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> And yet, look where they are today versus blacks. How did that happen? Generally I don't like to compare the struggles amongst minorities in America. There i

> And yet, look where they are today versus blacks. How did that happen? Generally I don't like to compare the struggles amongst minorities in America. There is a multitude of factors that come into play when analyzing these types of things.. But when you look at the history of discrimination vs. black people in America you need to go back and consider the effects all the way back from slavery, to Reconstruction/Redemption, Jim Crow, discriminatory housing policy, discriminatory lending, discriminatory policing, discriminatory criminal "justice", disenfranchisement on multiple levels, lynching, etc. etc. etc. This is 400+ years of compounding discrimination against black people. I'm not saying the Vietnamese and Cambodians (and for good measure the Irish & the Italians) did not have it bad.. but I think we need to look at this with a broader lens.

Clanan 9y ago
You're focusing on a single variable. The above poster is recommending a multivariate approach. If a similar minority group can start from a worse position (not even knowing the language!) and advance to a better position in a single generation, then your single variable is lacking. The response of "go back 400 years" does not explain away the discrepancy. The common-sense approach is to consider other factors too.
- 40acres 9y ago
  > If a similar minority group can start from a worse position (not even knowing the language!) and advance to a better position in a single generation, then your single variable is lacking. I can't agree with this sentence. I agree, not knowing the language puts you in a bad spot, but I think you are really underestimating the level of discrimination vs. blacks in America if you think simply "not knowing the language" is enough to put some immigrant group in a worse position than blacks in America. I'm not sure what other variables you'd like me to use in this analysis but I think if you look back over the history of America you see that others have used one variable to levy their discrimination and it's always been race.
  - SlowRobotAhead 9y ago
    >I can't agree with this sentence. Whether you do or don't doesn't really matter. Post after post has made the point that you are focusing on a single variable and it is clear that it's not explicit causation for the effects like you claim.
    - 40acres 9y ago
      Like I said earlier: I'm not sure what kind of variables you'd like to include within this variance but I'd LOVE to to hear any suggestions.
      - sp527 9y ago
        There are at least two variables he's missing that matter a lot: (1) Selection bias. The pool of immigrants who make it to America in the first place likely skews well above average. (2) Culture/ecosystem problems in black communities, even if it's politically incorrect to argue it. Black neighborhoods are plagued by gang culture/violence, drugs, patriarchal absenteeism (estimates vary, but roughly 50% seems likely), intergenerational educational deficit (if parents are illiterate/undereducated, their children are likely to be so as well), and various other more generic issues that stem from chronic poverty.
        0x4f3759df 9y ago
        If the level of absenteeism is very high, it is very likely that the parents are renters and not homeowners, so it circles back a little to the main point.
  - SenseiMaster 9y ago
    Not knowing English before computers and smart phones is a huge setback. That cripples all aspects of life, including your ability to help your children with schooling, doing taxes, interacting with any basic service or business, understanding laws, literally everything. I'd like to see the argument that African Americans faced conditions harsher than not knowing English justified.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > If a similar minority group can start from a worse position (not even knowing the language!) I don't know if we can say emigrating Cambodians were in a worse position than impoverished blacks . Immigrants self select for being willing to leave everything they know for the hope of a better life; they have also competently navigated a difficult process. This selection bias is accentuated in war, when the logistics of escape become trickier. Communities then cohere and reinforce each other on the other side. Contrast that with American blacks. Captured by coastal kings who sold them to Europeans who transported them here against their wills. Any who stood up or out got eliminated. Loose to non-existent intergenerational information and wealth transfer. Et cetera
  - theandrewbailey 9y ago
