Tyler Cowen directs us to Roland Fryer, writing today about the pay gap for Black workers:
For decades, social scientists have shown that raw gaps in employment outcomes [...] misstate the amount of actual bias in an organization.
....One of the most important developments in the study of racial inequality has been the quantification of the importance of pre-market skills in explaining differences in labor market outcomes between Black and white workers. In 2010, using nationally representative data on thousands of individuals in their 40s, I estimated that Black men earn 39.4% less than white men and Black women earn 13.1% less than white women. Yet, accounting for one variable—educational achievement in their teenage years—reduced that difference to 10.9% (a 72% reduction) for men and revealed that Black women earn 12.7 percent more than white women, on average.
This sounds exactly right. I've taken a look at this several times and found that Black students typically graduate from high school with test scores that place them (on average) at about a 9th or 10th grade reading level compared to 12th grade for white students. When you then compare various life outcomes, including income, of Black workers vs. white workers with 9th grade reading scores, they're nearly equal.
Not completely equal, as Fryer says. There's still a gap left, and the evidence suggests it's probably due to racial discrimination.
I've never been able to reliably get information disaggregated by gender, but what little evidence I've seen suggests that racial discrimination hits Black men harder than Black women. Fryer confirms this in a big way, and the difference remains about the same even after you account for high school education.
Education, as always, is key. If we really want to be anti-racist, improving the education of Black children is something we have to be dedicated to. It's hard, it's expensive, and white people largely hate it. What's more, we've tried and tried for years with little success. But we still have to do it.
We have been doing nothing *but* make changes that were supposed to improve educational outcomes for black children. White people don't hate it. (Asian people do, though.) It's expensive. And very little of what we've done has worked.
Unfortunately ... I have to agree. From what my friends and acquaintances in the K-12 segment of education tell me, there is a strong anti-education sentiment amongst the students in the schools where they teach.
This is, of course, purely anecdotal.
That's just it. We've been trying to root racism out of schools for 50 years, and test scores among black kids have barely budged... meanwhile Asian kids' test scores have absolutely crushed white kids' scores for ages (wait, are white teachers secretly favoring the Asian kids?). At some point we have to stop seeing disparities in outcomes as proof of unseen racism, and look elsewhere... like what's going on in the kids' homes.
I feel like left-leaning white people have taken on a parental mindset... that black people are fundamentally broken and it's our responsibility to fix them. Perhaps at this point the least racist thing white people could actually do is just make sure we don't have our foot on anyone's throats and let them figure out the rest of it on their own.
I don't think "white people largely hate it." Of course I hang out with a bunch of very liberal people.
MAGA people hate this because they do not accept that modern racism is to blame.
The only reason the modern Democratic party has not embraced this is that its too difficult to simultaneously pitch (1) we are the party of trying to redress discrimination against minorities, and (2) we are the party trying to redress discrimination against the poor and undereducated generally.
In short, all these dumb MAGAs are operating at about a 9th grade analytical level, if that, yet they correctly sense that the Democratic party is not generally in favor of all dumb idiots.
"MAGA people hate this because they do not accept that modern racism is to blame."
Two unproved (and almost certainly false) statements do not resolve to one true statement.
It's a vicious cycle...
poverty means worse outcomes...
racism means worse outcomes....
worse outcomes means lower incomes...
Map poverty to educational outcome too.
Poverty and racism affected many groups in the US (eg Jews and most Asians) and yet...
There's also a reverse, there are groups of Whites (or for that matter other Asians) that are similarly stuck in low achievement.
To an outsider it certainly looks like the problem is one of certain pathological cultures. But if there's one thing we're absolutely forbidden to do in the year of 2022 it's to "judge" some cultures as being better or worse for any purpose along any dimension (except white cultures, go wild there).
This is not just snark. I fully expect that in a hundred years the roster of heroes and villains in this particular matter will look very very different – there will be one side that valiantly tried to evolve a culture of self-control and responsibility against another side that tried to promote a culture of hedonism, dependency and immediate gratification and resorted to faux outrage whenever this project was questioned. (That's if the hedonists don't win, in which case it will be moot because we'll all be speaking Chinese anyway.)
Speaking of “unproved (and almost certainly false) statements” …
I’ve got it.
Let’s shut down the schools for 2 years. Especially in urban areas. Keep those kids going to virtual schools instead of in person schooling.
