# New York Times hires unapologetic racist writer **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 4, 2018, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086 "2018-08-04T10:58:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 36
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/701 "2018-08-30T04:45:27Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > His analytic point was correct: differences in variance can have a disproportionate effect on the tail of the distribution, assuming a bell shaped curve. That of course, is not the only thing that can be gleaned by not limiting your analysis to the simple mean of the distribution. Specifically, one key takeaway is that you can’t make generalizations about 2 groups based merely upon the differences in their mean performance. Without evaluating the variance, you won’t have any idea about the quality of that sort of metric. That’s absolutely true, but it also means that while women may have mean or median test scores that are higher than men’s (last I checked, this is true nowadays in this so-called “End of Men” era), the far tail ends of the curve contain far more men than women. And when analyzing the dearth of high-level female math and science professors (as Larry Summers got in hot water for doing) or the dearth of engineers at a company that tends to hire only the top grads from the top schools (as the Google Memo guy did), this is a key point. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/702 "2018-08-30T04:54:24Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Is that evidence that **Kimstu** is stubbornly inflexible? Or is it evidence that your arguments are incredibly stupid? > > I know where I’d put my money. It’s not stubborn inflexibility to dismiss official FBI statistics as fake news? Or cling to some pretzel logic that insists that special ed funding can’t be counted as part of overall funding for educating black kids? :dubious: You guys proceed from your convictions and shout down anything that threatens to question the soundness of your paradigm. And you take comfort in a belief that finding a mob of others willing to do the same somehow means you are correct. Pathetic. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/703 "2018-08-30T05:08:21Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I favor a much stronger safety net and—as I keep mentioning—reparations for slavery. I know you well enough to suspect that you have some weird creepy racist rationale for supporting reparations. How close would I be if I guessed that your rationale was: by giving black people a small one-time payment, creepy little shitbags like you would have an excuse to avoid addressing the thousands of ways our society currently fails black people? “Here’s $40, now stop complaining when our police officers roll up on your innocent child and fucking murder him.” ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/704 "2018-08-30T05:13:01Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It’s not stubborn inflexibility to dismiss official FBI statistics as fake news? Or cling to some pretzel logic that insists that special ed funding can’t be counted as part of overall funding for educating black kids? :dubious: You guys proceed from your convictions and shout down anything that threatens to question the soundness of your paradigm. And you take comfort in a belief that finding a mob of others willing to do the same somehow means you are correct. Pathetic. And those are certainly accurate representations of arguments you’ve had on this board. No doubt at all on that account. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/705 "2018-08-30T05:19:15Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Or cling to some pretzel logic that insists that special ed funding can’t be counted as part of overall funding for educating black kids? :dubious: Didn’t I show mathematically that you were wrong about that? That black children receive less funding than white children even taking into account special ed spending? Oh right, your fragile little “intellect” can’t handle acknowledging error, so you’re incapable of learning. Also, I like how you call other people pathetic. You must not have any mirrors in your house. P.s. For anyone who cares, here’s the post where I showed SlackerInc he was wrong: > [@Interesting podcast conversation between Sam Harris and Charles Murray (of "Bell Curve" fame)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1476): > > While \*\*SlackerInc \*\*contemplates having to admit he was wrong again, I’ll write this post: > > So, \*\*SlackerInc \*\*spends a lot of time “thinking” about federal spending on black students, and apparently no time at all actually trying to actually understand it. So, since I’m bored waiting for someone, and since I’m much smarter than **SlackerInc** , I’ll just go ahead and solve his problem for him. Turns out it wasn’t very difficult. > > First, a few facts: > > **Overall** > There are about 50,485,000 total K-12 students > Black students are 15.6% of the K-12 student population, or about 7,848,000 students total > > **Title I** > Title I supports about 14,900,000 students in total, approximately 27% of whom are black > Total Title I federal spending is 13,167,192,000, or about $884 per child > > **Special Education** > Federal Special Education Programs support 6,612,752 students, 1,308,328 (or about 19.78%) of whom are black. > Total federal spending on special education programs is 10,821,981,000, or about $1,637 per student > > **Other** > The rest of federal spending on K-12 students is nutrition programs and misc small amounts, so we don’t need to allocate it > > **State and Local** > One final fact: on a state and local level, black students receive on average $334 less than white students. Multiplying $334 by