# Why do black pupils in the US underachieve academically when one factors out poverty? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 25, 2009, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948 "2009-01-25T20:13:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 42
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/822 "2015-03-14T15:33:34Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > None of this refutes my assertions. The biggest indicator of the flaws in your approach is the _absolute and indisputable fact_ that many “black” populations in Africa are more closely related, in genetic ancestry, to non-“black” populations outside of Africa than to various other far-flung “black” populations. That’s still not going to negate the possible average difference between group A whose members are one side of whatever line you choose and Group B whose members are all on the other side of the line. ---
**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:** [March 14, 2015, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/823 "2015-03-14T19:10:32Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > That’s still not going to negate the possible average difference between group A whose members are one side of whatever line you choose and Group B whose members are all on the other side of the line. It goes to show how the dividing line is absolutely arbitrary. Do you really think it’s entirely coincidence that this claim of inferior genetic intelligence _just so happens_ to exactly line up with such crap-science claims about black people from the 19th century? Are we really supposed to believe that the 19th century slave-owners and white-supremacists just so happened to be accurate about the precise dividing line for “white” vs “black” and what it meant for inherent intellectual ability? ---
**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:** [March 15, 2015, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/824 "2015-03-15T08:00:52Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Wealthy black parents are likely to value educational achievement for their children even if they themselves happen to be wealthy for non-educational reasons (business; entertainment; sports; whatever). I do not find persuasive an idea that a wealthy black parent just wants the kids to coast off the family dole, or has some sort of anti-educational bias, or cultural crippling that prevents them from thinking Jimmy should keep his ass in school and learn. Those wealthy parents have the resources to effect whatever opportunity needs to be effected…better schools; tutors; whatever. Do you understand that it’s possible to have the inclination and means towards something (education for your kids) and yet not be equipped with the cultural trappings or methods yourself to actually successfully achieve that? See my earlier comment about MTV Cribs not featuring many libraries. “Hiring tutors” isn’t going to make up for a parent who reads for pleasure themselves, or sits down with you to explain why the sky is blue, or can actually grasp whether the tutors are doing their job, or whether that “better” school _is_ actually _better_, or just _more expensive_. I grew up relatively poor, but my parents read themselves, they took a personal interest in my academic achievements, and my family as a whole (uncles, grandparent etc) included teachers, and valued books. That stood me in good stead to think knowledge was valuable for its own sake. Which helped my education no end. Being sent off to a “better” school wouldn’t have done the same for me - especially if my parents were not in a position to judge what a “better” school actually was. ---
**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:** [March 15, 2015, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/825 "2015-03-15T08:02:00Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > That’s still not going to negate the possible average difference between group A whose members are one side of whatever line you choose and Group B whose members are all on the other side of the line. It goes to show that the line is arbitrary (And doesn’t reflect the actual, clinal, nature of human variation. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/826 "2015-03-15T08:42:24Z")
> [@Grim\_Render](#): > > There is something called “epigenetics”. Briefly, environmental alteration, not to genetics but the expression of genetics. And this expression can be inheritable. > > For example, after the “hunger winter” of starvation in the Netherlands in 1944-45, children who gestated during the famine ended up shorter than the average. As expected. However,\* their\* children also ended up shorter. But the children of those kids are among the tallest in the world. What we observed there was that the starvation process influenced the expression of genes, or some of the genes regulating height. And that it also influenced the genes influencing the expression of genes in the children of the affected. Basically, and alteration to the behavior of genes that took generations of ample food to reset. That’s not epigenetics. It’s a combination of intergenerational malnutrition and size begetting size. It is purely physiological with no genetic component. While Holland, and most of western Europe, experienced a couple of horrible years immediately after the war, nutrition in Holland didn’t actually become optimal until the 1970s, when governments started implementing targeted nutritional programs. Children became taller as a result, not just in Holland but England, Germany and France as well. There’s no genetic component, simply a diet that improved over several generations., The other factor is that the size of the uterus determines the size of the offspring. this isn’t genetic either, it’s physiological. And we can say that because it’s been well researched in livestock. In fact it’s one of the ways to maximise cattle productivity. Because small cows eat less, but the growth \*rate \*of calves is dependent on the nutritional status of the co. A farmer can run more cows/ha by having \*physically \*small heifers, but maximimum growth comes from calves born to _genetically_ big cows with optimal nutrition. So there is a conflict: large, well fed cows produce calves that grow 25% faster, but you can only run 75% of the number of large, well fed cows. So if you run small breed you produce more calves, but less meat per calf, and if you run large cows you produce less calves but more meat per calf. And if you starve a heifer to prevent her from growing large, she produces less calved for her entire life. the optimal solution is to starve the first generation of heifer, and breed from the the calves that \*they \*drop. Those calves will be small because they developed in a small uterus, but because they were themselves never starved their calves will grow at close to normal genetic potential. So you can run as many cows as for smaller breeds, but produce calves that grow as fast as larger breeds. And we know that’s not genetic because embryos implanted in those cows grow at exactly the same rate as their own calves, despite having no genetic material from the mother. It is entirely due to the size of the mother’s uterus. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/827 "2015-03-15T09:25:42Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Wow…I’m overwhelmed. 😉 > > Read the rest, above. > > Underneath all this is rhetoric are the following facts. > > On average: > > 1. Self-identified blacks who are highly privileged for opportunity score barely on par with poorly-privileged whites. This is not the case with whites and asians. > … That is probably true based on my observations, but I think you need to control for where the wealth of more well to do blacks comes from. The children of black parents where one of the breadwinners was an athlete or an entertainer is not the same kind of sample as the children of black professionals like doctors or professors. Based on the lower numbers of black people in technical fields, the proportion of higher income blacks that get their money from non technical fields must be higher than the average population, and so their progeny should not be weighted as if all higher income groups from different groups have similar characteristics. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/828 "2015-03-15T09:46:37Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > … > I personally find your explanation offensive, insulting, and demeaning toward blacks, considering that you _continually assert that they are inherently inferior on average in intellect_. Your view about the intelligence of black people is the same as white supremacists’ (except in more flowery and scientific terms) throughout American history. > > … Personally I think we need to remove terms like inferior from use when discussing intelligence of both individuals and groups. I am smarter than some, dumber than others, but I don’t like tossing out the word inferior/superior to describe a stat like intelligence because it implies a more broad judgement about the worth of a human being that’s neither productive nor correct. But therein lies the problem, virtually everyone, myself included, thinks that higher intelligence is generally a good thing. We value it in the same way we value beauty. And though we find it vulgar to point out that the reason some people do worse in the social sphere is because they were born hideous, we do think it’s **better** to be more attractive than not. So my desire to remove the term is probably futile, because I’m pretty sure we will always see greater intelligence as a sign of a more desirable trait, a **superior** trait to have. This is why people do not want to acknowledge group differences in iq, by agreeing that some groups are smarter on average than others based on genetics, they are essentially forced into the position of thinking those smarter groups are _superior_ to less intelligent groups. That last is not allowed for various reasons, not the least of which is a noble set of ethics and outlook towards different groups of people. But if basically everyone considers higher intelligence a beneficial quality for an individual/group to have then it kind of follows that you’d think more highly of smarter groups than less intelligent groups. And no one wants to condone looking at different populations of people that way. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/829 "2015-03-15T10:02:15Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Take your condescension to the Pit. > > I wasn’t quibbling with the “average gene pools” sophistry, I was quibbling with the “separation”. 25% admixture means no real separation. > > You’d see that if you were capable of seeing clines instead of clusters. If I have two cohorts, and one can be shown to have 95%+ from one recent ancestry, while the other cohort can be shown to have 80% from a completely different recent ancestry, and the two pools have 65 thousand years of average separation, I have: 1. Real separation 2. Real average differences in genetic frequencies But if you just want a real example, try telling a medical researcher there is no “real separation” in the frequency of hemoglobin SS between self identified whites and blacks in the US. 😛 You’ve confused the idea that there is a rigid biological definition of white or black with the idea that whites and blacks self-identify into two different average gene pools. If we take all the self-identifiers for “white” and all the self-identifiers for “black” it makes no difference that exceptions exist. What we end up with are cohorts where the gene frequencies differ, and they differ because the average self-identification puts you in a pool where the source population has been separated. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/830 "2015-03-15T10:16:30Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’ve asked you stuff like this before, and you’ve ignored it – but I’ll ask you again. Do you hold that the above statement applied to the United States without regard to race in 1850? How about 1900? 1950? If not, _why does it apply now_? Why are you so damn sure that we’ve made society equal? Think basketball, and the Hebrew league history. Think sprinting, and the Olympic history. Same horrible social inequality and oppression. (And I’ll leave for you and Jared Diamond to explain how that oppression, all over the world, never seems to have black groups triumphing over whites…) Fast forward a few decades, and the Hebrew leagues have evaporated; two lonely Russian sprinters compete against black opponents in the hundred meter dash. What happened? 1. Access was enabled for a superior group. 2. The new group wanted to participate. 