AND, most importantly, signal our virtue about it, by attacking those people who been trying to open the schools.
It’s a surefire way to increase black educational achievement!
You might want to actually read the article by Freyer that Kevin links to. I've followed the field off and on (for close to 44 years) and have had some training as an employee and then a manager manager in understanding bias.
I also know about the poor funding of all too many schools that partly flows from current bias, historical bias (some of which is actually and literally built into US infrastructure) and government "not giving a shit" all too often. This existed a long time before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
A lot of people wanting to open schools while new variants of COVID-19 are still swirling about have been all too clear that one of the things they don't care about is the health of the students OR the teachers. The result, which I get to see on a daily basis in our local and regional news is that we keep backsliding. Throw schools open! Oops, infections and hospitalization rates have gone up and too many teachers are either under self quarantine, pretty sick, or in the hospital. Crap! Close schools down again, go virtual or mixed! Crap - a lot of people can't afford the ISP service OR decent computers to be able to take virtual courses! Ok, open the schools up again for in-person schooling. Oops...
Good schools need good funding. Property taxes provide most funding for k-12.....attempts to shift the burden and better distribute funding for schools are opposed by (mostly) whites in well-to-do areas with well-funded public schools.
Integration, back in the day, was an attempt to address that, but well, schools are more segregated than ever, and in many places whites place their kids in some version of private schools. Not always out of bias, sometimes to make sure their kids have a better education than the local public schools can provide.
Unless we can get federal funding for public schools (many obstacles), things aren't going to change.
That said, there are a lot of dedicated people teaching in and administering public schools in poor districts. They sometimes do superhuman jobs with very little political support. And much antipathy from GOP leaders who have been attacking schools and teachers since the mid- to late-1960s.
Siphoning off public funds for private & parochial schools, as well as charter schools (where I suppose some public schools once had track systems) doesn't help. When some people disparage public schools & want funding directed elsewhere, I wonder where it will end, especially after the latest SCOTUS decision. And I wonder about the use of home schooling, the methods used & results.
How exactly is education affecting the pay gap? Since most jobs require a great degree of repetition, and most people can learn repeated behavior, I don’t think the spread is due to to education vis-a-vis work performance. Anyways, I would like to see a specific study addressing this than just saying the reason for the gap is simply education. I dare say there are myriad of reasons and education is but a small component for the differences in wage scales. Criminal records inflated by racist laws, geography, attitudes, history etc., etc., etc. are greater contributors to the disparity.
“… I would like to see a specific study addressing this than just saying the reason for the gap is simply education …”
I totally agree. These statistical estimates are just seeing a correlation, I’m sure you could also find “explanatory power” if you dropped “listens to x kind of music” into the linear regression models, where X represents something black kids mostly listen to, that whites/Hispanics/Asians do not.
I mean, education matters, but it’s more a proxy here for “being the kind of person employers think would be okay to be around”…
And truly, I never thought what you learn in high school was very important. You should have learned all that years before, somehow. By 14-18 years old it’s too late.
Kevin’s point (I think) that it’s not all racism, is obviously true too, but the “reason” for these outcomes is complicated.
Some black kids aren’t applying for a lot of these jobs, they don’t see the opportunities because no one around them is doing these things, and when they do actually try and apply, they are passed over for complicated “cultural fit” kind of feelings.
My partner taught high school for 5 years in a majority minority school, 90% free lunch whatever you wanna call it, and all she could talk about was the chaos in the classrooms. Maybe she was a bad teacher, I don’t know…
This post and all these comments are “racial” and racist, including mine. Hopefully I’ve not offended.
There's just a lot of benefit that kids get from having educated, socially connected parents. And there really isn't anything that the schools can do about that.
You could easily see it when schools went virtual. Even though every kid in the district already had an iPad (and had their own iPads for a year prior to the pandemic), and the district went to homes to distribute internet hotspots, there was still a huge disparity. Any question my kids had, they could come to me and get an answer, whether it was a tech problem or a question about their schoolwork. Other parents don't have those skills.
On top of that, whenever a parent in my social circle has a question, they can tap into their social network which is full of educated professionals: teachers, nurses, doctors, therapists, scientists, mathematicians, etc. That's a ton of informal knowledge that doesn't cost anything, but sure confers some benefit!
