You are misinterpreting statistics. The statistics say that blacks, on average, earn less than whites. These statistics are pretty meaningless because there are no controls set in. I would like to see the same chart relative to how much the parents of each group made.
In fact, after skimming through the site you listed, i found some statistics that are relevant to what i was looking for. http://www.cache.census.gov/income/histpov/hstpov02.txt I used the poverty statistics relevant to race (black & white) for all people for the last 10 years. I added in the last column by calculating the percentage of the previous year’s percentage of people in poverty; anything over 100 is bad and less than 100 is good. Here are the stats:
Conclusion: In total, for the last 10 years, blacks fell into poverty at a slower rate and escaped from poverty at a faster rate than whites.
This would seem to go counter to your claims that whites enjoy an economic privelege over blacks. It seems that a poor white person is at much more of a disadvantage than a poor black person. However, as with most statistics, these are far from complete. There could be many more controls added to get closer to the truth. For instance, it could be that many poor whites live in rural areas and many poor blacks live in inner-city areas, and the inner-city areas are growing faster economically than the rural areas. I’d love to go through that site and compare the stats enough to come closer to the truth, however that would take more time than i’m willing to give.
Basically, what i’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t just throw up a few statistics and come to an erroneous conclusion. Figure out what they mean, look for cause and effect vs correlation, make sure they are relevant, etc. It’s a known fact that 120% of people don’t understand statitics (haha, joke).
Poverty is generally accepted to be largely, though not exclusively by any means, the driving engine of crime.
Report on UK radio literally 15 minutes or so ago, the number of prisoners in the US has exceeded 2 million, of which 9 of 10 are from ethnic groups other than white and one in 8 blacks have or are serving prison terms.
Certainly looks like the may be some economic inequality to me froom figures like those.
I made no error in my sentence (that I know of). I purposely used the word “itself.” The word “it” is gender neutral and this high and mighty attitude that people have is sickening. When referring to both sexes, the word “it” is just fine. Somehow people think that humans are the only species above the use of the word “it” when referring to themselves. I know my dog always refers to her species as an “it.”
I still believe my position holds true. Are some people racist? Of course. Most of the people I have met seem to have mental disorders of some sort or another and racism is one of them. Are some employers racist? Once again, of course. But in my experience (and in the opinions of most everyone I have spoken to), minorities are more racist than are whites because they are allowed to be (granted I don’t live in the South and this may not hold true there). More employers are white than other races, but more people are white and if minorities are more likely to be racist, then the employers that are minorities help “share the racist love” with white people seeking employment as well (granted it may not be white people that a racist minority is racist against). Maintaining the social status one was born into is indeed easier than raising one or more levels in social and economic status, but that is not racism. Only a certain percentage of people can be wealthy. If too many people become wealthy, that level of wealth becomes middle class. If anyone is to be rich, someone must be poor. The total percentage of poor people is far, far, far more important that what races are poor. I would much rather have a poverty level of 5% that was all one race (even my own) than a poverty level of 10% that included equal numbers of all races based on the percentage of the population that they make up. If someone wants to make more money than their parents, they must work harder than a person that is happy making the same amount as their parents. Thus, individual effort is what matters most. All poor people (including those that were born poor) have committed acts in their lives that have helped to make/keep them poor. A large number of poor people were too lazy to go to college (and don’t tell me they couldn’t afford it because community college is essentially free), had children that they could not afford, and/or were addicted to a substance that they could not afford. All three of these things are the fault of the individual and no one else.
**That’s probably true, as I would have conceded prior to your analysis. Since blacks come from a much more disadvantaged position (in the aggregate) it doesn’t seem counter-intuitive at all to me that the greater net positive change as a percentage would occur within this group. Your “percentage of a percentage” is pretty rough approximator, though, don’t you agree? Suppose, for example, poor whites (a group, BTW, I am not suggesting we should ignore) had a much higher birth rate than the rest of the population in one of the “bad” years for whites?
To the extent that’s true, your conclusion is not completely accurate. I don’t know, BTW, if that’s true. I’m just saying that you’re drawing a conclusion from limited facts and using a fairly simple method to support it, the very approach you seem to be arguing against in your post.
