I think it’s the best example. A discussion about race should start with the two largest racial groups in the country.
And if we’re doing more than just talking, I feel that any efforts to combat racism should be directed first at the biggest problem.
Is it possible to have a discussion about black Americans on this board without you trying to sidetrack the conversation into a discussion of Asian-Americans?
OK so asians were the second poorest group in NYC that year. What’s your point? They were still less affluent than whites and they still managed to outperform them academically, and not just on the stuyvesant exam. They outperformed whites in all the standardized tests given to students through the school year. And noone is prepping for those tests because they are an assessment of the school not the student. They are irrelevant to the student once they have entered the GT program
Asians attending stuy are generally less affluent than the general population. The free and reduced lunch stats support this. Particularly the ones that barely get in (we know this due to the discovery program.
Some of the black/hispanic peers are definitely attending private schools. Schools like Dalton were almost entirely white when I was a kid. Now it is 10% black with about 150 black students. Most of the private schools in NYC have all adopted a diversity policy and have significantly more black and hispanic students than when i was a kid.
What makes you think that affluent whites attend private schools but affluent asians would not? I don’t think rich families of any race generally send their kids to stuy. There are at least 10 private schools that have better college placement records than stuyvesant. Stuyvesant is merely the best free high school in NYC.
If you won’t accept the free and reduced lunch eligibility, then what would you accept? Do I have to get their parents’ tax returns?
For the record, I don’t believe that the average African American grows up in the projects, my sentence was referring to a typical person growing up in the projects, not that people growing up in the projects represents the average African American. Sorry if my wording was unclear.
Again, you misunderstand me if you think I think there such such a thing as “black culture” any more than that I believe black people are all of the same socio-economic class. I believe black culture spans a range as diverse as any other race.
And as I said, income doesn’t map to race any better than culture maps to race. So my point is that culture is important, like income, and while it doesn’t correlate perfectly with race, there are differences in proportions within races that could inform meaningful dialogue.
That poor Korean hair dresser is likely to share some cultural values with the Korean doctor. Rich or poor, the emphasis on education is pretty universal among most families from korea. That’s cultural.
In what way do you think poor asians might have more opportunity than rich whites?
This thread is not about black americans. Why are you so uncomfortable talking about asian americans?
I don’t think they do. I want a cite for your claim that poor Asians are outperforming rich whites. Attendance at Stuyvesant High School isn’t the only measure of performance – are poor Asians getting into better colleges than rich whites? Maybe the local schools for the rich white kids are good enough that they don’t need to go to Stuyvesant. I was a smart high school kid and I didn’t bother applying to Stuyvesant because the commute from Queens would be awful, and I didn’t need to because my school was good enough. Maybe rich whites are going to elite private schools and boarding schools.
In your argument with someone else above, you seem to switch from poor Asians to middle class Asians and you’re limiting your example to that one high school. To me, this is evidence of almost nothing.
So, anyway, please cite that poor Asians are outperforming rich white kids. Your argument is all over the place – you cite an article that specifically warns against grouping all Asians together, because there is tons of diversity of opportunity just among the Asian population. It warns against exactly what you’re doing – claiming that Asians are doing just fine as some sort of special minority, when there are plenty of poor Asians in need who aren’t getting any help. Then you switch from poor to middle class Asians when discussing Stuyvesant attendance, and you restrict your measure of performance to attendance at that high school. Rich kids don’t have to go to Stuyvesant – it attracts middle and lower income kids specifically because it’s free and excellent.
Anyway, if the OP doesn’t come back and clarify, I’m out. I’m not really interested in this kind of argument by attrition.
I’m not really interested in debating these specific possibilities with you – that you agree that at least some of them might improve opportunities for poor black Americans shows that our disagreements are much more about the specifics than the broad strokes of the issue. We both agree that there’s significant discrimination and lack of opportunity facing poor black folks – you just appear to want to focus on culture, and I’m more interested in public policy.
Seems like you only want to talk about Asian Americans and New York schools. That’s a microscopic portion of the issue of fair treatment of all Americans.
Do you have a cite for this specific claim? Namely, that the test scores for the poor black students who were bused went way, way up. In which cities did this happen, how much is “way, way”, and did the parents of the poor students consider that the increase was worth it?
Regards,
Shodan
What outside factors?
That sounds an awful lot like, we didn’t get the results we wanted with that policy … so RACISM!
Now of course you didn’t come right out and say that but please specify what other factors do you fault for equality of outcomes not reached that don’t involve culture or the person or groups choices.
Man, I agree with you. Now for the million dollar question. What specific policies would you craft that allow for the disparity to change in regards to changing a groups culture?
We don’t dismiss culture, we wallow in it. But you can’t fix people who don’t want to fix themselves.
No, they shouldn’t, but they have, and they still do and likely will in the future.
I imagine that over a very lengthy time period, it will slowly, gradually change, with no governmental intervention AT ALL.
I don’t know how to go about changing a culture, especially when you have the other side crying foul over the very thought of the attempt to change it.
In fact, I don’t see how any government intervention will speed it up.
Throughout history, the wealthy “haves” always blamed the “have-nots” for their own plight, broadly speaking, using things like “culture” as excuses. This was always bullshit. It was always unbalanced and unfair systems. We can look at any class or ethnic conflict – it was never the culture of the out-group to blame. Communism was the wrong move for Tsarist Russia, but Tsarist Russia really was a rotten, unfair system that prevented most Russians at the time from having a decent chance at a comfortable life, not the culture of the masses.
We’re not suddenly in some unique situation in which finally the culture of the out-group is really the problem. It’s still the system, when we’re talking about big groups of millions of people. Human beings are human beings, regardless of culture. Most humans just want decent, peaceful lives, no matter their culture. When huge swaths of a group doesn’t have this chance, it’s because the systems are failing them. Not because they’re all failing themselves.
Nice editing there.
But by all means, if you want to spend your Holiday building strawmen with Velocity, go right ahead.
Putting it only on “systems” is also an oversimplification though. Systems are problematic, but there is still a wide spectrum of motivation/talent/energy/DNA traits in any given populace.
This debate, like many others, centers mainly on a conservative tendency to attribute success/failure to traits that are internal and liberal tendency to attribute success/failure to circumstances that are external. Both tend to overlook the other.
I don’t have any problem with looking at “internal traits” when analyzing individual performance. But it’s bullshit to do so when we’re looking at groups of millions. When we’re talking about groups of millions, especially when they’re categorized by superficial characteristics like race or ethnicity, “internal traits” will average out, for characteristics that aren’t superficial.
To play a bit of a devil’s advocate, I think the idea is that if you had equality of opportunity then you wouldn’t have such an elevated illegitimate birth rate in the second group so everything should sort itself out unless one is contending that the second group has such an innate characteristic as to have these increased birth rates regardless of opportunity.
Of course, it could be argued that some on the left who discard traditional notions of morality and claim that there is nothing wrong with having children outside of marriage are contributing to illegitimacy, with equality of opportunity, this should fall on all groups equally.