3. Antecedent oppression was irrelevant; it didn’t affect the facts that the new group was able to perform on par when given the opportunity. Now you seem to have some kind of theory here that we have to make (all of) society equal to test whether or not self-identified blacks with very high privilege should be able to perform on par academically with whites and asians of very low privilege. What does that high-privilege black cohort have to do with a low privilege black or white cohort? Is it the case that high-privilege black children are sympathetically under-learning in school because of a general societal imbalance? What is your specific theory here for the relative inability of high-privilege blacks to perform on par with low-privilege whites and asians? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/831 "2015-03-15T10:21:06Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Stuff like the recent Ferguson DOJ report, massive disparities in the justice system, and the like, seem to absolutely “rise to that level” (among other things) which might account for a (not “stubbornly persistent”, since a few decades is nothing in the scheme of human history) gap in outcomes. What have Ferguson and massive disparities in the justice system to do with a highly privileged black student underperforming in school relative to a poorly privileged white or asian? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/832 "2015-03-15T10:37:17Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Do you understand that it’s possible to have the inclination and means towards something (education for your kids) and yet not be equipped with the cultural trappings or methods yourself to actually successfully achieve that? > > See my earlier comment about MTV Cribs not featuring many libraries. “Hiring tutors” isn’t going to make up for a parent who reads for pleasure themselves, or sits down with you to explain why the sky is blue, or can actually grasp whether the tutors are doing their job, or whether that “better” school _is_ actually _better_, or just _more expensive_. > > I grew up relatively poor, but my parents read themselves, they took a personal interest in my academic achievements, and my family as a whole (uncles, grandparent etc) included teachers, and valued books. That stood me in good stead to think knowledge was valuable for its own sake. Which helped my education no end. Being sent off to a “better” school wouldn’t have done the same for me - especially if my parents were not in a position to judge what a “better” school actually was. Is the crux of your theory, then, that wealthy black parents are relatively clueless about the cultural trappings and methods required for a good education? That the wealthy black parents are themselves uneducated (on average) and therefore bereft of the ability to help their kids get a good education? What I can tell you is that the struggle modern colleges have is that their best black candidates come from higher-level homes and backgrounds where the parents are both well-educated and reasonably well off, and have children who attend good schools. They aren’t students with a ghetto Dad who made a killing dealing cocaine. The dilemma the schools have is that, if they don’t permit a race-alone affirmative action advantage, those highly privileged black kids will get left by the wayside. ---
**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:** [March 15, 2015, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/833 "2015-03-15T11:10:04Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Think basketball, and the Hebrew league history. > Think sprinting, and the Olympic history. > > Same horrible social inequality and oppression. (And I’ll leave for you and Jared Diamond to explain how that oppression, all over the world, never seems to have black groups triumphing over whites…) It’s not nearly the same “horrible social inequality and oppression”. > [@](#): > > Fast forward a few decades, and the Hebrew leagues have evaporated; two lonely Russian sprinters compete against black opponents in the hundred meter dash. What happened? > > 1. Access was enabled for a superior group. > 2. The new group wanted to participate. > 3. Antecedent oppression was irrelevant; it didn’t affect the facts that the new group was able to perform on par when given the opportunity. It has certainly not been established that blacks (or anyone) is a “superior group” athletically. > [@](#): > > Now you seem to have some kind of theory here that we have to make (all of) society equal to test whether or not self-identified blacks with very high privilege should be able to perform on par academically with whites and asians of very low privilege. > > What does that high-privilege black cohort have to do with a low privilege black or white cohort? > > Is it the case that high-privilege black children are sympathetically under-learning in school because of a general societal imbalance? > > What is your specific theory here for the relative inability of high-privilege blacks to perform on par with low-privilege whites and asians? There is no single factor – there are multiple factors, I imagine. When kids see themselves, their parents, peers, and representations on television mistreated by police and society in general, they might just be a little less inclined to focus on the ‘traditional’ ways of success in society (academic achievement and a professional career). They may be treated differently by teachers – if teachers think they’re dumber, and treat them like they’re dumber, they’re likely to perform as if they’re dumber. If children receive signals (whether overt and conscious or subtle and unconscious) from their parents that they don’t have an equal shot at success in academics (and maybe other things) due to their race, then they might perform differently and put their focus on different things. If society tends to represent black people in the media in certain roles (athletes, entertainers, etc.), black students may put more focus into efforts in line with those roles then with other roles. More black students may idolize musicians and athletes, and fewer black students may idolize business men and scientists. And I imagine there are many other similar factors. All these things and other things could add up to significant obstacles that are in place for black kids but not for other kids. I think it’s very likely that black kids are treated worse in school by teachers, worse on the street by police and society, worse in media