Must not be a very persuasive explanation if it’s only fit for the Pit. 
This is still a ridiculous and confusing way to state it. Just say “as an average, black students score lower than their peers…”. “Unable”, “can’t”, etc., is, at best, highly confusing, and at worst, just obviously wrong.
This particular disagreement isn’t about your support for the genetic explanation – it’s about the things you’ve said over and over about my beliefs despite my repeated attempts to correct you. It shouldn’t be that hard – banish the words “can’t” and “unable” and similar from your vocabulary when you’re trying to make points about what you think my beliefs are about black people.
I don’t think there’s anything they “can’t” do, or are “unable” to do. So just don’t use those words, ever again, to describe my position.
Not interested in this. I have utterly zero issue with the statement “populations separated by 65 thousand years are likely to have diverged gene pools”.
No issue whatsoever (not that I’m positive it’s true). But this says absolutely zero about black people’s genes for intelligence. Nothing whatsoever.
Opportunity is absolutely not eliminated. You are just 100% wrong here – opportunity is about far more than the money of one’s parents.
Another massive point of our disagreement – you just have not even come close to convincing me that our society is equal.
Do you understand that yet? Do you understand that you see society as mostly equal when SES is accounted for, and I don’t – not even close? Do you understand that I believe that many or most of the same forces in operation for most of American history in making life more difficult for black people are still around, though in lesser degree?
I’ve said this over and over again as well – any chance it registers with you?
I’m going to continue to call out this confusing language. I understand you don’t believe that every black student is “unable to perform on par”. But when you say “unable to perform on par”, even with “as an average” at the start, it’s damn confusing. So why not just find a different way to phrase it? I’m just going to continue to point out this thing.
More unnecessarily confusing use of language. What you describe here is not “opportunity-based AA”, since “opportunity” is not even close to equalized.
Again – do you understand the different assumptions on which we operate? Do you understand the hugely different ways we see society?
I don’t know if we need a “cultural accommodation” if what we’re talking about is society at large.
No idea what this nonsense is about “skipping a generation” crap is. And there’s another use of “unable to learn” – when many of their grandchildren are absolutely able to learn. No need and no point to this “skips a generation” thing. Don’t get it.
But not all oppressions were equal, not all societies are equal. Considering the “special” way that black people have been treated in America, it’s entirely reasonable that a unique set of circumstances as far as achievement will develop when a group was systemically and brutally oppressed for centuries, up to and including the present. What other group besides black people and Native Americans (and what do their test scores look like…?) have been systemically oppressed, both institutionally and personally, both formally and informally, for all of American history? If a group is enslaved for centuries, then oppressed for another century or more, including (based on things like the recent Ferguson report) up until today, it shouldn’t be surprising in the least that outcomes are different on average, and opportunity appears unequal.
Still don’t get this “skips a generation” stuff. I’ve seen no evidence that test scores were low, then high for one generation, then low again.
Nope. I think you somehow see this “suffering” as only in the past. Our society has still not become equal. There still may exist obstacles that make it more difficult (but not impossible) for black people to achieve – maybe grandpa didn’t overcome these obstacles (which may have been even more significant in the past), but his son did, due to a combination of hard work and luck. But maybe his grandson doesn’t, due to some combination of factors. There’s nothing about “skipping a generation” – it’s just that these obstacles exist, and the difficulty remains, and some will overcome it and some won’t.
No, it’s a complete, thorough and moreover a beautifully succinct explanation, just not one that can be applied outside the Pit, by Mod fiat.
iiandyiiii,
I think some headway has been made as far as understanding. That’s good. There is one thing I think you’re missing. You want CP to say:
As an average, black students score lower than their peers.
But he says:
As an average, black students are unable to perform on par with their peers.
Those two statements are making two different points. Yours is simply a statement of fact. When one looks at the scores, that’s what one finds. Nothing controversial there. CP’s statement is a hypothesis. He’s saying that, based on those scores, and the attempts that have been made to correct for non-genetic factors, it appears that, “As an average, black students are unable to perform on par with their peers.”
Do you see that. So while you are certainly right to challenge him, insisting that he surrender his hypothesis to the outset is a very odd way to proceed in a debate. Do you see what I mean?