    All the American blacks you refer to are dead, and can't be compared to far more recent Cambodian American immigration. Even if said blacks had wealth, its gone and irrelevant to modern blacks.
- dnomad 9y ago
  This makes even less sense than the original question. The original poster posits a theory that generations of housing discrimination contributed to the enormous racial wealth gap. Another poster comes along and says "what about these immigrants who didn't face generations of housing discrimination?" And the conclusion of this is that the "single-variable approach" doesn't work. It's too bad because the original point stands and in fact it's well documented in the literature. In fact an excellent book, The Color of Law [1], was recently published that shows very clearly in excruciating detail how racist policies systematically worked to deprive blacks of property and wealth. But no, let's talk about the very different experience of the Cambodians and other minorities so we can continue to blame the blacks. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Color-Law-Forgotten-Government-Segregated/dp/1631492853 https://www.amazon.com/Color-Law-Forgotten-Government-Segreg...
  - Clanan 9y ago
    That's an uncharitable read of my comment. (Or more likely my comment was clear as mud.) As you said, the above theory was that the current wealth gap can be explained by generations of discrimination. But if another non-white group can enter at a similar "difficulty" level and attain higher results, maybe the explanation is more complicated. I think then the focus would need to be on current (possibly discriminatory) policies and factors, rather than historical ones. Education, family unit, cultural factors, etc.
HaloZero 9y ago
I also don't think you can ignore that the discriminatory lending, policing, and other policies also affect other minorities. The US enacted into law banning Chinese immigrants, white San Francisco was ready to mob and burn down to Chinatown at some point.
- 40acres 9y ago
  Totally agreed. I'm not trying to downplay the history of other groups in America as so much as highlighting the unique challenges that have affected black America. The US enacted a law banning Chinese.. The state I live in (Oregon) explicit banned blacks in the constitution [0]. San Francisco was ready to mob and burn down Chinatown... "Black Wall Street" in Tusla, OK was burned down by a mob.. [1] I did not want to get into a tit for tat comparison between oppression but I would implore anyone who is interested to really do their research on race in America. [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/06/07/when-portland-banned-blacks-oregons-shameful-history-as-an-all-white-state/?utm_term=.ba7084a75269 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/06/07... [1]: http://www.ebony.com/black-history/the-destruction-of-black-wall-street-405 http://www.ebony.com/black-history/the-destruction-of-black-...
- SlowRobotAhead 9y ago
  >I also don't think you can ignore that the discriminatory lending, policing, and other policies also affect other minorities. Just being clear, but wouldn't those also if not more so effect the immigrants OP brought up? Are we not also including Asian minorities?
- dnomad 9y ago
  I think you're very confused if you think other minorities faced anything like what blacks faced. Combined this with the well-known fact that most recent non-Mexican immigrants to America (after 1960) were often quite wealthy before they came to America and you're looking at a very different experience.
  - mr_overalls 9y ago
    I hear that Native Americans had it pretty bad.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
lopmotr 9y ago
What mechanism could exist for transferring poverty from slavery of ancestors to poverty of current people? The examples of immigrants seem to show it's not being born poor or having a traumatic life experience and being disadvantaged. Could it be the knowledge of the history that's holding blacks back? If everyone somehow forgot Jim Crow and slavery, would the next generation of blacks do as well as immigrants, do you think? Also, I really think you should have some evidence at all that slavery or persecution causes intergenerational poverty after the effects have gone. I hear that theory a lot and I've never seen any science to support it. Only to support immediate poverty of the individuals who were persecuted, not their great great grandkids. Another counterexample is Australia - founded by convicts 200 years ago and in a much shorter time, they ended up doing very well compared to blacks since slavery.
- 40acres 9y ago