**Only if we conveniently ignore those pesky statistics I provided earlier that show black earnings lagging behind white earnings at every stratum measured, including the lowest. Without any interpretation at all of the statistics (unless subtraction amounts to statistical analysis), I can conclude that whites do enjoy an economic privilege. If you want to extrapolate the rate of change to conclude that this advantage will dissipate at some point, feel free to do so. But there is no question it exists now.
The statistics don’t lie. The interpretation needs some work however. Current differences do not indicate current racism. I wouldn’t expect numbers to equalize until about a generation after racism is mostly gone, and the victim rhetoric disappears.
Wrong wrong wrong. The only useful comparison for a number like that is to compare wages in equal jobs. If in the same job women were paid 56% what ment were, I’d expect to see a lot more women in the workplace–because employers could hire them for less. That’s the case for H1B visas, where employers can pay them less than it costs to retrain and pay an older worker, and they’re doing that like crazy.
**And you know this how? Your superior interpretation of what seem to be rather straightforward statistics is based upon what? Explain to me again how whites earning significantly more than the 35+ million blacks in our country in every quintile does not amount to an economic advantage associated with race.
One more “wrong” and you would have convinced me.
You realize, of course, that the quote you are heaving a “wrong wrong wrong” at contains no real interpretation of the data, no value judgment as to what it implies whatsoever? You see that this is merely a reiteration of the U.S. Census data, right? You understand that the “gap” referred to in the quote is an mathematical one, not subject to any form of reasonable “outrage”?
That being the case, what exactly do you find “wrong wrong wrong” with the data as it is presented (as opposed to any message you may have inferred in your hurry to show that any form of discrimination is merely a liberal hallucination)?
That isn’t the comment that I made. I made no claim that there was no economic advantage associated with race (I’ll also point out that this isn’t the same thing as economic advantage caused by race). Your claim was that the economic difference constituted racism (or at least proof that racism isn’t an anacronism). Again, discrimination is inequality of opportunity, not inequality of results. You have failed to prove why inequality of results is proof of racism, or cause for outrage.
Really? The claim that “females receive about 56 cents to every $1 a male earns” contains no real interpretation of data or value judgement? Granted, the sentence isn’t grammatically correct, so I have to guess what it means. Given that “a male” is used in the singular (even though “females” is plural), I must infer that it is a person-to-person comparison (i.e. the correct sentence would have been “a female receives…a male earns”)–a clearly invalid comparison. A CEO makes ten, a hundred, or a thousand times my salary. Lumping me in the same category as him is ridiculous. The only meaningful person-to-person comparison is within the same job description.
You cannot claim to be ignorant that the statement “females receive about 56 cents to every $1 a male earns” is a political one, and a rallying cry for those who claim inequality. However, as a measure of inequality it is less than worthless. There is no analysis of what jobs are occupied by whom, whether the jobs are largely a choice or a constraint, etc. It is at best disingenuous to claim that you’re just quoting statistics, when you are in fact interpreting them.
**Right. It’s probably just a strange coincidence then. The fact that blacks lag whites significantly in earnings in every quintile (by at least 29% and by as much as 46%) is probably more closely correlated to height or eye color or something like that. No racism here, folks, move along.
And, BTW, you have still not answered my question. What is it that could possibly lead you to look at an economic disparity like that and conclude that it’ll be gone in a generation once “the victim rhetoric disappears”? (What the hell does that even mean?) You don’t like unsupported interpretations of statistics? Start by eradicating your own.
Wow, thanks for the grammar lesson. That was certainly on point. You only needed to add a “wrong wrong wrong” and it would have been perfect.
Again, you respond to a statement of fact with a diatribe based on an unfounded inference. You can huff and puff as much as you like and that will not turn my quote into a “rallying cry,” unless it already is one for you. And you can repeat ad infinitum that I am “interpreting” statistics and that won’t somehow make it true. Read it again, bud. Maybe it’ll sink in one of these times. Or do you, in spite of your colossal communication skills (again, thanks for the grammar tip), not understand the difference between fact and inference?
