren’t even close to having achieved quality of results. The liberal position (and I was, in fact, appointed spokesman for all liberals on this point; you should read your mail more often): That’s because we haven’t achieved equality of opportunity in any of dozens of areas: health care, family support, income, education, access to jobs, promotional opportunies, representation in decision-making bodies, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. The conservative position (best I can seem to figure it out): That’s because black people/mexican people are genetically bad at things, stupid, or have “lazy cultures,” but we’re not racists because Asian people are super smart! The arguments on both sides seem to be repeated every time this comes up, and a quick review of the thread shows that we’re well along beating the horse, so I’ll bow out again and let it pointlessly continue. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/208 "2019-12-24T21:32:55Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > The liberal position (and I was, in fact, appointed spokesman for all liberals on this point; you should read your mail more often): That’s because we haven’t achieved equality of opportunity in any of dozens of areas: health care, family support, income, education, access to jobs, promotional opportunies, representation in decision-making bodies, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. Things like income and representation in political bodies are results, not opportunities. Also things like family support; how do we provide that? That is up to families. Some of the other things are head scratchers, like education. Doesn’t everyone have free K-12 and, if qualified, be admitted to college and take on a bunch of debt? What “opportunity” does a poor inner city black kid, for example, need to get good marks to get into college? As long as he has a roof over his head he can do his homework. If he is not properly supervised or not taught the value of studying, what exactly should we provide? New parents? Same with access to jobs and promotional opportunities. By law they have these. If someone breaks the law and refuses to promote a black person, then absolutely prosecute them, but I’m not sure what more should be done. Health care seems to be the other side of the income coin, but we do provide medical care for indigent people. Again, not sure what more we should do about that. ---
**Author:** ![str8cashhomie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7cd45c/32.png) [@str8cashhomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/str8cashhomie)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/209 "2019-12-24T22:44:15Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Things like income and representation in political bodies are results, not opportunities. Also things like family support; how do we provide that? That is up to families. > > Some of the other things are head scratchers, like education. Doesn’t everyone have free K-12 and, if qualified, be admitted to college and take on a bunch of debt? What “opportunity” does a poor inner city black kid, for example, need to get good marks to get into college? As long as he has a roof over his head he can do his homework. If he is not properly supervised or not taught the value of studying, what exactly should we provide? New parents? > > Same with access to jobs and promotional opportunities. By law they have these. If someone breaks the law and refuses to promote a black person, then absolutely prosecute them, but I’m not sure what more should be done. Health care seems to be the other side of the income coin, but we do provide medical care for indigent people. Again, not sure what more we should do about that. Stuff like income and political representation are examples where it becomes hard to separate opportunity/results. Obviously they are results, but for the next generation, they lead to worse opportunities. A lot of the other things come to tradeoffs that poor people have to make much more than middle class or rich people - if any family has two parents that have to work nights they don’t have the luxury of supervising their kids after school, and for poor people the choice may be leave the kids unsupervised, go into debt (honestly for most Americans it would be go into deeper debt), or not going to the doctor/dentist. Unfortunately the impact of a ton of individual situations like this is extremely hard to measure - the only thing that is really easy to measure is results. The cases of healthcare and education offer additional hurdles. When it comes to healthcare, TONS of poor and otherwise disadvantaged people get [left in the dark](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/health/millions-of-poor-are-left-uncovered-by-health-law.html) and in the US are basically in the position of not being able to afford any care, except the E.R. When it comes to education, income disparity can have effects even before kids enter kindergarten - Pre-K is not mandated and access to Pre-K as well as the quality different people can afford can be huge. Even beyond Pre-K, being able to afford books and brain-stimulating toys for kids has a huge impact as well. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2019, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/210 "2019-12-27T04:11:31Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > To the degree that you are stating that culture is a significant factor to academic success I don’t think there is much to argue against. So why do I get the feeling that people are arguing against that notion? > [@](#): > > But you paint that cultural brush with such broad generalizations and positive v negative, superior v inferior, value when the reality is that cultural impacts are very granular, much related to specific peer group, over family, and each impacted by the impact of societal stereotypes held both by others and self-internalized, by lived experiences among role models available to you, and also not so clearly straightforward of one value or the other. So wait. Do you think there is an identifiable cultures or not? And are some of those cultures in fact not better at promoting education than others? Its not like nigerian culture is better than popular black culture in every way but in terms of education, social stability, etc. I think nigerian culture is better than popular black culture. > [@](#): > > Let’s pull back some and just establish that culture impacts how our minds work and what we put value on. Let’s look at a group that you lumped together - Asians, and look specifically only [within