  > Could it be the knowledge of the history that's holding blacks back? If everyone somehow forgot Jim Crow and slavery, would the next generation of blacks do as well as immigrants, do you think? Forgetting Jim Crow and slavery is not enough -- this thread helps to illustrate that. The effects of Jim Crow and slavery would need to be eliminated. > Also, I really think you should have some evidence at all that slavery or persecution causes intergenerational poverty after the effects have gone. I hear that theory a lot and I've never seen any science to support it. Only to support immediate poverty of the individuals who were persecuted, not their great great grandkids. How could it not? I mean just think about the institution of slavery for a minute.. there was a time where the Mississippi Valley had more millionares than any other place in America.. how do you think that happened? Through slave ownership? Black families were literally torn apart generation after generation, they were denied the opportunity to realize the wealth their labor produced, generation after generation. A slave owner passes on his million dollar plantation to his children.. what does the slave pass to his child? > Another counterexample is Australia - founded by convicts 200 years ago and in a much shorter time, they ended up doing very well compared to blacks since slavery. How are the Aboriginals doing?
  - lopmotr 9y ago
    "How could it not?" isn't scientific, it's prejudice - you're assuming the conclusion. But there are so many example of it not happening. Here's another - Jews have been persecuted for centuries, kicked out of country after country, had whole families killed in the holocaust, and yet they repeatedly bounce back. Jews in Europe today are not a disadvantaged class despite their severe persecution from all sides before and during WWII. If the effect is certain, how long does it take to wear off?
btilly 9y ago
> Generally I don't like to compare the struggles amongst minorities in America. There is a multitude of factors that come into play when analyzing these types of things.. You may not like to compare, but you really should. Because when you compare you get to ask the critical question, "What things did this group do right to overcome their challenges, and can we draw lessons that help replicate that success in another group?" When you compare blacks and whites, the differences in privilege are so obvious that you really can't see anything else that might matter. But when you compare blacks and Cambodians, privilege goes the other way - blacks have more. For all that went wrong for blacks, they generally didn't flee on boats with only the shirts on their backs after witnessing a quarter of the people that they grew up with being killed. Only to land in a country where they didn't speak the language, or understand the culture, and were generally disliked. So what did Cambodians have in their favor? I'm drawing from my thoughts and other comments here. The determination that it takes to be a refugee. True hope that they can create a better life. A culture of helping fellow minority members. A certainty that no matter what the frustration, it really could be worse. Now can we encourage those attitudes in blacks? I believe so. However you don't do it by focusing on a narrative of, "Your life is hopeless because of things that happened before you were born. Things that are entirely out of your control."
- 40acres 9y ago
  > For all that went wrong for blacks, they generally didn't flee on boats with only the shirts on their backs after witnessing a quarter of the people that they grew up with being killed. Only to land in a country where they didn't speak the language, or understand the culture, and were generally disliked. This is literally what happened through the Atlantic slave trade.. just replace "flee" w/ "were sold". > I'm drawing from my thoughts and other comments here. The determination that it takes to be a refugee. True hope that they can create a better life. A culture of helping fellow minority members. A certainty that no matter what the frustration, it really could be worse. > Now can we encourage those attitudes in blacks? I believe so. I know that these characteristics have been shown time and time again within the black community. If you want to see a culture of helping fellow minority members look to the NAACP, if you want to see an example of determination please read "Up From Slavery", if you want to understand the hope to create a better life read "The Warmth of Other Suns". My argument is not "things are out of your control" nor is it that there is something lacking in the black community that other successful minorities have demonstrated.. my argument is "here are the institutional and systemic barriers that are present -- if you want to understand the present situation and how to move forward you must understand them".

