4 ms·

I don't think you can exclude 'racism' as the main or contributing factor in the achievement gap. African immigrants grow up believing that they are just as int

by a_w 10y ago

I don't think you can exclude 'racism' as the main or contributing factor in the achievement gap. African immigrants grow up believing that they are just as intelligent as the rest of the world and are free from the constant insinuation of intellectual inferiority fired at them from the media and other ethnic groups on a daily basis as African Americans are. I could be wrong but I believe this plays a major role. I don't mean to take it out on you but it suddens me to read such hurtful comments on HN on a constant basis whenever the topic of race comes up, and I finally had to say something. Unfortunately you happened to be on the receiving end of it, and I apologize for it.

SisypheanTask 10y ago
Aren't you committing an error in attributing the achievements of a select group (African immigrants/descendants, mostly Nigerian, living in Western countries) to a broader category (all black people)? This is just a step above saying: "Neil DeGrasse Tyson is intelligent, therefore Black Americans are intelligent". Does it not stand to reason that the immigrants from Nigeria who come here are likely to be more talented and ambitious than the average Nigerian? Nigeria has over 200 million people, is it any surprise that a selection of their best would produce offspring who are on average more intelligent and successful than the wider swathe of American-born blacks? I don't have a dog in this fight or a particular strong opinion either way, but your cherry-picked anecdotes fly in the face of statistical distributions that hold much more weight.
- a_w 10y ago
  Pretty much all the articles I linked above address the same argument you are raising, they have data that says otherwise. Also interesting that I have yet to encounter the same argument when comparing the achievements of African Americans and Asians. I have honestly never heard of anyone saying that there are 1.4 billion Chinese and roughly the same number of Indians, so it could be argued that those who come here are more talented and ambitious than the average Chinese or Indian, so it would be unfair to compare that group and African Americans.
edblarney 10y ago
Yes - I agree. Africans are brought up in an environment where all their leaders, great figures - are black, like them - which leads them to have a different (better?) self-identity. So when they come to America - they succeed, whereas African Americans might have some systematic self-esteem issues. But this doesn't help your case - just the opposite: it shows that culture is a driving factor - not racism. Again - we are assuming that both African Americans and African-Africans face the 'same amount of racism' and yet one group succeeds because of their cultural values. I don't doubt that racism holds people back - but I don't think it's the primary driver. Your example illustrates this quite well.

by a_w 10y ago

SisypheanTask 10y ago

Aren't you committing an error in attributing the achievements of a select group (African immigrants/descendants, mostly Nigerian, living in Western countries) to a broader category (all black people)? This is just a step above saying: "Neil DeGrasse Tyson is intelligent, therefore Black Americans are intelligent". Does it not stand to reason that the immigrants from Nigeria who come here are likely to be more talented and ambitious than the average Nigerian? Nigeria has over 200 million people, is it any surprise that a selection of their best would produce offspring who are on average more intelligent and successful than the wider swathe of American-born blacks? I don't have a dog in this fight or a particular strong opinion either way, but your cherry-picked anecdotes fly in the face of statistical distributions that hold much more weight.

a_w 10y ago
Pretty much all the articles I linked above address the same argument you are raising, they have data that says otherwise. Also interesting that I have yet to encounter the same argument when comparing the achievements of African Americans and Asians. I have honestly never heard of anyone saying that there are 1.4 billion Chinese and roughly the same number of Indians, so it could be argued that those who come here are more talented and ambitious than the average Chinese or Indian, so it would be unfair to compare that group and African Americans.

edblarney 10y ago

Yes - I agree. Africans are brought up in an environment where all their leaders, great figures - are black, like them - which leads them to have a different (better?) self-identity. So when they come to America - they succeed, whereas African Americans might have some systematic self-esteem issues. But this doesn't help your case - just the opposite: it shows that culture is a driving factor - not racism. Again - we are assuming that both African Americans and African-Africans face the 'same amount of racism' and yet one group succeeds because of their cultural values. I don't doubt that racism holds people back - but I don't think it's the primary driver. Your example illustrates this quite well.