While none of this is comparable to centuries of slavery, asians are the only race that have been excluded from immigration. Asians are the only race that could not become citizens. Asians are the only race that has been interned. Asians are about half as common in america today as blacks.
I suspect it has more to do with the lack of asian political engagement than anything else.
Can you name one thing that is politically feasible?
I’ve got to ask wtf are you talking about?
Aside from throwing around accusations of racism, what are you trying to say?
That’s called anecdote. I’m sure there are nigerians out there that do not value education and spend all their disposable income on luxury items rather than make sacrifices for their children’s education.
And let me clarify. It’s not that blacks don’t value education. Some of them clearly do. Particularly black women. But its not the same thing. You can protest all you want but if you really think that the larger black community is placing the same emphasis on education as the nigerians then I don’t know how to argue against someone that refuses to stipulate to a common set of facts.
Let me rephrase. How are the nigerians able to overcome those potholes? What are they doing that other blacks could emulate to achieve the same success?
Is it possible that the toxic elements of black culture targets black boys with more toxicity than black girls.
There isn’t as much downside to being a studious black girl as there is to being a studious black boy. Perhaps the culture will generally nod approvingly at good girls that study hard and don’t get in trouble. But will not confer the same approval of a well behaved studious boy.
I think that a lot of the culture is lost by the second or third generation. Some of it is because they attain some wealth and they no longer think they have to raise their kids like spartan soldiers.
But you’re making sweeping judgments about a culture of millions. How and why? In case it’s not clear, I don’t think it’s possible to make such sweeping judgments about such a large group, especially when you’re not a part of it and you couldn’t have intimate understanding about it. How do you know there even is a “black culture” in America when it comes to educational emphasis? How do you know you’re not just buying into (whether knowingly or not) the kind of ignorant nonsense put out by right-wing radio about black people?
Maybe it’s not Nigerian culture. Maybe it’s immigrant culture. Maybe 1st generation immigrants just massively value education, especially if they came a long way through a difficult process, and doubly especially if they were only able to get ahead dealing with somewhat dysfunctional and semi-corrupt native institutions by tripling down on education. Maybe that would explain all of this “culture” stuff regarding the groups that appear to be ahead of the rest of the country.
I don’t think it’s possible or meaningful to compare groups of millions of non-immigrants to a much smaller group of immigrants.
It’s also possible that “toxic” elements of the society around them harm black boys way more than black girls.
How do you know this? Are you sure you’re not just getting this stuff from the likes of Rush Limbaugh? Sounds like the kind of stuff he puts out, even if it’s not quite as hateful.
So it could well be “immigrant culture”, and not “Asian culture”, like I suggested in my previous post.
Now we’re on to the No True Blackman phase of the “debate”, where success by black people is defined as the exception.
Now we’re on to the No True Blackman phase of the “debate”, where success by black people is conveniently defined as the exception. Any successful black person is now a rarity outside of black culture.
Joining this thread late but not really understanding how much there is to disagree about.
Do different subcultures within America have differing outcomes based difference in a wide variety of privileges? All agree I hope.
Those privileges include but likely are not limited to: racial and other group identity and thus how others treat you on that basis and what role models you have exposure to; where you live and thus what schools you go to and who you go to school with, who your friends are; household structure and support; SES; and the cultural values of you subculture, your community, and your family.
Using myself as an example I was intersectionally privileged. White Jewish male raised in a solid middle class community with an excellent school system with friends who were smart and ambitious in an academic sense, who saw that as a realistic, nay expected, path for them, role models of people like me achieving in certain ways, with parents who could afford to help support my education as far as I could take it and who put a strong expectation that I would do well academically. Some of those privileges are not independent factors but statistically co-vary, yes? Oh I still worked hard for what I have accomplished and have some intrinsic strengths that I was able to leverage, but no question that my inter-related intersectional privileges had much to do with having been both interested in trying to achieve what I have and my having the chances to get to to the plate and take my swing.