the total number of black students tells us that black students are underfunded by 2,621,232,000. > > **The problem** > So, a $2.6 billion deficit is a lot of money. The question \*\*SlackerInc \*\*has been impotently wrestling with is: is federal spending on black students sufficient to offset the shortfall in state and local funding. > > Well, given the facts above, it’s not a difficult question. > > First, the “excess” spending on special education for black students: (19.78% - 15.6%)_7,848,000_1,637 = 544,527,734 > > Second, the “excess” spending on Title I for black students: (27% - 15.6%)_7,848,000_884 = 794,425,125 > > And now we can conclude: > > Shortfall of 2.6 billion less excess special education funding of 0.5 billion les “excess” Title I funding of 0.8 billion = overall shortfall of 1.3 billion > > So, **SlackerInc** , I did the work that you were unable to do, and concluded that, as expected, black children receive less education funding than white children, even after taking federal spending into account. > > You’re welcome ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/706 "2018-08-30T05:23:41Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It’s not stubborn inflexibility to dismiss official FBI statistics as fake news? Or cling to some pretzel logic that insists that special ed funding can’t be counted as part of overall funding for educating black kids? Hmmm, you would need to provide specific cites for my having made any such claims rather than just expecting me to trust your cite-free allegations. If you do provide such cites, though, I’ll gladly examine your allegations in light of them. In any case, I am perfectly happy to cop to the charge of stubborn inflexibility on the issue of **the absolute necessity of unambiguously corroborative and rigorously tested scientific evidence as a prerequisite for considering any scientific hypothesis to have a high likelihood of being true**. That requirement is absolutely non-negotiable as far as I’m concerned. No matter how much you try to bolster up your arguments for the hypothesis with appeals to personal experience, cherry-picked data that could actually support any one of multiple different hypotheses, made-up analogies, unsupported speculations, or any other shoddy substitutes for solid evidentiary support, you will not reduce my skepticism about the hypothesis one iota. And in that case, sulking about my alleged “stubbornness” in refusing to compromise won’t get you anywhere either. Unambiguously corroborative and rigorously tested scientific evidence or GTFO. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/707 "2018-08-30T05:34:01Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I do not and have never admitted to being anything like a 1960s Southern racist. So what type of racist do you consider yourself to be? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/708 "2018-08-30T05:44:14Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > And when analyzing the dearth of high-level female math and science professors (as Larry Summers got in hot water for doing) or the dearth of engineers at a company that tends to hire only the top grads from the top schools (as the Google Memo guy did) […] Sheesh, these massively distorted old talking points get trotted out so often that I’ve had to make what’s basically a [sticky](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21118192&postcount=68) to deal with them. > [@Kimstu](#): > > [“Google Memo guy” James] Damore was fired for trying to promote at his workplace his entirely unscientific views and uninformed recommendations about the alleged implications of studies on biological gender differences for his employer’s HR policies, which completely ignored (among other things) the sociological aspects of gender differences in career choices. > > Sexist/misogynist rationales for gender differences in social outcomes often feature this same enormous blind spot about non-biological aspects of gender issues. Pseudoscientific gender-bloviators think that if they notice some social phenomenon that exhibits some kind of gender differential, and find some research on biological sex-linked brain differences that could hypothetically cause such a phenomenon, then hey presto! They’ve successfully explained the phenomenon as intrinsically biological in nature! […] > > This sort of idiocy was particularly prominent in the infamous “Larry Summers Harvard speech” where Summers attempted to assign currently unequal gender ratios among high-end university science faculty to intrinsic sex-linked biological differences. Supported by an impressively scientific anecdote of his toddler daughter spontaneously calling her toy trucks “mommy truck” and “baby truck” or some such. :dubious: Dude, that’s not how you actually do research on the underlying causes of gender differentials in academic employment. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/709 "2018-08-30T06:38:15Z")
> [@Gary\_Kumquat](#): > > So what type of racist do you consider yourself to be? A [paternalistic racist](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20832726&postcount=398). Sadly, that’s not a joke. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/710 "2018-08-30T08:19:56Z")