Rising to a higher socioeconomic bracket is really hard today, in large part because we have a culture that thrives on social connections and encourages a huge amount of parental investment in kids. It's just that some parents simply cannot invest the same things because they lack the right connections and background education. Sure, money plays a role, but I don't think it's as big a role as the social connections and personal education of the parents.
Indeed.
We would do better just to admit that we have the same, if not worse, of a class problem in the US than anywhere else.
The Dems would do better to pitch social programs applicable in Appalachia just the same as inner city Detroit.
But neither of those things are happening.
Do other countries not have networks of “educated, socially connected parents”? Cause they certainly do better jobs of educating black youth than we do.
That's not true. Where on earth do you get that notion?
The case of Nigerians is well known -- but mainly shows that the US does a fine job when given functional starting material.
https://www.workingimmigrants.com/2021/04/the-amazing-educational-success-of-nigerian-americans/
But of course in the US this has to be interpreted in terms of racism (see the idiotic comment to the above post) rather than looking at anything deeper, like how Nigerian (or more specifically a subset of Nigerian) culture is able to achieve this.
Of course the same is true for South Asians (who are not African but are apparently considered brown-adjacent by identitarians), many of whom have also done very well in the US (and are especially well represented in the Republican Party, certainly much more visibly so than in the Democrats, something I suspect is rooted in the point I am trying to make about a culture of responsibility vs a culture of hedonism).
Nigerian immigrants have a serious selection bias problem. Besides, almost all the data on their performance involves college degrees and income. I haven't seen anything to show they've closed the test score achievement gap. Narrowed it, I assume. But never seen research on the topic.
I will say what I always say when it comes to K-12 education and note that giving teachers the unilateral power to chronic troublemakers out of their classroom is probably the biggest bang for the buck you'll get when it comes to improving academic outcomes.
should read 'kick chronic troublemakers out of their classroom', of course.
So what happens to those trouble-makers? Public schools still have a mandate to educate them somehow. And how should the schools deal with the fact that black kids are going to disproportionately get kicked out of classrooms under this system (based on well documented racial disparities in disciplinary measures students receive)?
Your point? To the extent that you have any, it's that you're fine with one student disrupting -- downgrading! -- the education of of the other ninety percent of the class. That makes you part of the problem.
And you are fine perpetuating the biased outcomes that are part of the problem here. Plus you haven't answered the question about what to do with these kids. So your sneering response just makes you look bad.
Sigh. I'll ask you a simple question: are you okay with one or two students preventing the other 90% of the class from being educated? Yes or no? This is not a hard question and it's certainly not a gotcha. And as proof of those statements following my question:
Me? I am most definitely _not_ okay with it. Your turn.
Well, I'm just going to admit that I don't fully understand what point Kevin is trying to make here:
"Education, as always, is key. If we really want to be anti-racist, improving the education of Black children is something we have to be dedicated to. It's hard, it's expensive, and white people largely hate it. What's more, we've tried and tried for years with little success. But we still have to do it."
And, as far as I can tell, the many replies here seem to indicate that respondents might be understanding this observation in different ways.
I think the two phrases most responsible for throwing me off are "anti-racist" and "improving the education." Because "anti-racism," as best I understand it, is not all that concerned with improving processes (such as education). It's concerned, instead, with changing - or simply mandating - outcomes.
So, how is being "anti-racist" actually compatible with "improving" education? To focus on improvement, you have to be concerned with the value of something. But, again, I'm not at all certain that "anti-racism" focuses on value.
In fact, an emphasis on "value" and "improvements" to the "quality" of education may all simply strike "anti-racists" as only so much more racism. In an inherently fallen (or racist) society, aren't all of those efforts doomed not just to fail but to in fact promote more racial inequities?
I'm fairly certain that a "proper" anti-racist attitude would want to get rid of notions of value, improvements, and quality altogether. That way, it's easier to just lump all races evenly together in all situations without worrying about any of the practical concerns that might arise.
So, if someone really is trying to be an anti-racist, I'm pretty sure they would not, in fact, focus on improving education. They would focus on controlling education and enforcing desired outcomes. And that's not the same thing.
I think we can in fact see a bit of what that looks like in practice in the behavior of the recalled School Board Members in San Francisco. They focused on things like starting their meetings with Land Acknowledgements for Indigenous people, removing "offensive" names from Schools, and getting rid of entrance exams from prestigious High Schools. But at no time that I'm aware of did they take steps to actually "improve" anyone's education.