depictions, and that all of this (and other things) can add up to different average test scores. ---
**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:** [March 15, 2015, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/834 "2015-03-15T11:11:12Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > What have Ferguson and massive disparities in the justice system to do with a highly privileged black student underperforming in school relative to a poorly privileged white or asian? They are just some of the latest and more quantifiable examples of the societal mistreatment of black people I discuss in the previous post. ---
**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:** [March 15, 2015, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/835 "2015-03-15T11:13:31Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > average separation What the hell is “average separation”? Things are either separated or they’re not. Just because you got taken to task _for_ not using the word where you should have, is no reason to slip it in where it _makes no sense_. > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Is the crux of your theory, then, that wealthy black parents are relatively clueless about the cultural trappings and methods required for a good education? No, it’s not the crux, it’s just a point. > [@](#): > > That the wealthy black parents are themselves uneducated (on average) and therefore bereft of the ability to help their kids get a good education? No. It says nothing about the _level of education_ of the parents, only about _the culture of education_ in the home. Individuals can, in fact, attain education themselves while not assimilating the culture that values education in-and-of-itself. If they are particularly highly intelligent themselves, they may attain quite high results without having to really work at it. But that isn’t something you can pass on to your kids or subsequent generations, the way a culture of education is. > [@](#): > > They aren’t students with a ghetto Dad who made a killing dealing cocaine. :rolleyes: Because _that’s_ the natural contrast to the educated and culturally-attuned-to-education person. Or the kind of example I’ve used in this thread. Or the kind of person who’s likely to show up as “high income” in a survey. No, let the record show, you went straight for “drug dealing” when looking for an example of a high-income-low-education Black person ---
**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:** [March 15, 2015, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/836 "2015-03-15T11:16:44Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Think basketball, and the Hebrew league history. > Think sprinting, and the Olympic history. > > Same horrible social inequality and oppression. No. Just not at fucking all the same. With all due respect to the fact that Jews did undergo discrimination, in no sense can anyone actually say the oppression was the same with any kind of intellectual integrity or recourse to fact. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/837 "2015-03-15T12:17:32Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > That’s not epigenetics. It’s a combination of intergenerational malnutrition and size begetting size. It is purely physiological with no genetic component. Regardless of the quality of the cited example, the experiences of F0 can affect F4. We don’t understand very well when and how this is relevant for humans. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/838 "2015-03-15T14:27:04Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No, let the record show, you went straight for “drug dealing” when looking for an example of a high-income-low-education Black person It is okay, the poster understands that [there are not examples of competencies](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=738860&page=3&highlight=ebola+competent+treatment) in some cases, and it is to remember that very different groups of a certain color are just put together for convenience… ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2015, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/839 "2015-03-16T06:41:10Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Regardless of the quality of the cited example, the experiences of F0 can affect F4. We don’t understand very well when and how this is relevant for humans. Which makes it an argument from ignorance. At best. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2015, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/840 "2015-03-16T11:08:38Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Which makes it an argument from ignorance. At best. Please give your pronoun an antecedent. Which argument, in which post, is from ignorance? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2015, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/841 "2015-03-22T12:21:31Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > It has certainly not been established that blacks (or anyone) is a “superior group” athletically. For sports based on burst muscle power such as sprinting or basketball (just to remind you to keep my assertions in context so you don’t wordsmith too far afield)? [Laughing.](https://www.google.com/search?q=nba+stars&rlz=1C1OPRB_enUS563US563&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=_LIOVa7bA8qdyASCroGoBA&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1455&bih=705#imgrc=IoySHuUleWYt0M%253A%3BSC-Ned2d5ND9GM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.sportsonearth.com%252Fassets%252Fimages%252F7%252F0%252F2%252F41574702%252Fcuts%252FNBA_Stars_Ages_ustjvkpu_93b9rtkl.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.sportsonearth.com%252Farticle%252F41573530%252F%3B950%3B538) [Out loud.](https://www.google.com/search?q=100+meter+record+holders&rlz=1C1OPRB_enUS563US563&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=a7IOVci7KtP9yQSm04C4CQ&ved=0CAoQ_AUoBA&biw=1455&bih=705#imgrc=Ep5Kr18ipaqjuM%253A%3B6D4_czkWFaD6-M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fcx.aos.ask.com%252Fquestion%252Faq%252Fworld-record-holder-100-meter-dash_f8ba640b25326c7d.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.ask.com%252Fsports-active-lifestyle%252Fworld-record-holder-100-meter-dash-f8ba640b25326c7d%3B1400%3B788) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948.md?page=41) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948.md?page=43)