I’m not sure that’s what he means – especially since he keeps attributing it (or similar) to me. I think he may just be saying it as another (very confusing) way to say that they are scoring lower on average. We’ll see. I’ll certainly continue to challenge him on it when he falsely attributes the belief to me.
Has “poopyhead” been banned for the pit?! :eek:
Those Mods, [shakes fist at horrible mods] shackling your right to express yourself. That’s just not right!!! Especially on the anniversary of Selma. But don’t let them keep you down, MrD. Say what’s on your mind. Either the way you think it might run afoul of the rules or couched in a more meaningful way, sans ad hominems.
Well, that’s what I think he’s saying. In fact, I think it’s crystal clear that is what he is saying. But maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps CP will come in and say if my interpretation is correct.
Here in Cali, this special accommodation is made largely for Latino students, not black American students. Nationwide, the same accommodations are made for various Hispanic groups, Pacific Islanders, Alaskan Natives, and Native Americans. Not to mention white women in science and technology. So, wrong again.
Granted, you’re obsessed with black Americans. I suspect that you or your family members were victims of the heinous anti-Desi progroms that have swept various parts of Africa. Of course, none of this has anything to do with black Americans.
To state the obvious for the obtuse, the US and it’s colonial predecessor states have made a special effort to keep black Americans down and out, an effort that started in the 1680’s and continued into the 1970’s. The anti-black hostility is baked into the culture, and black Americans are products of that culture as much as anyone.
Golly gee gosh, I wouldn’t know, I don’t use kindergarten insults to describe people’s ethical stances.
I have said what I think. In what the mods deem to be the appropriate forum. One thread in particular currently standing at 70+ pages…feel free to have a look.
It is nothing but a series of anecdotes, but in my experience they are so consistent as to be persuasive.
Not the USA, but a black female high school student taking the equivalent of the SAT test scored 35th out of a country of 1.5 million. Her mother supported her not a bit and told her she was wasting her time, she needed to find a man. Got put into a shitty ghetto later high school and soon dropped out and was pregnant.
Saw on TV a male east Indian student the same age who scored somewhere in the 80s out of the whole country, his parents were camped out at the school demanding he be put in the best school in the country due to his score, they did not care if they were arrested or not. And of course he was.
Seen these same anecdotes my whole damn life, if you have a culture that says to black students that academic success is useless and pointless even if not from their parents but from their peers what do you think would happen?
Like I said before the only way to settle this is children raised by androids on a alien planet.
No to most of the above, including the “obsessed with black Americans.”
It happens to be that self-identified blacks in the US have a lot of data.
I’ve said repeatedly that average genetic differences are a likely explanation for any two groups with different average outcomes after nurturing is accounted for.
I’ve tried to limit the points here to the OP…
For reasons beyond the scope of this thread, the genetic history of many of the groups you mention is interesting and complex, including that of the original peoples in the Americas.
Can you give me some data about test score differences for white women? I have not seen much data for that. I am not aware of academic performance gaps for white women exposed to the same opportunity as men (other than the known gaps between self-identified whites and asians, where the performance skews toward asians).
You are correct that AA can apply to more than race-based criteria, but the question here is performance gaps.
I recommend looking at broader sets of data instead of anecdotal feel-good stories about individuals, if you are trying to get at averages.
For any given individual self-identifying with a race group, it’s silly to make any genetic correlation or inference about a group average.
As to the feel-good stories about income and the exceptions to it, what do you think those exceptions show? Perhaps they show that income is not a very good reason upon which to blame poor scores.
From here, e.g. (R side, 3 stories down):
*"Family Income Differences Explain Only a Small Part of the SAT Racial Scoring Gap
Because the median black family income in the United States is about 60 percent of the median family income of whites, one would immediately seize upon this economic statistic to explain the average 200-point gap between blacks and whites on the standard SAT scoring curve.
But income differences explain only part of the racial gap in SAT scores. For black and white students from families with incomes of more than $200,000 in 2008, there still remains a huge 149-point gap in SAT scores. Even more startling is the fact that in 2008 black students from families with incomes of more than $200,000 scored lower on the SAT test than did students from white families with incomes between $20,000 and $40,000."*
IOW, at the highest income tiers, black students, on average, are still unable to perform on par with whites, and the disparity is so profound that those very wealthy black students perform only on par with low income whites (as of these 2008 data).