If someone is actually trying to improve society for all citizens of all races, on the other hand, then they might indeed want to focus on the quality of education. But this brings up another confusion for me: if that's the process that Kevin is talking about, why does he think white people hate it? Who are the white people he is referring to? The conservatives? the Leftist/anti-racists? What am I missing here ... ?
+1
You seem to be missing just about everything, mostly by creating "anti-racist" strawmen and then feebly knocking them down.
' "Anti-racism," .... is concerned, instead, with changing - or simply mandating - outcomes.' Yes to the first, no to the second. Contemporary anti-racism is indeed concerned with changing outcomes and, generally, assumes that if there are different outcomes by race, at the societal level, racism is significantly responsible. To believe otherwise is to think that Black people are inherently inferior. Which is, by definition, racism. And no eliding the issue by believing that Black people may not be biologically inferior but that Black culture is the thing that is inferior. That perspective has been stated many times in this thread. If people believe Black people are inferior either biologically or culturally, no matter their political camp, that is racist.
Many white people want to feel themselves good people by saying they believe in color-blind equality, but don't want to actually do what is necessary to improve education: spend more money on schools for poor children than is spent on schools for their own children. For generations. Pay public school teachers more for longer teaching days and years. Feed kids at school. Support wrap-around social services for kids growing up in disrupted settings. Provide the enrichment activities that were once standard for every middle-class public school. Trust educators, even when they say what you don't want to hear.
No, it is easier to say "we've tried everything" and wash your hands of it and blame the "home life" of certain groups.
I made the following comment about anti-racism: "It's concerned, instead, with changing - or simply mandating - outcomes."
You have responded with this statement: "Yes to the first, no to the second."
But your observation is very odd. I don't think it's in any way controversial to assert that mandating outcomes is more or less the heart and soul of modern "anti-racism," that's one of the main reasons why Liberals like me are not fans of the movement.
And it's really not hard to come up with evidence: https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/how-to-fix-politics-in-america/inequality/pass-an-anti-racist-constitutional-amendment/
Demanding a constitutional amendment for the purpose of enforcing one's ideology and "preclearing all local, state and federal public policies to ensure they won’t yield racial inequity" sounds very much to me like "mandating outcomes."
Also, you say this: "If people believe Black people are inferior either biologically or culturally, no matter their political camp, that is racist."
This is either a.) incorrect, or b.) an attempt to redefine racism. The word "racism" has "race" in it.
If you want to knock people for judging someone's culture, on the other hand, you probably need a different word (culturism?).
Racism, as generally understood, is a prejudice based on race: it is not a judgment based on culture.
All cultures, in fact, have their strengths and weaknesses, and there is nothing inherently wrong in constructively pointing that out. For example, authoritarian parents or elders are fairly common across Asian cultures, and the potential innovations that young people might offer those societies (if they could speak or express themselves freely) are often stifled as a result. I see that as a potentially dysfunctional aspect of their culture, not their race. Does that observation make me an anti-Asian racist? I would say: of course not. Race and culture should not be conflated in that way.
After all, we have our own cultural shortcomings. The above observation about Asian cultures could be turned on its head by pointing out that we suffer from the opposite extreme. Here in the West, we tend to glorify youth and innovation and largely overlook the importance of age, experience, knowledge, and wisdom. The near constant refrain that our congressional leaders are elderly and should, more or less by default, therefore resign is a symptom of this problem. Again, there is no anti-White prejudice (or Racism) expressed in this observation of Western culture.
I have fairly often come across defenders of anti-racism who do not seem to be entirely clear on the negative aspects of what they're defending. Sorry, but you do appear to fall into that category.
Sorry you haven't been keeping up. Modern anti-racist thinking absolutely has spent the last twenty to thirty years redefining racism. What do you think all this discussion of systemic racism for a generation has been about? Rather than quoting one paragraph from Ibram Kendi, maybe read Stamped From the Beginning, which won the National Book Award for a reason. You don't have to agree with it all. I didn't. But it may begin to dislodge your thinking about race and "culture" from the 1970s.