Does lack of those intersectional factors of privilege also co-vary? Of course. Really what is controversial about that? Being part of a group that is both explicitly and intrinsically discriminated against based on group membership, historic institutional factors that have inertia for generations later, lack of access to better schools and to classmates/friends who are of an intellectual bent, fewer role models of academic excellence celebrated in the media and in personal experience (changing to be sure); lower family wealth and greater frequency of parent or parents being less able to be available to help with homework (goes with SES if nothing else); and yes, the values of subculture and even more granular than that, of friend group and the interaction of top-down media images and role model availability on the culture of that friend group, the internalized self-image and expectations those encourage from early childhood on … none are completely statistically independent factors.
“Equal opportunity” cannot in one fell swoop does erase all of those factors.
Relevant to the op I would like to share my town’s High School, located in community that is mixed both racially and economically. The Black students include children of professionals who are of upper SES and more urban lower SES kids. The White kids are statistically speaking more commonly of two parent highly educated upper SES families (certainly not all). The school bemoans its “achievement gap” between groups and, to the point of the op, some in the community view the gap as evidence that the school is not providing equal opportunities and is failing “Black students.” Please note - there is no question that the Black upper SES two highly educated parent households have challenges that the white students of otherwise similar backgrounds do not have. But pretty much they do as well (and in many cases better) as the similarly SES and parental education level white kids do. “The gap” is mostly between the group intersectionally challenged and those of upper SES families no matter what their group identity, and would exist no matter how equal the High School’s educational opportunities. FWIW of those upper SES Black families several that I have known have pulled kids out of the public schools for middle school and back for High School out of explicit concern that the friend group culture of kids who they might self-segregate to by racial identity aspects would have a cultural impact on them that the parents wanted to avoid. Whether that was a justified fear or not I do not speak to, but it is one that was expressed.
Are you seriously under the impression that none of them do? Nice bubble you’re living in.
Two cites out of literally millions of hits:
https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hpb20180817.901935/full/
Are you claiming that black children living in a mostly-secular family in, say, downtown Los Angeles are part of the same identical culture as those living in a church-going family in, say, rural Alabama?
And, while you’re at it, are you now disavowing the following post of yours, in which you claimed that culture maps to race in general?
Being as this is the Great Debates forum rather than the BBQ Pit forum, I’m trying to engage in a debate without making accusations of racism. It’s been taking a lot of effort.
More effort than I care to continue making.
Is there an argument in there somewhere you would like to share with us?
“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.
And this makes sense because the government already has programs in place to provide food to children. WIC, SNAP, etc.
The second link only mentions health consequences of things like poor education and poverty not lack of health care.
And this also makes sense because we have government programs to provide health care to children, SCHIPS, Medicaid, etc.
I don’t think your cites are very convincing of your position at all.
Nothing is a monolith. If that is your point then I don’t think anyone disagrees with you.
Only 10% of blacks live in rural communities. So I don’t know if this is as big a distinction as you might think.
I don’t know how the statistics break down for rural areas. How much pre-marital pregnancy occurs in rural black communities? How many single parent families are there in rural black communities? 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.
Yes I am making some generalizations. But they are not unfounded generalizations.
If you recall the original comparison was between asians and whites and someone insisted that we examine black/white dynamics (against my objection because I wanted to avoid triggering the easily triggered), because they thought it would make their point more clearly.
They wanted to claim that there was racism there and the racism could explain the entire disparity between black and white. And while that is possible, it is unlikely and some people think that it is unreasonable not to assume that racist doesn’t explain the entire difference. In fact some people think it is racist not to assume that racism doesn’t explain the entire disparity.
Whatever the reason for the disparity in their results, it seems to me that there is another black group (nigerians) that is achieving much better results as a result of making better choices and engaging in better behavior. The color of their skin doesn’t seem to be an insurmountable barrier to achieving the american dream.
I grew up in a poor black neighborhood. I saw the sacrifices my family and other asian families made. I saw the things black families made sacrifices for. And it tracks with what scientific studies say about how much more asians emphasize education and how much harder they study.
But perhaps the study was published by a bunch of racists crackpots to support their racist positions.