China.](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/05/08/310477497/rice-theory-why-eastern-cultures-are-more-cooperative) > > Really interesting study looking at the differences in cognitive patterns and values between Chinese of Northern China which culturally was more wheat farming historically, and those of the South, where rice farming was predominant. > > You also might be interested in the book [“The Geography of Thought”](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0743255356/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=78477699294066&hvqmt=p&hvbmt=bp&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_55gquhymmi_p) by Richard Nisbett. > > There is no doubt that there are often complex cultural and subcultural impacts on how we think and what we value (just as much as individuals impact what the culture is in return). One does have to be careful though not to go from there to gross negative stereotyping and excessive generalization, lest it be observed that … there you go. So wait, wtf did he mean by “there you go”? And how does communal attitudes vs individualistic attitudes affect cultures in a way to increase focus on education? Rice is grown in a zillion places and they do not all have cultures that value education as much as China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam. What those countries have in common is that they are all confucian cultures and have all had at some points in their history an imperial exam that provided the primary form of social mobility in their society. These exams persisted in these societies in some cases for millenia. That is a long time to build social habits or culture. This was how a poor dirt farmer’s son could become a harbormaster; how a harbormaster’s son could become a mayor; how a mayor’s son could become a governor, etc. One of the downsides to this culture is that the improvements in social status are frequently incremental and generational, so the dirt farmer could hope for his son to become a harbormaster but he could not really aspire to become one himself. This at once both promotes fairly extreme sacrifice from parents and is also kind of sad. That dirt farmer must accept his lot in life and hope for a better life for his descendants. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2019, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/211 "2019-12-27T04:27:26Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > … > > Therefore why do you feel that the black out of wedlock birth rate is so much higher among blacks? It’s not a lack of equality of opportunity as you point out that it increased after Jim Crow was abolished. It cannot be an inherent inferiority for racial reasons because racism is not a valid scientific belief. Why then, the high illegitimacy rate? How many [race x] out of wedlock births are due to non [race x]? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2019, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/212 "2019-12-27T04:29:18Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > From that link: > > It’s an issue of access to quality food; and of money to buy quality food; and of time to cook, and of access to cooking facilities. It is not solely, and in many cases not primarily, an issue of choice. > > And from that link: > > So I don’t think either of my cites at all fits your description of them. But I can go hunt up a batch more if you want. Might take me a while; I’ve got other things I need to be doing. Noone is saying that opportunities are equal between rich and poor but it is a pretty fair statement to say that it is not lack of food but quality of food that seems to be the problem. Between WIC, SNAP, and the NSLP, the resources are there so that nutrition is not hampering the intellectual development of children. We do not let our children starve for lack of ability to pay. Not even in trump’s america. > [@](#): > > You said “culture is a significant difference between races”. There are so many exceptions to that supposed rule that there isn’t any rule left. I repeat: Every group identified as a ‘race’ contains multiple widely varying cultures. (Not just two. Trying to lump all black people into either one monolithic ‘black rural’ or one monolithic ‘black urban/suburban’ culture doesn’t work either.) Most cultures contain members of multiple ‘races’. So you don’t think there is a dominant black culture. You think the fact that there is some tiny group of blacks that brought their own culture with them from nigeria means that there is not a black culture? Really? Anyways, back to the OP, things are getting better academically, especially for black girls. But if opportunity =outcome, it is hard to see how black men have fewer academic opportunities than black women. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2019, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/213 "2019-12-27T04:33:44Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > Timewinder didn’t see this thread until now, and was busy not beating his head repeatedly against a dead horse until now, so he’s late to this thread. > > To state again my “controversial” position: “Equality of opportunity is the same thing as equality of results,” I continue to stand by it. > > But, since the short form of that apparently instantly derails into stupidity like “This specific black guy can do something that this specific white guy can’t do, so obviously you’re wrong and ‘race reality’ is right, h’yuck h’yuck h’yuck,” let me try this again. > > OVER LARGE POPULATIONS, we have not achieved equality of results, and in fact aren’t even close to having achieved quality of results. > > The liberal position (and I was, in fact, appointed spokesman for all liberals on this point; you should read your mail more often): That’s because we haven’t achieved equality of opportunity in any of dozens of areas: health care, family support, income, education, access to jobs, promotional opportunies, representation in decision-making bodies, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. > > The conservative position (best I can seem to figure it out): That’s because black people/mexican people are genetically bad at things, stupid, or have “lazy cultures,” but we’re not racists because Asian people are super smart! > > The arguments on both sides seem to be repeated every time this comes up, and a quick review of the thread shows that we’re well along beating the horse, so I’ll bow out again and let it pointlessly continue. So why do nigerians have such great results? If opportunity=outcome, then why do the black women do so much better academically than the black men from the same communities? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2019, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/214 "2019-12-27T04:37:46Z")
> [@str8cashhomie](#): > > Stuff like income and political representation are examples where it becomes hard to separate opportunity/results. Obviously they are results, but for the next generation, they lead to worse opportunities. > > A lot of the other things come to tradeoffs that poor people have to make much more than middle class or rich people - if any family has two parents that have to work nights they don’t have the luxury of supervising their kids after school, and for poor people the choice may be leave the kids unsupervised, go into debt (honestly for most Americans it would be go into deeper debt), or not going to the doctor/dentist. Unfortunately the impact of a ton of individual situations like this is extremely hard to measure - the only thing that is really easy to measure is results. How do the nigerians manage it? How do caribbean immigrants manage it? How do poor asians manage it? > [@](#): > > The cases of healthcare and education offer additional hurdles. When it comes to healthcare, TONS of poor and otherwise disadvantaged people get [left in the dark](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/health/millions-of-poor-are-left-uncovered-by-health-law.html) and in the US are basically in the position of not being able to afford any care, except the E.R. When it comes to education, income disparity can have effects even before kids enter kindergarten - Pre-K is not mandated and access to Pre-K as well as the quality different people can afford can be huge. Even beyond Pre-K, being able to afford books and brain-stimulating toys for kids has a huge impact as well. Medicaid covers the vast majority of the people i think you are talking about. Not the best care but not the worst either. Once again, we are seeing huge disparities in outcome despite comparable incomes and wealth. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2019, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/215 "2019-12-27T04:41:05Z")
> [@snfaulkner](#): > > How many [race x] out of wedlock births are due to non [race x]? My guess is not a whole lot. But why does that matter? The metric is measuring a thing. That thing is how frequent out of wedlock births are in a community. And some communities have higher rates than others. I suspect first generation nigerian communities have much lower out of wedlock birth rates than the general population but will probably start to drift closer to the mean as their culture gets watered down with generational assimilation, like it has with other groups. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2019, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/216 "2019-12-27T04:46:28Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > My guess is not a whole lot. But why does that matter? The metric is measuring a thing. That thing is how frequent out of wedlock births are in a community. And some communities have higher rates than others. > > I suspect first generation nigerian communities have much lower out of wedlock birth rates than the general population but will probably start to drift closer to the mean as their culture gets watered down with generational assimilation, like it has with other groups. No clue how it matters socially. I was just trying to reconcile his assertion with how genetics work. Unless there was forced spawning of one race by another, id think 100% of out of wedlock births are due to the races involved with the actual copulation. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2019, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/217 "2019-12-27T11:25:48Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So why do I get the feeling that people are arguing against that notion? > > So wait. Do you think there is an identifiable cultures or not? People are responding to what you are arguing, which is not that. There are identifiable cultures and subcultures. Lumping “Black America” (or “popular black culture”) as one culture and attaching stereotypes to it, is not that notion. It comes off more as an excuse to justify stereotyping. > [@](#): > > … So wait, wtf did he mean by “there you go”? … Again cannot speak for that poster but I’d see it as … what I just said. Not a serious analysis of culture, its impacts, and how culture and subculture, is shaped by what opportunities for outcomes have and have not existed. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2020, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/218 "2020-01-02T18:14:16Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > People are responding to what you are arguing, which is not that. There are identifiable cultures and subcultures. Lumping “Black America” (or “popular black culture”) as one culture and attaching stereotypes to it, is not that notion. It comes off more as an excuse to justify stereotyping. Are you saying there is no such thing as a black culture in America? That I cannot make broad sweeping statements about that culture based on things like out of wedlock birth rates, teenage pregnancy rates, high school truancy rates, etc.? > [@](#): > > Again cannot speak for that poster but I’d see it as … what I just said. Not a serious analysis of culture, its impacts, and how culture and subculture, is shaped by what opportunities for outcomes have and have not existed. Are you saying that it is not really likely that a culture that sees high teen pregnancy and truancy might be responsible for the outcomes we see or are you saying that the culture that sees high rates of out of wedlock births and truancy rates are the result of reduced opportunity? Sure it’s not a deep dive analysis of culture, but why is that necessary? I see a lot of excuse-making and pleas to dig deeper without any evidence that such a deep dive might find something else. Only an insistence that we have to keep digging until we find an explanation that doesn’t place more than a teeny tiny bit of the responsibility on the underachieving groups. It is hard to make apples to apples comparisons with blacks andf American Indians because their experience is different than other groups. So to move this to something that allows a more apples to apples comparison. Why are the results we see among vietnamese refugees (I separate them out so that we don’t get the chorus of people chirping that it’s a selection bias) so different than hispanic immigrants? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2020, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/219 "2020-01-03T03:40:17Z")