A non-genetic explanation for this underperformance relative to economically disadvantaged peers requires one to believe these highly privileged black families have some sort of unsophisticated educational cultural understanding, or similar sorts of completely unsupported assertions. As referenced above thread, educational level of parents also does not eliminate the gap any more than does economic advantage. Black children from educated and wealthy families score barely on par, on average, with white children from poor and uneducated families.
If only applying labels and ad hominem attack rhetoric were considered good debate practices, we could have succint “explanations” all the time in GD!
No need for a single fact or reality check to interfere with the real rhetorical power of name calling.
WRT genes, we could label someone a racist, and be done with whether or not they have facts on their side.
I wonder if you’d be willing to post some examples outside the US where you feel sub-saharan populations have been markedly successful.
Afro-Colombians in Cali, maybe? I assume they are doing great, on average?
Or perhaps you’d like to comment how the “anti-black” hostility “baked into the culture” of the US prevents black students from highly privileged economic backgrounds from learning on par with their peers in school.
Is it the case that, on average, a teacher looking at an east asian, south asian, white and black student in her class has it in for the black student? Secretly marks down their exams or something? Only gives the other three groups the test cheat sheets?
How, exactly, does this “baked in hostility” work to such a broad extent that black students from families in the $200,000/yr income bracket turn in SAT scores 149 points lower than their economic peers?
What specific expression of hostility is so pervasive that this gap for this particular group never disappears?
I get the rhetoric. I don’t get the mechanism the rhetoric implies.
Except that nurturing hasn’t been accounted for – not even close. Do you at least recognize that this is the source of our disagreement? That I believe that society is still profoundly unequal, and there exist barriers and obstacles for black people (even wealthy black people) that don’t exist for non-black people?
It wasn’t a debate question, it was a question as to your motives.
Well, this is at least amusing.
Lots of people discussing genes for academic achievement being linked with skin color. I mean, that is what Americans mean by “race”, and a lot of people don’t seem to be able to differentiate societal markers refered to as “race” from real differences in gene pools.
Now, if we for a moment take seriously the hypothesis that there is a genetic base for the observed difference in achievement, there are a few real-world consequences that should be observable.
The vast majority (80 %+) of African genes present in the US gene pool originates on the west coast of Africa, Senegambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Liberia, Ivory Coast, and the Angola to Congo region.
So the US represents a fairly mixed gene pool, and so do Americans. Most research estimates a mean of 20 % European ancestry in “black” populations. (Parra, Wassel) And conversly, just over 3 % of the genes in the average “white” population is of African extraction. (Shriver, Prosdocimi)
Now, we have two explanations for the observed academic underachievement of the American “Black” population. Genetic or environmental.
If there is such a “race”- linked genetic signal, we should be able to detect it across populations in different environments. I am a bit surprised at the focus on the US in this discussion, tbh.
The signal should be even stronger in the west African populations where the African genetic contribution hails from. As it is less dilute there. We should also be able to track the signal in the academic achievement of American populations with a greater contribution from west Africa than the US, such as Portuguese America and the West Indies.
We should also be able to find the signal in other populations which had an inflow of west Africans. The UK, Denmark, Black Russians etc.
And if we contrast the “White” US population with the European one, we should see lower academic achievement in it, due to the African inflow.
Finally, Africa is a continent with a vast diversity in genetics. For example, there are Ju/’hoansi genomes that has had no exchange with other populations for ~150 000 years. Meaning that they have been separate from other populations much, much longer than the European, Inuit,and Australian Aborigines have been separated from each other and other Africans.
So unless God came down and decided to make all the racists wet dreams come true and link genes for academic underachievement specifically to skin color -such a signal is going to stand out starkly against other African populations.
So do we see such a signal anywhere beyond in the US education system? Do white American underachieve academically compared to Europeans?
I dont think so.
Debate, not attack. It’d be a shame if I had to start handing out warnings, wouldn’t it?
As you wish.