Let me check:
https://www.pnas.org/content/111/23/8416
It was published in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences. Are they racist crackpots?
That’s a lot of maybes. And if your point is that noone can know for sure exactly why these disparities exist, then it’s really impossible to argue against that. But at the same time you seem to want to craft policy based on the “maybe” that racism accounts for the entire disparity. We’ve been crafting policy on that basis for most of my life. Perhaps we can try crafting some policy on the basis that differences in culture might be a significant factor in explaining the disparity. Just in the hopes that we get some progress, because we have been spinning our wheels for decades.
Immigrant culture is still culture. Asians see a signficant dip in academic results by the 3rd or 4th generation. And asians generally consider this the result of cultural assimilation rather than an actual drop in IQ between generations. It’s almost like culture has a half-life.
It’s certainly possible to make the comparison. I think it is extremely useful to compare how subgroups pf blacks with a distinct culture compare to the predominant black culture.
It seems to me that while it doesn’t correct for all the past effects of racism, the experience of nigerians should include much of the effects of ongoing racism.
Anything if possible. We have been crafting policy based on your possibilities for 50 years and according to the woke SJW crowd, the problems are worse than ever.
Some of it, sure. But if immigration status is the secret sauce then why aren’t ALL immigrants outperforming whites? Why are only immigrants from some cultures outperforming whites?
Once again, not much there to debate aside from a veiled accusation of racism.
Do you have anything to offer to the debate of whether or not equality of opportunity leads to equality of results?
Do you have anything to offer at all?
There you go.
AFAICT, this study does not support your assertions, and does not dispute mine. It specifically references how immigrants are self-selected, and (if I’m reading it right) outright asserts that a large majority of the gap between Asians and whites is explained by immigration status alone.
So are your assertions, and I don’t think your cites are saying what you think they are.
We haven’t been doing things per my preference for decades – we’ve barely done it at all. Busing (unpopular as it was) was done for only a very brief period. Schools are still very segregated.
Then this would support my assertion, and wouldn’t provide any support for your assertion that “toxic” culture is to blame for the black/white gap.
We don’t know how much Nigerians are affected by racism. It could be that they’re affected just as much, on average, as other black folks, but their self-selection (or culture or whatever) overwhelms this disadvantage by a lot. It could be that Nigerian-Americans may not be treated the same, given that they might live in different places and speak with different dialects, than black Americans who descend from enslaved persons.
Yes, it’s a whole lot of maybes, but that’s because there’s been so little that’s actually been done to alleviate the remaining effects of racism since the CR movement. As long as racism is so powerful in institutions and society in general, we really can’t have any idea the significance of other factors when it comes to achievement. We need to solve that problem first before we can even think about blaming the culture of the statistical downtrodden for their failings.
Like I said before, no we haven’t. We’ve done very little of this. In my understanding, most non-black Americans still see African American Vernacular English (AAVE) as “bad English” rather than a real dialect of English, with rules of grammar and such just like any dialect… a thing which really and very significantly holds back AAVE-only children in school (and I started a thread which went into detail about this). We’ve only just started to try and address the bone-shaking and life-changing fear that many black Americans face when dealing with law enforcement, which quite reasonably can destroy any hope of trust and faith in dealing with the institutions of society in the “right” way (i.e. the way rich white kids are treated when it comes to authority figures in school, government, and society).
We’ve got a long, long way to go.
Here’s one hypothesis – having at least two of these three factors for immigrants can massively increase their chances of success, statistically speaking: 1. Having come a very long way on a very difficult journey (which weeds out those immigrants with the drive, talent, skill, etc., to make it); 2. Having the ability to blend in superficially with the majority population (i.e. Finnish or German or English immigrants); and 3. Having an existing population already in the country that is very well represented among high income, high skill, and/or high status jobs and positions. Central American immigrants fleeing likely murder might meet #1, but not #2 or #3; Asian (and Nigerian) immigrants might often meet #1 and #3, but not #2; Western European immigrants might meet #1 and #2. Etc. Your cites appear to reinforce the importance of the self-selection of immigrants when it comes to these statistics.