In case anyone is interested in what Larry Summers actually said in his infamous speech, as opposed to Kimstu’s characterization of it: [https://www.harvard.edu/president/speeches/summers\_2005/nber.php](https://www.harvard.edu/president/speeches/summers_2005/nber.php) > [@](#): > > To take a set of diverse examples, the data will, I am confident, reveal that Catholics are substantially underrepresented in investment banking, which is an enormously high-paying profession in our society; that white men are very substantially underrepresented in the National Basketball Association; and that Jews are very substantially underrepresented in farming and in agriculture.[…] > > And the relatively few women who are in the highest ranking places are disproportionately either unmarried or without children, with the emphasis differing depending on just who you talk to. And that is a reality that is present and that one has exactly the same conversation in almost any high-powered profession. What does one make of that? I think it is hard-and again, I am speaking completely descriptively and non-normatively-to say that there are many professions and many activities, and the most prestigious activities in our society expect of people who are going to rise to leadership positions in their forties near total commitments to their work. They expect a large number of hours in the office, they expect a flexibility of schedules to respond to contingency, they expect a continuity of effort through the life cycle, and they expect-and this is harder to measure-but they expect that the mind is always working on the problems that are in the job, even when the job is not taking place. And it is a fact about our society that that is a level of commitment that a much higher fraction of married men have been historically prepared to make than of married women. That’s not a judgment about how it should be, not a judgment about what they should expect. But it seems to me that it is very hard to look at the data and escape the conclusion that that expectation is meeting with the choices that people make and is contributing substantially to the outcomes that we observe.[…] > > Now that begs entirely the normative questions-which I’ll get to a little later-of, is our society right to expect that level of effort from people who hold the most prominent jobs? Is our society right to have familial arrangements in which women are asked to make that choice and asked more to make that choice than men? Is our society right to ask of anybody to have a prominent job at this level of intensity[…] > > It does appear that on many, many different human attributes-height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability-there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means-which can be debated-there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population. And that is true with respect to attributes that are and are not plausibly, culturally determined.[…] > > So my sense is that the unfortunate truth-I would far prefer to believe something else, because it would be easier to address what is surely a serious social problem if something else were true-is that the combination of the high-powered job hypothesis and the differing variances probably explains a fair amount of this problem.[…] > > Gary Becker very powerfully pointed out in addressing racial discrimination many years ago [that if] it was really the case that everybody was discriminating, there would be very substantial opportunities for a limited number of people who were not prepared to discriminate to assemble remarkable departments of high quality people at relatively limited cost simply by the act of their not discriminating, because of what it would mean for the pool that was available. And there are certainly examples of institutions that have focused on increasing their diversity to their substantial benefit, but if there was really a pervasive pattern of discrimination that was leaving an extraordinary number of high-quality potential candidates behind, one suspects that in the highly competitive academic marketplace, there would be more examples of institutions that succeeded substantially by working to fill the gap. And I think one sees relatively little evidence of that. And a key point to highlight that has significant bearing on most of our tendentious arguments: > [@](#): > > [M]ost of what we’ve learned from empirical psychology in the last fifteen years has been that people naturally attribute things to socialization that are in fact not attributable to socialization. We’ve been astounded by the results of separated twins studies. The confident assertions that autism was a reflection of parental characteristics that were absolutely supported and that people knew from years of observational evidence have now been proven to be wrong. And so, the human mind has a tendency to grab to the socialization hypothesis when you can see it, and it often turns out not to be true. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/711 "2018-08-30T10:41:20Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > In case anyone is interested in what Larry Summers actually said in his infamous speech :dubious: I notice that your extended quote from that transcript of Summers’ speech did not include the particular statement that I paraphrased in my description of it, and which bears out the point I was making: > [@](#): > > So, I think, while I would prefer to believe otherwise, I guess my experience with my two and a half year old twin daughters who were not given dolls and who were given trucks, and found themselves saying to each other, look, daddy truck is carrying the baby truck, tells me something. And I think it’s just something that you probably have to recognize. Summers’ speech is chock-full of such instances of the speculative, under-supported, podcasty-type blather characteristic of the self-important pronouncements of people who think of themselves as very smart men (and who often are in fact very smart men in their own fields), when they are pondering subjects in which they have no particular expertise: > [@Larry Summers](#): > > I asked Richard, when he invited me to come here and speak, whether he wanted an institutional talk about Harvard’s policies toward diversity or whether he wanted some questions asked and some attempts at provocation, because I was willing to do