I did not question the correlation. However, correlation is not causation. The statistics show a correlation, but that correlation doesn’t necessarily indicate current racism. It does not seem unreasonable to suppose that past racism might contribute significantly to the outcome. In other words, even if racism were completely eliminated, there still might not be a level outcome–the outcome might lag behind, or be cyclical, etc. The statistics quoted can only suggest that an investigation in things such as hiring practices, educational opportunities (not only at the university level), etc. It is not conclusive evidence of racism.
(After reviewing my post, I realize that I should have quoted the following sentence of yours: “Economically, at least, it is still the white man’s world, so don’t anyone kid himself about how racism is some anachronism.” That’s what I objected to in the first place. That wasn’t entirely clear from what I quoted in my first post. Apologies for any confusion.)
To answer your question, I was not putting my interpretation forth as perfect dogma. It’s my personal expectation, and I labeled it as such. I do not claim that it is the only possible suggestion, rather that it is one possible explanation of the statistics. Note that this is different than categorically stating that The One True Interpretation of Statistics™ is thus and such–I was not making any such claim about my opinion.
As to why I’m of that opinion, it’s quite simple: as long as minorities are told that their problems stem from racism, they are stripped of motivation to succeed, since the “System” is against them. This is especially insidious when statistics of outcome are used instead of statistics of opportunity, because of the obvious time lag between opportunity and outcome will make the system look worse than it actually is. In addition, focusing on disparity of achivement will lead to remedies which focus on changing outcome instead of opportunity, which leads to quotas (refining and concentrating racism in it’s purest form and encoding it into law) and ignores the necessity of fixing opportunity differences. It also requires a totalitarian central government to assure that outcome is equal for all. This necessarily abrogates free will and free enterprise. (Anyone out there read Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut?)
You have asserted that the differences are proof of current racism. You have not explained the reasoning for that assertion. Since you are making a claim of fact, I expect you to back up that claim. If it is an opinion, I respectfully ask you to give the reasoning with which you arrived at the conclusion, just as you asked me.
The so-called “grammar lesson” wasn’t a lesson. I was attempting to explain my assumptions necessary to respond to your comments. In retrospect, I could have phrased it more diplomatically, and I apologize that I came off with any other tone. I should have explained that better.
I hope that I’ve made it clear that any personal attack inferred from my comments on grammar were not intended. Can we set the personal attacks aside?
I’ve tried to explain my reasoning. You state that my response was based on an “unfounded inference.” Does that mean that you were not making a person-to-person comparison? If not, would you please explain what you meant when you wrote, “females receive about 56 cents to every $1 a male earns”? The only way I see to interpret the statement is as an inference (yes, I used the term “interpretation”, though “inference” might be more strictly correct WRT statistical data–in colloquial usage I don’t see much of a difference between them, however I’ll use “inference” from now in in the thread to avoid confusion) based on the data, and is one that I don’t see as valid. I’d be grateful if you’d clarify your comments.
Although i don’t quite like your wording, yes, you can say that economic standing is associated with race. What you cannot say, however, is that economic standing is caused by race.
You seem to not understand the difference between correlation and cause and effect. Just because two things are correlated does not mean that one caused the other.
emarkp, you appear to have an annoying streak of civility that will not permit this exchange to escalate to its natural conclusion (nuclear weapons?).
I apologize if I’ve overreacted, and in looking back over this thread, I see that I have been defensive to a degree that did not permit me to address certain specific points. I’ll give this some thought and clarify my position when I have more time (might not be till this weekend).
First, while I am not a statistician, I do understand the nature of cause-and-effect relationships, and the imprecision of making inferences from correlations. But let’s be reasonable here: in this situation, in fact for most situations dissimilar to chemical chain reactions that behave in a fixed way, a scientifically precise cause-and-effect relationship is not possible. If that’s the only thing that will satisfy someone, that person is not being reasonable. More than that, a demand for this type of precision is disingenuous (I’m not saying that is what has occurred here).
You and I may both see black smoke billowing from a second story window, accompanied by a violent crackling noise and cries of “Help! Fire!” and we both may draw different inferences. Without any further information, you would be accurate in saying I cannot conclusively state that there’s a fire. And you’d be right. But that does not mean that my inference is not the most logical one to be made, given available information.