Clanan 9y ago

You're focusing on a single variable. The above poster is recommending a multivariate approach. If a similar minority group can start from a worse position (not even knowing the language!) and advance to a better position in a single generation, then your single variable is lacking. The response of "go back 400 years" does not explain away the discrepancy. The common-sense approach is to consider other factors too.

40acres 9y ago
> If a similar minority group can start from a worse position (not even knowing the language!) and advance to a better position in a single generation, then your single variable is lacking. I can't agree with this sentence. I agree, not knowing the language puts you in a bad spot, but I think you are really underestimating the level of discrimination vs. blacks in America if you think simply "not knowing the language" is enough to put some immigrant group in a worse position than blacks in America. I'm not sure what other variables you'd like me to use in this analysis but I think if you look back over the history of America you see that others have used one variable to levy their discrimination and it's always been race.
- SlowRobotAhead 9y ago
  >I can't agree with this sentence. Whether you do or don't doesn't really matter. Post after post has made the point that you are focusing on a single variable and it is clear that it's not explicit causation for the effects like you claim.
  - 40acres 9y ago
    Like I said earlier: I'm not sure what kind of variables you'd like to include within this variance but I'd LOVE to to hear any suggestions.
    - sp527 9y ago
      There are at least two variables he's missing that matter a lot: (1) Selection bias. The pool of immigrants who make it to America in the first place likely skews well above average. (2) Culture/ecosystem problems in black communities, even if it's politically incorrect to argue it. Black neighborhoods are plagued by gang culture/violence, drugs, patriarchal absenteeism (estimates vary, but roughly 50% seems likely), intergenerational educational deficit (if parents are illiterate/undereducated, their children are likely to be so as well), and various other more generic issues that stem from chronic poverty.
      - 0x4f3759df 9y ago
        If the level of absenteeism is very high, it is very likely that the parents are renters and not homeowners, so it circles back a little to the main point.
- SenseiMaster 9y ago
  Not knowing English before computers and smart phones is a huge setback. That cripples all aspects of life, including your ability to help your children with schooling, doing taxes, interacting with any basic service or business, understanding laws, literally everything. I'd like to see the argument that African Americans faced conditions harsher than not knowing English justified.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> If a similar minority group can start from a worse position (not even knowing the language!) I don't know if we can say emigrating Cambodians were in a worse position than impoverished blacks . Immigrants self select for being willing to leave everything they know for the hope of a better life; they have also competently navigated a difficult process. This selection bias is accentuated in war, when the logistics of escape become trickier. Communities then cohere and reinforce each other on the other side. Contrast that with American blacks. Captured by coastal kings who sold them to Europeans who transported them here against their wills. Any who stood up or out got eliminated. Loose to non-existent intergenerational information and wealth transfer. Et cetera
- theandrewbailey 9y ago
  All the American blacks you refer to are dead, and can't be compared to far more recent Cambodian American immigration. Even if said blacks had wealth, its gone and irrelevant to modern blacks.
dnomad 9y ago
This makes even less sense than the original question. The original poster posits a theory that generations of housing discrimination contributed to the enormous racial wealth gap. Another poster comes along and says "what about these immigrants who didn't face generations of housing discrimination?" And the conclusion of this is that the "single-variable approach" doesn't work. It's too bad because the original point stands and in fact it's well documented in the literature. In fact an excellent book, The Color of Law [1], was recently published that shows very clearly in excruciating detail how racist policies systematically worked to deprive blacks of property and wealth. But no, let's talk about the very different experience of the Cambodians and other minorities so we can continue to blame the blacks. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Color-Law-Forgotten-Government-Segregated/dp/1631492853 https://www.amazon.com/Color-Law-Forgotten-Government-Segreg...
- Clanan 9y ago
  That's an uncharitable read of my comment. (Or more likely my comment was clear as mud.) As you said, the above theory was that the current wealth gap can be explained by generations of discrimination. But if another non-white group can enter at a similar "difficulty" level and attain higher results, maybe the explanation is more complicated. I think then the focus would need to be on current (possibly discriminatory) policies and factors, rather than historical ones. Education, family unit, cultural factors, etc.

HaloZero 9y ago

I also don't think you can ignore that the discriminatory lending, policing, and other policies also affect other minorities. The US enacted into law banning Chinese immigrants, white San Francisco was ready to mob and burn down to Chinatown at some point.

40acres 9y ago
Totally agreed. I'm not trying to downplay the history of other groups in America as so much as highlighting the unique challenges that have affected black America. The US enacted a law banning Chinese.. The state I live in (Oregon) explicit banned blacks in the constitution [0]. San Francisco was ready to mob and burn down Chinatown... "Black Wall Street" in Tusla, OK was burned down by a mob.. [1] I did not want to get into a tit for tat comparison between oppression but I would implore anyone who is interested to really do their research on race in America. [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/06/07/when-portland-banned-blacks-oregons-shameful-history-as-an-all-white-state/?utm_term=.ba7084a75269 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/06/07... [1]: http://www.ebony.com/black-history/the-destruction-of-black-wall-street-405 http://www.ebony.com/black-history/the-destruction-of-black-...
SlowRobotAhead 9y ago
>I also don't think you can ignore that the discriminatory lending, policing, and other policies also affect other minorities. Just being clear, but wouldn't those also if not more so effect the immigrants OP brought up? Are we not also including Asian minorities?
dnomad 9y ago
I think you're very confused if you think other minorities faced anything like what blacks faced. Combined this with the well-known fact that most recent non-Mexican immigrants to America (after 1960) were often quite wealthy before they came to America and you're looking at a very different experience.
- mr_overalls 9y ago
  I hear that Native Americans had it pretty bad.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

lopmotr 9y ago

What mechanism could exist for transferring poverty from slavery of ancestors to poverty of current people? The examples of immigrants seem to show it's not being born poor or having a traumatic life experience and being disadvantaged. Could it be the knowledge of the history that's holding blacks back? If everyone somehow forgot Jim Crow and slavery, would the next generation of blacks do as well as immigrants, do you think? Also, I really think you should have some evidence at all that slavery or persecution causes intergenerational poverty after the effects have gone. I hear that theory a lot and I've never seen any science to support it. Only to support immediate poverty of the individuals who were persecuted, not their great great grandkids. Another counterexample is Australia - founded by convicts 200 years ago and in a much shorter time, they ended up doing very well compared to blacks since slavery.