the second and didn’t feel like doing the first. And so we have agreed that I am speaking unofficially […] > > I am going to, until most of the way through, attempt to adopt an entirely positive, rather than normative approach, and just try to think about and offer some hypotheses as to why we observe what we observe […] > > But it seems to me that it is very hard to look at the data and escape the conclusion […] and the work that Claudia Goldin and Larry Katz are doing will, I’m sure, over time, contribute greatly to our understanding of these issues and for all I know may prove my conjectures completely wrong. […] > > But it seems to me that it is impossible to look at this pattern and look at its pervasiveness and not conclude that something of the sort that I am describing has to be of significant importance. […] > > And here, you can get a fair distance, it seems to me, looking at a relatively simple hypothesis. […] I did a very crude calculation, which I’m sure was wrong and certainly was unsubtle, twenty different ways. […] > > So my sense is that the unfortunate truth-I would far prefer to believe something else […] > > There may also be elements, by the way, of differing, there is some, particularly in some attributes, that bear on engineering, there is reasonably strong evidence of taste differences between little girls and little boys that are not easy to attribute to socialization. […] And I think it’s just something that you probably have to recognize. […] > > The most controversial in a way, question, and the most difficult question to judge, is what is the role of discrimination? To what extent is there overt discrimination? Surely there is some. […] So my best guess, to provoke you, of what’s behind all of this […] > > Let me take a second, first to just remark on a few questions that it seems to me are ripe for research, and for all I know, some of them have been researched. […] I don’t know the answer, but I think if people want to move the world on this question, they have to be willing to ask the question in ways that could face any possible answer […] Again, everybody’s got an opinion; I don’t think anybody actually has a clue as to what the answer is. […] > > Let me just conclude by saying that I’ve given you my best guesses after a fair amount of reading the literature and a lot of talking to people. They may be all wrong. I will have served my purpose if I have provoked thought on this question […] This is not a serious analysis of sociological research on the underlying causes of academic employment differentials between men and women. This is not even a popularization for a lay audience of serious analyses of such sociological research. This is just deliberately “provocative” spitballing by an administrator whose own academic expertise is in an entirely different field, doing exactly the sort of half-assed jumping to conclusions that I complained about in my previously quoted post. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/712 "2018-08-30T10:48:51Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > A [paternalistic racist](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20832726&postcount=398). Sadly, that’s not a joke. Hey, cool: you pointed me to another cite for my consistently referencing the same top three presidents. Google couldn’t find that one for some reason. > [@Black Panther movie](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-panther-movie/809075/393): > > I’m still a solid Democrat, who considers Obama the greatest U.S. president, Grant second, and LBJ third. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/713 "2018-08-30T11:57:16Z")
The more you cite it, the funnier it gets. ---
**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:** [August 30, 2018, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/714 "2018-08-30T12:59:32Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > **Damuri** : like I said upthread more than once, the burden of proof is on you. Because if I show an example of Jeong _not_ being racist, it doesn’t prove squat. But if you show an example of Jeong being racist, well that’s a string of evidence. > > Show us a link to a bad tweet (it’s easy) and we can inspect the context. From my POV it will be a heavy lift for Jeong’s defenders, because at least one of them referenced a reddit thread, which requires some digging. But I’m not going to do that tedious exercise until you make a falsifiable assertion about a specific statement made by Jeong. With a link to it, so that I can dig into the context. > > Your claim, your burden of proof. Wait. Is there still uncertainty that she tweeted #cancelwhitepeople? I thought this had been cited a dozen times in this thread. Now it is up to others to put that inherently racist tweet into context. So far the efforts seem to be “some white guys were mean to her at some point in the past so in THAT context her racist tweet isn’t racist” This thread is replete with examples of jeong being racist. > [@](#): > > a group of trolls selectively took Sarah’s old tweets out of context to inaccurately claim that she is a racist. And STILL no evidence of the tweets being taken out of context. I am not sure what sort of context would make #cancelwhitepeople less racist. > [@](#): > > IRL? I don’t even see that stuff much online. Then you must have grown up in a very white neighborhood. It was a rare but not uncommon sentiment in 1980’s NYC. Farrakhan might have had something to do with it. > [@](#): > > Via the media I can recall exactly one anti-white hate crime. So no, not scary. That may be because the media chooses not to expose you to it: > **[Why I don't write about anti-white hate crimes like the Fresno murders](https://www.salon.com/2017/04/28/why-i-dont-write-about-anti-white-hate-crimes-like-the-fresno-murders/)** > > But