What you are labelling as Black culture is not a real thing. A single Black culture is not a real thing. You cannot (accurately) make broad sweeping statements about that culture based on things like out of wedlock birth rates, teenage pregnancy rates, high school truancy rates, etc. Middle class Blacks do not have those things. Black professional families do not have those things. OTOH rural whites with intergenerational poverty and who have no family members who are college educated and successful do. Intergenerational poverty and intergenerational poor educational opportunities are not features of culture but they do trap people of a variety of superficial features and cultural heritages in recreating it for the generation that follows. Poor uneducated girls who see little positive path by way of education or professional development get pregnant more often be they white, Black, or brown. You want to compare Hispanic and Vietnamese (and other Asian) immigrants? [Let’s!](https://hechingerreport.org/most-immigrants-outpace-americans-when-it-comes-to-education-with-one-big-exception/) Pay most attention please to the graph on that link and think on it some. (Limited as it may be by being only males.) One thing I think we can agree on is that having parents who are educated is a big plus to a child becoming educated. Mexicans who immigrate to the United States are the least well educated first generation immigrants on that list, with the average educational level of foreign born (first generation) immigrants averaging grade 9.5. The next generation has the biggest jump, by 3.2 grades to 12.7. Still below the average for non-Hispanic U.S. white males, 13.8. In comparison first generation Vietnamese come in already at roughly average for the U.S. and only increase by 1.5 grade levels intergenerationally. Above the U.S. average but not by much. Other Hispanic groups? All make huge intergenerational jumps and most to near or _above_ the U.S. non-Hispanic white level. Other Asian groups? Those who come in are the highly educated. Next generation Japanese, Koreans, and Indians, all DROP intergenerationally. Yeah you select for the professional class in those immigrant populations, and their cultural values apparently result in their kids dropping DOWN. 😉 African immigrants (like Nigerians) start moderately high, 14.1, above the non-Hispanic white U.S. average, and increase slightly to 14.7 between generations. The article does not give the huge jump between first and second generation its full due but they do put it like this: > [@](#): > > most immigrant groups either arrived with high levels of education or their U.S. born children quickly met or exceeded the schooling level of the typical American. A big exception to this pattern are immigrants from Mexico, who number more than 11.5 million and are the largest foreign-born population in the U.S. (Click here for a table of years of education by national or regional origin.) > > “Overall, there’s not really a problem with immigrant integration,” said Stephen Trejo, one of the co-authors and an economics professor at the University of Texas. “By the second generation, the children of immigrants have more education than a typical American. The only groups that haven’t caught up are a handful of Hispanic groups and they’re sizeable. But it’s not all Hispanic groups.” So the issue is not what is special about Asian immigrants and their cultural values. They come in highly educated so the news is that their kids end up less so. The sole factor is that Mexican immigrants are the least well educated of all immigrant groups even huge catch-up between first and second generation they are still behind the average non-Hispanic white. Not that “non-Hispanic white” is a culture either. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2020, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088/220 "2020-01-03T15:03:26Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > IMHO, equality of opportunity can be measured in holding everyone to the same criteria - i.e., everyone is invited to try out for the high school football team through physical tryouts that test people’s 40-yard dash, weight lifting, skill in catching a football, etc. This is done without bias, nepotism or favoritism - in other words, it would \*\*\*not \*\*\*be equal opportunity for the coach to say, “Adam ran a 4.2 dash in the forty, but I’m going to keep him off the roster in favor of Michael, who ran a much slower 5.1, because Michael is the principal’s son.” > > This equal opportunity doesn’t mean an equal chance of success - some people are simply born slow, or maybe handicapped, or can’t catch a ball with their hands to save their life - but **the opportunity is offered to everyone.** This is a narrow view of equality of opportunity. It places each opportunity a person may be offered in a box, and declares it equal if what happens inside the box is equal. Outside of the 40 yard track itself, you may have one runner who has been getting expert training for a year and the finest gear to prepare for the test, and another runner whose parents cannot afford expert training, has never run a 40 yard dash before and is running in work boots. Taking a wider view of the opportunity, does the second kid really have a equal opportunity to make the team, or does he have to be far better than the first just to run a similar time? Liberals are taking a wider view of “does society offer equality of opportunity” rather than the narrower view of “does this test offer equality of opportunity”. I like using the example of my town, Montclair NJ. It’s a town with a long history of both Caucasian and African American residency. Back in the late 60’s / early 70’s the town was forced by the courts to desegregate their school system, a ruling that remains in place today. We do not have neighborhood elementary schools, all students are provided the opportunity to go to all elementary schools. White students and Black students sit side by side in every classroom, in front of the same teachers, using the same equipment, and being taught the same curriculum. This fits the narrow view of equality of opportunity. Yet, by 3rd Grade, there is a significant Achievement Gap between these students, a gap that continues to widen rather than shrink through later grades. It’s what is going on outside the school that is driving the Gap. What Liberals are going to ask is whether or not society owes these children an effort to tackle these outside the test impediments to success. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/equality-of-opportunity-does-not-lead-to-equality-of-results/845088.md?page=12)