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Does it have anything to do with class/systematic bias or is it truly a behavioral issue? Generational choices will affect you, just as your choices will affec

Does it have anything to do with class/systematic bias or is it truly a behavioral issue? Generational choices will affect you, just as your choices will affect your children. Studies show that if you wait to have kids until marriage, don't do drugs, finish high school, and work you will be in the middle class in the US - a pretty privileged place to be on a global basis. And those choices will have a positive impact on your kids as well. There's no denying some people have advantages, but everyone has a chance to get ahead and better their situation and the lives of their children. And I think that's what really bothers me about the "privilege" point of view - it pushes people to justify their situation based on the hand they were dealt, not what they did with it. Based on the stats, the system is rigged to favor one class: Asians. Earnings, credit scores, advanced degrees, longevity - Americans of Asian descent are kicking butt in every category. Those darn founding Asians shouldn't have set up the system to favor their progeny. And the white poor really need to start using their privilege correctly.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Waiting to have kids, avoiding drugs, finishing high school are all easy to do if you start out in a middle-class neighborhood with two-parent families, clean streets and good schools with community support. E.g. easy to say "just stay in school!" from our suburban ivory tower, miles away from the dangerous decaying underfunded overcrowded inner city schools. Its this blindness to the problems and issues of growing up a minority in a poor area, that leads to victim-blaming. Remember, we're talking about kids. They aren't going to make all the good choices if there's nobody home in the poor single-parent household to guide them.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  Are you talking about race? > They aren't going to make all the good choices if there's nobody home in the poor single-parent household to guide them. Good point. How do you fix this?
  - zacharytelschow 10y ago
    > Good point. How do you fix this? Precisely. My wife works in one of the exact kind of schools (in exactly the kind of neighborhood) JoeAltmaier mentions. Some parents, regardless of where they're coming from, make it clear to their children that education is a priority, ensure their children arrive at school on time each day dressed in clean clothes, and that their homework is completed. Other parents do not make this effort. It's heartbreaking that it's true, but there's nothing anyone but their parents can do about it. Yes, those children are being put at a disadvantage in life - there's zero denying it. And it's tragic. As you correctly point out, these attitudes and priorities have nothing to do with race. If it's privilege, it's more appropriately called decision privilege.
    - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      Of course its not caused by race. But it is correlated with it. Statistics show that poorer people do this more; poorer people are often minorities for historical reasons. Compound this with discrimination ("Most X people I see don't value education, so I won't bother trying with their children") and you have the whole 'white privilege' package tied up in a bow. We're all agreeing here; sensible people don't confuse opportunity with race. But there are a whole lot of not-sensible people out there, who take simple correlation and conclude "X people are stupid" or whatever. In the end its about fixing the problem. Its not clear that the 'white privilege' label is helping much. Maybe just to get conversations like this one going?
    - Chris2048 10y ago
      The truth is, it's a lottery. And the only fix is something very non-standard; Greater government interference in family life, or removal of liberal reproduction rights. Until we accept something like that, the best we can do is try to reduce the 'cultural' aspects of bad-parenting, but that's all. > these attitudes and priorities have nothing to do with race they correlate with race - sometimes. It's the ambiguous nature of 'culture'. But privilege appears to me to refer specifically to opportunity. "decision privilege" seems contradictory in that respect; especially with things like "getting pregnant at a young age" and "having children outside marriage" - I think these are actually "behavioral privilege" (living in a culture/environment that values/encourages certain behavior), which does not fit the usual narratives and semantics around the word 'privilege', one of which is, change can only come from within the community, and resistance to change is not imposed from outside.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago

Waiting to have kids, avoiding drugs, finishing high school are all easy to do if you start out in a middle-class neighborhood with two-parent families, clean streets and good schools with community support. E.g. easy to say "just stay in school!" from our suburban ivory tower, miles away from the dangerous decaying underfunded overcrowded inner city schools. Its this blindness to the problems and issues of growing up a minority in a poor area, that leads to victim-blaming. Remember, we're talking about kids. They aren't going to make all the good choices if there's nobody home in the poor single-parent household to guide them.

Chris2048 10y ago
Are you talking about race? > They aren't going to make all the good choices if there's nobody home in the poor single-parent household to guide them. Good point. How do you fix this?
- zacharytelschow 10y ago
  > Good point. How do you fix this? Precisely. My wife works in one of the exact kind of schools (in exactly the kind of neighborhood) JoeAltmaier mentions. Some parents, regardless of where they're coming from, make it clear to their children that education is a priority, ensure their children arrive at school on time each day dressed in clean clothes, and that their homework is completed. Other parents do not make this effort. It's heartbreaking that it's true, but there's nothing anyone but their parents can do about it. Yes, those children are being put at a disadvantage in life - there's zero denying it. And it's tragic. As you correctly point out, these attitudes and priorities have nothing to do with race. If it's privilege, it's more appropriately called decision privilege.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    Of course its not caused by race. But it is correlated with it. Statistics show that poorer people do this more; poorer people are often minorities for historical reasons. Compound this with discrimination ("Most X people I see don't value education, so I won't bother trying with their children") and you have the whole 'white privilege' package tied up in a bow. We're all agreeing here; sensible people don't confuse opportunity with race. But there are a whole lot of not-sensible people out there, who take simple correlation and conclude "X people are stupid" or whatever. In the end its about fixing the problem. Its not clear that the 'white privilege' label is helping much. Maybe just to get conversations like this one going?
  - Chris2048 10y ago
    The truth is, it's a lottery. And the only fix is something very non-standard; Greater government interference in family life, or removal of liberal reproduction rights. Until we accept something like that, the best we can do is try to reduce the 'cultural' aspects of bad-parenting, but that's all. > these attitudes and priorities have nothing to do with race they correlate with race - sometimes. It's the ambiguous nature of 'culture'. But privilege appears to me to refer specifically to opportunity. "decision privilege" seems contradictory in that respect; especially with things like "getting pregnant at a young age" and "having children outside marriage" - I think these are actually "behavioral privilege" (living in a culture/environment that values/encourages certain behavior), which does not fit the usual narratives and semantics around the word 'privilege', one of which is, change can only come from within the community, and resistance to change is not imposed from outside.