I will — as soon as fearful white critics show the same concern for black and brown folks killed in America > [@](#): > > Thinking it over, I have heard RL reports (by Hispanics) of anti-gringo sentiments expressed by Mexicans or hispanics among themselves. So that’s something, which I weigh heavier than the examples I cited upthread. I’ve just never encountered it directly. I can’t see how that affects my SWM life in any tangible fashion though. I don’t think it justifies panic either. Whites are still 75% of the country and they have all the guns. But anti-white bigotry is alive and 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:** [August 30, 2018, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/715 "2018-08-30T13:11:00Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Test scores aren’t evidence for anything but test scores. Said every person who doesn’t like the results of tests. Test scores are not good a measure of genetic potential. But if made correctly, it’s a good measure of where they are at the time of the test. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/716 "2018-08-30T13:14:56Z")
So according to Dibble, I’m willing to forthrightly state controversial, even taboo, positions on highly charged topics—but I’ve spent years falsely declaring that I consider Obama the best president in American history to conceal the fact that I actually hate him? Ask yourself how this makes any sense whatsoever. > [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Oh right, your fragile little “intellect” can’t handle acknowledging error, so you’re incapable of learning. Ha! This is rich. The irony is strong with this one. But hey, you’re back to being entertaining at least! > [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > P.s. For anyone who cares, here’s the post where I showed SlackerInc he was wrong: Sigh. Now you’re forcing me to go into the weeds of that whole back-and-forth in that thread, thanks to your out-of-context bullshit. So here’s what actually happened, in as condensed a form as I can manage for a debate that played out over many posts: > [@Interesting podcast conversation between Sam Harris and Charles Murray (of "Bell Curve" fame)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1177): > > Yes, black schoolchildren have significantly more money spent on their education than do white children in the same district. This is exactly the opposite of the situation before Brown. > [@Interesting podcast conversation between Sam Harris and Charles Murray (of "Bell Curve" fame)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1180): > > I simply don’t believe this. > [@Interesting podcast conversation between Sam Harris and Charles Murray (of "Bell Curve" fame)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1185): > > [Are There Too Many or Too Few Black and Latino Children in Special-Education Classes? - The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/07/the-racial-imbalances-of-special-education/397775/) > > > [@](#): > > > > Six million disabled children in the U.S. receive special education. However, African American children do so at a much higher rate—1.4 times that of white children. > > [Special Education | NEA](http://www.nea.org/home/19029.htm) > > > [@](#): > > > > The current average per student cost is $7,552 and the average cost per special education student is an additional $9,369 per student, or $16,921. > > Evil or not, you’re not much of an economist if you still disbelieve it after seeing this evidence. Next, EE quoted something without linking to the source or even naming it, one of his favorite tricks (this becomes relevant later in the exchange): > [@Interesting podcast conversation between Sam Harris and Charles Murray (of "Bell Curve" fame)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1184): > > Spatig-Amerikaner found that public schools spend, on average, $334 more on white students than on nonwhite students. That per-pupil spending disparity, when compared between schools that are mostly white and those that are comprised mostly of nonwhite students, is even more stark. In schools where 90 percent or more of students were white, per-pupil spending was $733 more than in schools where more than 90 percent of students were nonwhite. Roughly one-third of the students who are represented in the national data set attend such racially segregated schools, according to the report. > [@Interesting podcast conversation between Sam Harris and Charles Murray (of "Bell Curve" fame)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1187): > > Evil, I thought it was fishy that you posted an excerpt without a link to look it up, so I Googled. Center for American Progress, right? You left out (or more charitably, didn’t see) this part: > > > [@](#): > > > > The purpose of this data collection was to analyze state and local spending on general education in districts receiving Title I funds. This means that some big cat- egories of spending were excluded, among them all federal dollars, expenditures on special education, adult education, school nutrition programs, summer school, preschool, and employee benefits (other than salaries). > > :dubious: Except for those things, eh? What a joke. You should be embarrassed for offering this up as supposed evidence of your position. Pfffft. Then EE started getting all weaselly with goalpost-moving, and Kimstu followed suit (that was what I referenced upthread): > [@Interesting podcast conversation between Sam Harris and Charles Murray (of "Bell Curve" fame)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1192): > > I asked you a question–is it your claim that black schoolchildren receive less funding than \*equivalent \*white schoolchildren (on a district-by-district basis)? (Suddenly “equivalent” is in there, despite my never