# Why do black pupils in the US underachieve academically when one factors out poverty?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948>\
**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:** 213

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**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:** [January 9, 2015, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-black-pupils-in-the-us-underachieve-academically-when-one-factors-out-poverty/482948/213 "2015-01-09T16:23:14Z")

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> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#):
>
> This has so little to do with what I said that I wonder whether you bothered to read my post. No, I have no such idea.
> 
> Are you seriously under the misperception that racism is over?
> 
> Uh, **yes**. It’s entirely different. History is different, you know, for different social groups.
> 
> I genuinely think what happened to WhiteGramps kept you from learning history, not calculus. Let’s try for some education:
> 
> Small words:  
> -Gramps was effectively denied access to the GI Bill.  
> -Gramps was denied access to loans.  
> -Gramps was first to be fired from his job.  
> -Gramps couldn’t get good jobs he was qualified for.  
> -Gramps lived in a shitty neighborhood therefore and couldn’t accumulate wealth the way WhiteGramps could.  
> -Mom and Dad, like most kids of their generation, tried drugs. But unlike WhiteDad, Dad got arrested for trying drugs and thrown in prison. This is due in part to the shitty neighborhood Dad grew up in, due to the racism against Gramps, and in part due to racist police policies, and in part due to racist criminal codes.  
> -Dad couldn’t get a job with a felony record, even though White Dad committed similar felonies.  
> -So I grew up in a high-crime impoverished neighborhood with an overworked mom who hadn’t had access to educational opportunities that WhiteMom had had access to.  
> -Some dude on the Internet thinks it must be my genes that make studying more difficult for me.
> 
> Your magical “genes-did-it” handwaving is absurd in the face of a much clearer explanation.

I see you have grown confused about the topic.

The topic is why black students underachieve when one factors out poverty.  
The underachievement is to such a remarkable degree that black families who make more than 100K/year have children who score lower on the SAT than white children from families making less than 10K/yr.

Helping me understand how Grampa’s dilemma kept the wealthy black child from learning…

I am seriously under the impression that ancestral oppression has no more to do with black underachievement when poverty is factored out than it does with Jewish achievement when poverty is factored out.

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