# 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:** 1\ **Showing post:** 159
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2015, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/159 "2015-01-05T20:57:24Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’ll try to lay it out concisely: it’s possible that in our society there are multiple obstacles that make it harder for someone to succeed, academically and professionally in some fields, if they are black. This doesn’t mean it is impossible to succeed, and it doesn’t mean that those who succeeded despite these obstacles found some magic formula – they may have succeeded through a combination of nearly superhuman hard work/determination, talent, luck, and other factors, which may be almost impossible to purposefully replicate. Then if I understand correctly, you are postulating some factor or combination of factors that cause blacks to under-achieve that does not cause non-blacks to underachieve. Call it X. What you think that X might be? [ul] [li]It isn’t socio-economic status, since high-SES blacks underachieve as compared to low-SES Asians and whites. [/li][li]It isn’t parental education, because blacks with a parent with a graduate degree score lower on average than Asians whose parents dropped out of high school. [/li][li]It doesn’t seem to be racism, since Jews and Chinese in the US who experienced vicious racism tend to outscore whites and blacks in the US. [/li][li] It doesn’t seem to be language barriers - see, again, the Chinese, and the Japanese in the US. [/li][li]It doesn’t seem to be self-esteem, since self-esteem in blacks does not seem to be controlled by contact with racism ([cite](http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2780408?uid=3739616&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21105567818643)). IOW for blacks, none of the other factors that are associated with low academic test scores apply.[/li][/ul] Therefore factor X must be something else. IOW and AFAICT we agree that factor X exists and explains the differences in black achievement. I think we also agree that factor X cannot be overcome by high SES, by parental training and example, or by anything that any other racial group has used. We simply disagree on what factor X _could possibly be_. Correct? Regards, Shodan --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948)._