Why was it necessary to redefine the term? Outdated notions of racism are based only upon what people feel, i.e. racists are people who hate other people based upon the color of their skin. In that understanding, racists are Klan members and outspoken bigots who polite society should shun (although the MAGA era has shown even that was an illusion). The fallacy of this thinking has been clear for a long time as seen in the title of the book Racism without Racists.
What about ongoing housing and educational segregation? Horrendous disparities in health outcomes, including with COVID-19? Life expectancy? Income gaps? Criminal injustice? Etc. on down the list. These are systemic problems created and sustained by the laws of our country. They will never be solved by simply hoping that people stop disliking others based upon their "race." Especially when white people just turn on a dime to blame Black "culture" for any disparities, which is just another form of racism and an excuse to do nothing except blame the victims.
Anti-racist activists, yes, but also frankly most Democrats/left of center people, especially younger folks, who are increasingly diverse, are unwilling to just accept this. It is a defining characteristic of the liberal/progressive/Democratic tradition to identify societal (as opposed to individual) problems and address them, even if imperfectly, through governmental or collective action. If that is "mandating outcomes," so be it.
You call yourself a liberal, which is your choice. But there is a term for people who have ideas from a bygone era and are unwilling to adapt to a changing society, who are culturally aggrieved and make blanket judgements about the "culture" of whole groups, and who throw their hands up to say "we've done all we can, they just need to raise themselves up by their bootstraps." Those people are called conservatives. Changing your thinking is a choice.
You state:
“Modern anti-racist thinking absolutely has spent the last twenty to thirty years redefining racism.”
Indeed. We are all well aware of that. Believe me. And anti racists have used their redefinitions of racism to assert the kind of ideological extremism exemplified by Kendi in the quote I supply above. You blithely blow by that quote and move on, as if it’s of no consequence that the single most recognizable name in the anti racist movement is unambiguously advocating for the overthrow of our constitutional democracy.
But, hey, he’s doing so on behalf of “justice,” and the kids, as you say, just won’t accept injustice anymore! So it’s all good, right?
No, sorry: it’s extremism. It’s obviously extremism. And extremism in the defense of social justice is indeed a Vice. That sort of extremism is exactly the kind of thing that Liberalism opposes. You’re welcome.
One thing I generally do not understand is the motivation behind the extremism. Yes, some people, especially the youth you so fondly point out, may indeed be deluded enough to believe that one of the most diverse and progressive (though flawed) countries in the history of the world really needs to be overthrown in order to root out its injustices. And the next obvious step after that, as every sane person knows, will be to roll out the guillotine.
But that doesn’t explain everything. No, to some extent I do believe the modern anti racism movement is a power play. In other words, a long con. You might want to consider if you’re one of the marks.
You do understand that the Politico set of blurbs was intended to be provocative, right? That maybe Brett Hennig, whoever that is, has a more nuanced view of elections than he stated in https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/how-to-fix-politics-in-america/participation/select-public-officials-randomly-like-jury-duty-sortition/
Talk about the "overthrow of our constitutional democracy." People can debate ideas, even wacky ones, without wanting to "roll out the guillotine," Mr. Burke.
I am not saying Kendi is right about everything, although he is certainly worth reading (whole works, not paragraphs). Nor that there aren't extremists in every direction that need to be opposed, including the illiberal Left. I am saying that a blanket "anti-racism is extremism" is a bad position. And that people who are opposed to changing their thinking to address today's concerns are major part of the problem, whether they are on the Supreme Court, in government, or frequenting slightly lefty political blog comment sections.
And that is worth thinking about why some people, usually white, are so afraid of continuing to address the historical legacy of slavery and racism, and are so vehemently fixated on finding the blame for the conditions of Black people as belonging somewhere, anywhere, else than having any relation to themselves and their lives.
You’re trying to put a good spin on a fundamentally flawed movement. And, believe it or not, I really do sympathize: been there, done that. Such experiences, in fact, may contribute in no small way to my current skepticism.
You acknowledge the presence of extremists but, as best as I can tell, the implicit meaning of your reply is that such extremism is not central to modern anti racism.
To me, that sounds exactly backwards. Extremism and extremists are the heart and soul of modern anti racism, and “moderate” anti racists (assuming that’s not an oxymoron) are at the fringes.