For decades the tobacco companies lectured us on the fact that no one had established a cause-and-effect relationship between smoking and lung cancer. And they were correct–the only thing that had been established was an extremely strong correlation. As far as I know, no one has yet scientifically established that smoking causes lung cancer.
But it is the smart way to bet.
Why does that apply here? Let me give you my thoughts, and I’ll preface this by saying that everything that follows that is not a recitation of a specific fact is completely my opinion.
First, and most obviously, we can state that the economic divide is consistent with the existence of racism. It may be consistent with some other circumstances as well, but we do have several hundred years of history that have established (if not scientifically) a relationship between racism and the economic status of the aggrieved class. This is not a new notion, and I believe that if anyone seriously questions the relationship (just as an example) between racism in the late nineteenth century and the economic status of blacks in that same time frame—well, IMO, that person has an axe to grind that will never give way to any sort of reason. You may feel differently. But, anyway, why is this the first generation where this economic gap exists for some reason other than racism (emarkp, you have acknowledged past racism and how it has led to the current gap)? Why would we leap to this conclusion?
Second, there is still evidence of racism, even if we can’t establish the direct relationship between racism and wealth. For example, this ACLU site, which provides statistics on the much-greater likelihood of blacks to be given the death penalty when the crime is against whites.
Or the many instances like those reflected here that identify both the widespread use of racial profiling (as well as the reaction of those in power that might surprise you: “It’s wrong,” John Ashcroft said [in March] according to the AP. “This is as big a problem as you can get.”).
There are sources, such as this one from the Justice Department, that provide statistics regarding the likelihood of someone being sent to a State or Federal prison in his lifetime (28% of black males, compared to 4.4% of white males). And I won’t provide any more economic/poverty statistics (even though I could bury you with them), since you don’t find them convincing, other than adding one last time that the gap as it exists now (at least 30% in every quintile) does not suggest to me that racism is gone and we are only seeing the last vestiges of a previously eradicated problem.
So, you can assign whatever cause you like to statistics like these, but (taken as a whole), I believe there is a fire behind all that smoke.
That any group of people would prefer a “victim status” over obtaining prosperity and wealth that is not in any way being denied them seems ludicrous to me, but perhaps you can provide your thoughts on why you think this is the likelier cause. Remember, you did not simply offer this as a possible reason–you offered this as superior to my conclusion that racism is not an anachronism.
And I’ll re-iterate: I have not established the scientifically precise cause-and-effect relationship here between race and these outcomes, but that objective is lost at the start—it’s simply not possible. So if all of this does not logically lead us to conclude that racism, right now, contributes in some significant way to minority economic status (even if it does not account for all of the gap), then what leads you to your alternate theory? Some people have already provided their reasoning in this very thread (e.g., perhaps blacks are just lazier and less ambitious), but clearly you have not taken that road.
I’ve laid out my thoughts for you, and you may still not buy them–it may seem to you that I have some kind of liberal axe to grind. But let me be honest–those who can consider facts like the ones I have offered and conclude that racism does not currently exist to any significant degree (even if it does not account for the entire economic gap), well, those people certainly seem to me to have a particular axe to grind.
That’s why I am often incredulous in these discussions. I don’t understand how someone can look at statistics that show blacks “behind” in wealth, in arrests, in convictions, in education, in poverty–in every statistic I am aware of–and adamantly insist that the logical conclusion is that racism does not exist. Um, okay. Other than a strong desire that this be the case, WHY do you believe this is true? And let me emphasize: I am not asking you to provide a “proof” that this is possible; I am asking why you think this is the most logical inference.
emarkp, re-read your last post. You expanded on your “theory” in a helpful way, but you have still not provided me the basis, in fact or otherwise, as to why you think this is more likely to be consistent with the economic statistics than racism. Again, you have at least allowed that past racism led to the current gap. What leads you to think it’s gone?