40acres 9y ago
> Could it be the knowledge of the history that's holding blacks back? If everyone somehow forgot Jim Crow and slavery, would the next generation of blacks do as well as immigrants, do you think? Forgetting Jim Crow and slavery is not enough -- this thread helps to illustrate that. The effects of Jim Crow and slavery would need to be eliminated. > Also, I really think you should have some evidence at all that slavery or persecution causes intergenerational poverty after the effects have gone. I hear that theory a lot and I've never seen any science to support it. Only to support immediate poverty of the individuals who were persecuted, not their great great grandkids. How could it not? I mean just think about the institution of slavery for a minute.. there was a time where the Mississippi Valley had more millionares than any other place in America.. how do you think that happened? Through slave ownership? Black families were literally torn apart generation after generation, they were denied the opportunity to realize the wealth their labor produced, generation after generation. A slave owner passes on his million dollar plantation to his children.. what does the slave pass to his child? > Another counterexample is Australia - founded by convicts 200 years ago and in a much shorter time, they ended up doing very well compared to blacks since slavery. How are the Aboriginals doing?
- lopmotr 9y ago
  "How could it not?" isn't scientific, it's prejudice - you're assuming the conclusion. But there are so many example of it not happening. Here's another - Jews have been persecuted for centuries, kicked out of country after country, had whole families killed in the holocaust, and yet they repeatedly bounce back. Jews in Europe today are not a disadvantaged class despite their severe persecution from all sides before and during WWII. If the effect is certain, how long does it take to wear off?

btilly 9y ago

> Generally I don't like to compare the struggles amongst minorities in America. There is a multitude of factors that come into play when analyzing these types of things.. You may not like to compare, but you really should. Because when you compare you get to ask the critical question, "What things did this group do right to overcome their challenges, and can we draw lessons that help replicate that success in another group?" When you compare blacks and whites, the differences in privilege are so obvious that you really can't see anything else that might matter. But when you compare blacks and Cambodians, privilege goes the other way - blacks have more. For all that went wrong for blacks, they generally didn't flee on boats with only the shirts on their backs after witnessing a quarter of the people that they grew up with being killed. Only to land in a country where they didn't speak the language, or understand the culture, and were generally disliked. So what did Cambodians have in their favor? I'm drawing from my thoughts and other comments here. The determination that it takes to be a refugee. True hope that they can create a better life. A culture of helping fellow minority members. A certainty that no matter what the frustration, it really could be worse. Now can we encourage those attitudes in blacks? I believe so. However you don't do it by focusing on a narrative of, "Your life is hopeless because of things that happened before you were born. Things that are entirely out of your control."

40acres 9y ago
> For all that went wrong for blacks, they generally didn't flee on boats with only the shirts on their backs after witnessing a quarter of the people that they grew up with being killed. Only to land in a country where they didn't speak the language, or understand the culture, and were generally disliked. This is literally what happened through the Atlantic slave trade.. just replace "flee" w/ "were sold". > I'm drawing from my thoughts and other comments here. The determination that it takes to be a refugee. True hope that they can create a better life. A culture of helping fellow minority members. A certainty that no matter what the frustration, it really could be worse. > Now can we encourage those attitudes in blacks? I believe so. I know that these characteristics have been shown time and time again within the black community. If you want to see a culture of helping fellow minority members look to the NAACP, if you want to see an example of determination please read "Up From Slavery", if you want to understand the hope to create a better life read "The Warmth of Other Suns". My argument is not "things are out of your control" nor is it that there is something lacking in the black community that other successful minorities have demonstrated.. my argument is "here are the institutional and systemic barriers that are present -- if you want to understand the present situation and how to move forward you must understand them".