I just finished a Grad course taught by a self identified anti racist professor. The class was not dedicated to any sort of open inquiry. Contrary views were not simply discouraged, but much of the material we read explicitly condemned anyone opposing anti racism as evil. Some of those screeds gain a veneer of respectability because they are now sometimes published by academic organizations. The very concepts of “merit,” “work,” and “grades” were rejected by my professor to such an extent that nothing we submitted was ever graded or even commented on in any way. To even attempt to pass judgment, apparently, will hopelessly entrap one in an inherently fallen (or racist) system. In short, it was one of the worst classes I’ve ever had. And the idea that it might in any way be the face of future academia is absolutely terrifying.
So, please stop suggesting that I, or others here, speak out of ignorance. I speak from my first hand encounters with the practitioners and the scholarship of anti racism. And it’s because of my experience with it that I reject it for the narrow and extreme ideology that it is.
So you had a bad professor. Welcome to the club. There are plenty. Now, ten, twenty, and fifty years ago too. Again, you seem to fall into the "America/academia/the world is going to hell in a handbasket" worldview that is a hallmark of conservative/reactionary thinking.
I am a liberal Democrat. Basically a New Deal Democrat, an anti-racist one, therefore distinct from version 1.0. I think racism is evil and persistent and protean and must be combated at every turn for America to ever "live out the true meaning of its creed." Including, actually especially, in education, which was the original topic. By no stretch of the imagination am I an extremist. I know people to my left and right who are anti-racist, even if they don't use that term themselves. The commonality is that they recognize that racism itself is the problem, that it must be actively engaged rather than wished away, and that it is worse and more corrosive to to a democratic society than any excesses of some extreme end of anti-racist activists. I also wonder if it is possible that vehement anti-anti-racists may, you know, having some wee issues related to race.
Again, you are not describing the modern anti-racist movement:
“I know people to my left and right who are anti-racist, even if they don't use that term themselves. The commonality is that they recognize that racism itself is the problem, that it must be actively engaged rather than wished away, and that it is worse and more corrosive to a democratic society than any excesses of some extreme end of anti-racist activists.”
You are describing what you would like the anti-racism movement to be; alas, and as already stated, the excesses of modern anti racism do not derive from “some extreme end of anti-racist activists.” Extremism, in fact, is the entire point of modern anti-racism.
The movement you are describing is one that is opposed to racism. One name for that movement is Liberalism. A belief that collective action can create better opportunities for all citizens, in fact, helped the Civil Rights movement succeed. It helped elect a Black President and a Black Vice President. But that movement bears almost no resemblance to the current anti racist movement which asserts (in one of its best selling books): “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination."
Nevertheless, there is, unfortunately, one way in which you do seem to resemble and even exemplify the failings of modern anti-racism. One of their defining features is to label practically everyone, especially anyone who disagrees, as a racist. I pointed this out earlier in my thread, and I believe you accused me of creating “straw men.”
And yet, here you are, in the last paragraph of your reply above, stating as follows: “I also wonder if it is possible that vehement anti-anti-racists may, you know, having some wee issues related to race.”
That sort of character assassination of any who hold contrary views is classic anti racism. Rather than Liberalism’s effort to bring people together, anti racism (as you demonstrate) tries to smash people apart. You might get along quite well if and when Kendi ever does succeed in his explicitly stated aim to overthrow our constitutional democracy.
My wife, mother, and aunt are/were all teachers. Between their three school districts there has been a never ending selection of initiatives to assist black students. They all produce very modest dividends, if any. The bottom line is there is no substitute for home life. If education is not valued at home no amount nothing the school districts and teachers can do will be enough. I’m not saying stop trying. Good teachers make huge differences. But we can’t expect equal results if outside factors are not equal.
Blink. You surprise, me. On very rare occasions.
Why thank you.
Wealth inequality in the US is rooted in longstanding discrimination in the real estate markets. And the quality of public education in the US comes down to real estate purchases. The long-term effects of redlining are the biggest drag on public education everywhere outside of the South and West. In the South and West the roots of wealth inequality go back further than the redlining in the North.
We don't need education reform; we need reform that will create greater equality of wealth and income.
Nope. Quality of public education is irrelevant. Public education was frankly created for unschooling type of upbringing. Your problem is just not accepting that some people just don't want it.
Jews (and most other immigrant groups for that matter) experienced serious redlining in this country for several generations, after coming to this country with barely two nickels to rub together, yet they're now by and large as well off as everyone else. How does your theory take this into account?