What, aside from it being possible, leads you to believe that there are enough blacks reveling in a victim status to produce an economic chasm like the one indicated in the U.S. Census statistics? Remember, what led to our exchange was your taking exception to the fact that I suggested that racism was not an anachronism. I noted your comments on “changing outcome instead of opportunity” and I don’t disagree (that’s why I said in my first post that we “should all be seeking a remedy [and that remedy should include addressing root causes like education]”). But that’s not the question raised in this thread–it’s not “what should we do about racism?,” it’s more like, “does racism exist?”
Do you really believe that current racism does not in any substantial way contribute to the current gap in wealth?
Why?
And last of all, I can only say yet again that the statistics I provided on male/female income gaps were intended only to relay the U.S. Census Bureau’s data, and I did not intend to assess the “meaning” of those statistics in any way. If my wording was clumsy and led you to believe otherwise, I apologize.
Since we’ve agreed that cause-and-effect is virtually impossible to derive from outcome data, then let’s dispense with attempting to unequivically state what the cause of the effect is (i.e. the economic disparity).
You’ll forgive me for dismissing the smoke=>fire analogy, since it is cause and effect. There must be either a chemical reaction (fire, evaporation of CO[sub]2[/sub], etc.) or violent physical action (stirring up dust, etc.) to cause smoke or generic clouds of particulate matter in the atmosphere. In the vast majority of the cases in cities and towns, any dark smoke is conclusively indicative of a fire.
Why do you attribute this to racism instead of the obvious economic burden of recovering from slavery? If you unleash millions of people into the economy whose skills consist mainly of manual labor experience, you are going to have problems. Former slaves often had little to turn to except to go back to former masters and ask for food for their labors (not significantly different from the previous arrangement from an economic perspective). It took time before many could scrape enough money together to better their conditions. That was a natural result of the free market at the time.
I don’t agree that this is the first generation, and I find it unlikely that you have any data to support such an assertion. The economic disparity over the last 150 years has had many components, one of which is undoubtedly racism. It is obvious that racism has historically been a significant contributor. However, I would expect that racism as a factor has reduced markedly in this century, given the success of civil rights movements, the fact that Affirmative Action ever became accepted, etc.–that is, I see the passage of legislation to protect blacks and others from racism as indicative of a change in social opinion (from, say, the Jim Crow laws).
I ask now, do you believe that in the instant that racism were completely (or nearly completely) eradicated, the economic disparity would disappear? Would there be any time lag between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome? If so, how long?
I quote part of the article:
This is a tremendously small sample population, and there is no effort to expose the details of the cases. What about evidence collected? What about the situation of the murders? There are a number of extenuating circumstances that lead prosecutors to push for the death penalty, all of which are ignored in this statistic. The claim is also made that the number of death row inmates are disproportionately black. However, no mention is made of the fact that a disproportionate number of the prison population as a whole is black. Crime rates are higher in lower income, more urban settings. In those settings, black populations tend to be larger statistically. It seems to me more likely that the poverty is a large contributor to the crime rate, and whatever is causing the economic disparity is largely causing the prison disparity. Again, I’m not claiming that there is no racism, but rather that the statistics are not indicators in and of themselves of current racism.
Let’s clear the air here on this one. I never claimed my opinion as superior. I claimed it to be my opinion, and objected to your opinion as being stated as fact. I mentioned an alternate interpretation, not a necessarily superior one. Yes, I believe it is more correct, but I’m not stating that it is in fact more correct.
[/quote]
And my counter-question is, What leads you to believe that the cause of the current economic disparity is due to racism? There is no solid evidence that such is the case. You merely say that since you can’t make an empirical conclusion, your opinion (where “your” is the body of people reaching this conclusion) is the correct one. That is fallacious reasoning.
What really galls me is that there is a way to find out if racism is the cause of disparity. It is to examine opportunity and treatment, to verify that if a person in an opportunity is approximately equivalent to another person for the purposes of the opportunity (hiring, education, prosecution, etc.), there is no skewing of results by race (awkward sentence I know). There are laws on the books to enforce this! Businesses who discriminate by race (in hiring or firing) can be sued. Public (and maybe private) universities can also be sued. If the cause of the disparity were solely racism (or even largely), then I would expect to see lawsuits burdening every single business and university in the United States. Though there are suits now and again, there is no pandemic.