having referenced anything like this. Just all black students’ per capita funding vs. that for white students in the same district.) > [@Interesting podcast conversation between Sam Harris and Charles Murray (of "Bell Curve" fame)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1253): > > No. As **EE** ’s simplified example makes clear, the problem is that it’s possible for **all** black kids to be underfunded relative to white kids with the same education status, even the ones who **aren’t** special-needs. > > This is because the proportion of special-needs to mainstream students isn’t the same in both populations. Your insistence on averaging-out the special-needs and mainstream groups obscures that fact. > > Suppose you have a group of, say, ten dogs and five cows, and you feed them a healthy diet of, say two pounds of dog food per dog and 30 pounds of fodder per cow, for a total of 170 pounds of assorted foodstuffs per day. > > And you have another group of, say, five dogs and ten cows, which you feed at the much less nutritious rate of one pound of dog food or 20 pounds of fodder per animal respectively, which would be a total of 205 pounds per day. > > The average weight of food for each animal in the second group would be **larger** than that for each animal in the first group, **but each animal in the second group would still be seriously underfed**. I was never able to get Kimstu (or EE for that matter) to see how beside the point this argument is—since I never claimed “low IQ black students get more funding than low IQ white students”, only that black students got more funding than white students, mainly _because_ so many more of the former have IQs low enough to qualify for special education funding. Then later, after all of this (I left out quite a few posts, but this provides the gist), EE posted the numbers in that post he quoted here as his supposedly “proving me wrong”. I noted that once again he was putting up unsourced data, and the last time he did that I was able to track it down and find that there were a ridiculous number of caveats he hadn’t disclosed. So I declared I wasn’t even going to address his new numbers unless he provided a cite for them. As far as I can tell, he never did, and that was the end of the debate—until he had the chutzpah in this thread to claim that his never-sourced post was his coup de grace! Pfffft. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/717 "2018-08-30T13:20:40Z")
I say we take off and nuke the entire thread from orbit. ---
**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:** [August 30, 2018, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/718 "2018-08-30T13:25:48Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Didn’t I show mathematically that you were wrong about that? That black children receive less funding than white children even taking into account special ed spending? > > Oh right, your fragile little “intellect” can’t handle acknowledging error, so you’re incapable of learning. > > Also, I like how you call other people pathetic. You must not have any mirrors in your house. > > P.s. For anyone who cares, here’s the post where I showed SlackerInc he was wrong: $334 less spending per black student? Do you have a cite for that because pretty much every source shows higher spending for black students than white students. is this the result of special ed? And we’re ignoring the higher levels of special ed spending for black students? Are we applying some sort of cost of living adjustment to discount the spending in cities like DC but applying a premium to spending in places like Montgomery County and Fairfax? Or Loudon County? That seems like bad methodology to me. But lets say that your statement is a fair portrayal of education spending in America. So the average spending on students is about $10,000/year. $334 is about 3% of that. You are claiming that a 3% gap in spending is resulting in a standard deviation’s worth of difference in results? By high school graduation, that equates to more than 2 years of education difference by the time you graduate high school. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/719 "2018-08-30T13:29:45Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > So according to Dibble, I’m willing to forthrightly state controversial, even taboo, positions on highly charged topics—but I’ve spent years falsely declaring that I consider Obama the best president in American history to conceal the fact that I actually hate him? Ask yourself how this makes any sense whatsoever. Wait, you consider Obama the best president in American history? I’m going to need a cite for that. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086/720 "2018-08-30T13:36:36Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > So according to Dibble, I’m willing to forthrightly state controversial, even taboo, positions on highly charged topics—but I’ve spent years falsely declaring that I consider Obama the best president in American history to conceal the fact that I actually hate him? I’m pretty sure he’s called you a racist (and I’ve called you a white supremacist), but neither of those descriptors require hatred. However, liking or even loving Obama doesn’t preclude hatred. I’ve known plenty of hateful bigots who liked certain individual members of their hated groups. > [@](#): > > Ask yourself how this makes any sense whatsoever. You’ve shown over and over again that you have very little understanding of racism and white supremacism and an incredibly inflated sense of yourself (and, not coincidentally, an incredibly inflated sense of your own ethnic group at the expense of others). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086.md?page=35) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-hires-unapologetic-racist-writer/819086.md?page=37)