Jews powered the age of exploration and the slave trade that came out of it. Jews really did found capitalism with the aristocracy it's soldiers. You could red light them all you want, they had the connections.
Blacks don't. They need to build those connections and refuse.
Lol man, you really are exhausting. FWIW, I've done a lot of Jewish genealogy work, and the family trees basically always go like this: Family lived in some dirt floor schtetl (town), probably in what is now the Ukraine. 19th century Russians were a pain in the ass, so they left for America with at best a few suitcases of stuff. Scraped for a generation or two, and now are doing pretty well. The end.
I've yet to come across any Illuminati Jews that you seem so obsessed with.
Tradition!
Maybe in Russia boy, but further west, nope. Jews were the monarchy bailout after the mess of the black death. The change in English position on the jews from 14th to 15th centuries was ripe. Russia's persecution lasted longer and also misguided the self hating Jews into Marxism......which's founder was a self hating jew. Sorta like Joe McCarthy, a self hating homo.
Lol, okey doke. I'm curious, though... considering Italian Americans' heritage doesn't actually require one of your Illuminati decoder rings, do you connect them to all the crap the Roman Empire actually did in the same venomous way? I mean, imagine the connections they must have from that glorious world-conquering empire! Immigrating to America must have been a breeze.
"...What's more, we've tried and tried for years with little success. But we still have to do it."
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results."
Blacks don't value it. Ones that do succeed in general. Maybe, blacks wanna join gangs in general. Really, by 2000 this was considered the problem......or maybe it is the answer???
"Waiting for Superman" should be required viewing on this topic.
Cultural pitfalls are so much greater for young black men. I know of three black men all adopted by a white middle class family. Two live respectable middle class lives and the third started to love gang culture in middle school. He assumed the tough street thug identity and his life unraveled from there. White kids just don't have that identity pulling at them (although some appropriate it).
I've said this before and I will say it again.
Whites have this false belief that blacks want everything handed to them because whites just don't understand the lasting effect(s) racism has had on the black population.
I proposed that blacks should be given free college (post high school) education be it for nursing, welding or the study of medicine or economics. This serves 2 purposes. 1 - it lifts an entire generation out of poverty and sets the tone for future generations and 2 it puts the blacks in a situation where they have to "make the effort" to make that education pay off for them which white folks don't seem to believe they can do. President Obama proved that ANY black person with drive can succeed, much to the chagrin of many white people.
Now what the blacks have to understand is that the results of this free education will NOT be felt for years - which is also true for anyone getting an education.
The ONLY question for me is the talked about proposal for student debt relief. I would go so far as to say make the first go 'round all black but education inflation affects all races so thats a tough one for me
But going forward? Free college for those children would put a HUGE emphasis on high school and middle school black children to make good grades so they qualify for the free college program. Do this for say 20 years then expand it to all students regardless of race. This would not give them a leg up but it would put an entire generation on equal footing.
Then let their effort determine their future, not the past
Arguably, the issue of black education is one that primarily needs to be addressed outside of schools. The US consists of a large number of different sub-cultures; some of those sub-cultures have a more positive attitude toward education generally than others.
It appears that "Asian" sub-cultures generally have a very positive attitude to education, and so even in families where the parents are immigrants with little formal education themselves and little ability to help their children with their homework, education is strongly encouraged and the first generation of American born children tend to get well educated.
It also appears, and I will be happy to be proved wrong, that many black sub-cultures do not place great value on education, and so the children of those sub-cultures are not strongly encouraged to get educated.
Admittedly, my evidence is anecdotal, but I've seen the results of attitude to education in my own (white) family. My grandfather was a Scottish blacksmith; he didn't have much formal education but placed a very high value on education and was determined that his son (he only had one child) would do better; my father earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry. My wife's family were Doukhobor and placed little value on education. My wife had to struggle just to complete high school; her parents thought she should drop out and get a job after about grade 9; her older brother and sister didn't finish high school.
I have no idea how to actually remedy the problem, but it seems clear that parental attitudes, rather than parental accomplishments or school quality, are the main problem. The answer lies in somehow changing those attitudes.
Agree 100%. If kids come from an environment that places little value on education, or worse, actively disparages it, don't be surprised if their educational attainments are meager to nil.
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