Furthermore, the special interest groups that champion the rights of the downtrod victim of racism would be quoting case after case of discrimination if it were rampant. Yet that is not happening. Only statistics of outcome are being quoted to “show” that there is racism.
As for the comments that blacks are lazier and less ambitious, I respond: People are in general lazy. They most often take the path of least resistence. Blacks are no less lazy than the rest of us. The difference is that they have people speaking to them about their being victimized. They have an excuse for lack of success. In fact, the mere thought that a particular black man is lazy and that’s why he’s out of work is scorned and attacked without even evaluating the truth of the statement. It is enough to violate the PC mentality–that blacks are discriminated against and hence have less–to be villified and attacked. Even using the word “niggardly” (which has no relation to the ‘N’ word) was enough to have one man hounded from his job. Do you see how pervasive the victim mentality is?
An individual, given the choice of riches behind one door and victim status behind the other will obviously not choose the victimhood door. But choices like that are rarely presented. People in general fail before they succeed. But a black man who fails in one instance is told that he failed because the system is out to get him–that he can’t win. So why should he try to succeed?
I don’t think that you have an axe to grind. However, I find it odd that you are so convinced by outcome statistics that racism is the cause of disparity, instead of investigating opportunity statistics which are the real and measurable mark of racism.
I’ll cite my own experience. I am a 27-year-old white male. I entered UC Berkeley as a freshman in 1991. In that year, more Asians were admitted than whites. I thought to myself, “where’s my minority scholarship?” since my race was not being represented in the university as it was in the state. Look at the Asian community for a second. They’ve had racism heaped upon them for 150 years (look at how the Chinese were treated during the gold rush, the Japanese interred in WW2, etc.). And yet their poverty level is almost the same as whites.
Examining my professional career so far–I worked for 3 years at Intel as an engineer before I moved away from the SF Bay area. In that time, my colleagues were white, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, etc. In the engineering group, minorities outnumbered us white folk. And no one had a problem with it. The Vice President was Asian. I could go on. Performance in the job was the only important issue (though that might include how well one worked with people as well as computers and equations), and that continues to be the case where I work now.
Why have Asians succeeded so well when other minorities haven’t? Cultural factors appear to be significant. They know that success or failure depends on them individually. They also don’t have a Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton telling them they’ve been oppressed by the white man (men who have financial incentive to maintain divisive race relations and to hide any evidence of declining racism–not that I know that they are hiding anything, but anyone who makes money off of something must be wary of that something going away).
Reminder, you didn’t suggest it, you stated it as fact. You even suggested that to even think otherwise is ridiculous.
I agree that we should be seeking a remedy for bad schools. We should be seeking a remedy for the dominance of content-free rhetoric. We should be seeking a remedy for the current victim mentality. Those are all problems that should be addressed irrespective of whether they contribute to economic disparity.
But before we seek a remedy for the economic disparity, we should examine what the causes are and address them. And if we can’t find the causes, then we can’t impose some ad hoc remedy, for such isn’t necessarily a remedy at all. We can only remove roadblocks to opportunity. I’m all in favor of that.
I don’t know if that’s quite right. Let me say that I don’t believe that there is any evidence that current racism is significantly responsible for current wealth disparity.
Finally, look at Affirmative Action. It’s a joke. It’s a lampoon of it’s claimed principles. Based on history of racism, it says, “Well, person A and person B are equally qualified, but we’ll choose person A, because she’s black.” In fact, if person A isn’t as qualified, many times she’ll still be chosen (for a job, a university, etc.). This is racism, pure and simple, and legally mandated.
The answer to fixing racism isn’t to answer with legal racism. It’s to facilitate equal opportunities–note: it is not to force equal outcomes–there lies totalitarian dictatorship. We do no favors to the disadvantaged by telling them that it’s someone else’s fault. Lamentably, I don’t see how the trend can be reversed, now that the victim rhetoric is so deeply rooted. At any rate, I’m waiting for anyone to come forth with conclusive statistics showing how opportunity is inequal, and that racism is the reason for it (or at least strongly suggesting it).
