6 ms·

>How exactly does this apply to, say, the African American segment of the population, many of whom have been in the US for hundreds of years and most of whom kn

by endtime 16y ago

>How exactly does this apply to, say, the African American segment of the population, many of whom have been in the US for hundreds of years and most of whom know no other language than English? There's an extreme anti-education element to black culture in the US. Caring about and one's education and working hard in school is derided as "acting white". It doesn't apply to everyone, of course (I knew black Americans at Georgetown and Stanford), but it's significant enough to bring down aggregate measures quite a lot. I've also seen studies showing that black parents spend less time helping their children with schoolwork than white and Asian parents. The US school system isn't perfect (the inability to fire bad teachers, largely because of unions, is, in my opinion, among the biggest problems in the country), but it's not totally or even primarily at fault for the education problems among black people. Also: >There's something a little creepy about saying there's nothing wrong with the American education system by only looking at those in the US of European descent and excluding all others. You're misrepresenting this, not sure if it's deliberate, but this is done for the sake of comparing the US to Europe, which is pretty reasonable and not crypto-racist as you imply.

airfoil 16y ago
I'd agree that the US school system is not be the primary reason for education problems among blacks, but neither is the "extreme anti-education element." This element isn't exclusive to blacks and I don't see it as significant enough to bring down aggregate measures for blacks. That's too easy. Most black parents want their kids to do well in school. Unfortunately single parent households are prevalent in the black community. When a single parent is struggling to pay bills and keep food on the table that doesn't leave a lot time for helping with homework. Also, the lack of black role models has an impact. Artists and athletes are the overwhelming majority of the successful blacks that we see and I wouldn't consider them most of them to be role models. How many blacks do you see out front in the most successful companies? The psychological impact is hard to quantify, but it's there. Why should a black kid be an engineer when he can be a rapper? This isn't necessarily "extreme anti-education" it's more pro-do-what-I-see-as-successful. This loop has existed for hundreds of years in various forms and is incredibly hard to break. Black kids desperately need to see success in areas other than entertainment and sports.
- endtime 16y ago
  Why do black people need their role models to be black? Plenty of white kids in my day looked up to Michael Jordan as an incredibly hardworking athlete. The "acting white" derision is pretty much exclusive to blacks, as far as I know. It's certainly not present among Asians or white people. I'm actually not sure about Hispanics but I've never heard of education being frowned upon by them. I don't know what you mean by "that's too easy", but I've heard it cited as the main problem in socio studies, by people like Bill Cosby, and in firsthand accounts in things like reddit AMAs.
  - roc 16y ago
    "Acting white" is a black concept by definition. But poor whites absolutely do have an analogous cultural stigma: the concept of 'showing up' your parents/family/friends by doing better than them. You may have also heard this expressed as 'thinking they're better', general discouragement of learning, some uses of 'putting on airs', etc. As for role models, it's more important for minorities to see people like themselves in those roles, strictly because culture is otherwise telling them there are things they cannot and/or are not allowed to do, because of who they are. It's not that a would-be black scientist needs a black scientist to be inspired to pursue science. Nor a would-be gay politician needs a gay politician to be inspired to pursue public service. It's that a would-be black scientist or gay politician benefits from seeing anyone like themselves doing what they want to do, so they can know our culture is full of shit when it says they can't. It's far, far easier for a child to believe the lies and be discouraged from a challenging path if there is no evidence out there to disprove what the culture is telling them.
    - endtime 16y ago
      Sorry, I wasn't trying to play semantics with the phrase "acting white" - I've never heard of the whole "showing up" thing. I'm surprised to learn of it. That, uh, sucks. The only similar meme in my memepool is rural people feeling a bit miffed/abandoned by relatives or friends who move to a big city, but I didn't get the impression that this had to do with money or education.
    - 16y ago
chegra 16y ago
One point to note is that black culture in American is not monolithic. In this article, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/opinion/07kristof.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=kristof&st=cse http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/opinion/07kristof.html?_r=... , they mention the success of West Indian blacks. They pointed out in that articles West Indian born generally grow up with their fathers. I think this is important. Here is some statistics of being fatherless: 15.3 times more likely to have behavioral disorders 4.6 times more likely to commit suicide 6.6 times more likely to become teenaged mothers 24.3 times more likely to run away 15.3 times more likely to have behavioral disorders 6.3 times more likely to be in a state-operated institutions 10.8 times more likely to commit rape 6.6 times more likely to drop out of school 15.3 times more likely to end up in prison while a teenage 73% of adolescent murderers come from mother only homes 6.3 times more likely to be in state operated institutions http://www.fathersunite.org/statistics_on_fatherlessnes.html http://www.fathersunite.org/statistics_on_fatherlessnes.html 70% of Black Americans are raised in a single parent household and if you can combine that with the above statistics, the picture is not pretty. Yes so my point is if you cut the black culture along different lines you will get a pattern that emerges similar to the Jews and Asians.
- Anechoic 16y ago
  70% of Black Americans are raised in a single parent household and if you can combine that with the above statistics, the picture is not pretty. The problem with single-parent housing has more to do with the reduction in income than lack of an authority figure/role model: A substantial body of research has demonstrated that, once income differences are taken into account, differences between children in single mother and two-parent families are far less pronounced." http://www.alabamapolicy.org/pdf/currentfamilystructure.pdf http://www.alabamapolicy.org/pdf/currentfamilystructure.pdf The other thing is that West Indians and African immigrants outperform everyone (including Asians).
  - chegra 16y ago
    I totally agree with it being an income issue, but I only had statistics about fatherless. If others are looking for a reference on what he is talking about regarding West Indian and African Black Immigrants see below: About 8 percent, or 530, of Harvard's undergraduates were black, they said, but somewhere between one-half and two-thirds of black undergraduates were "West Indian and African immigrants or their children, or to a lesser extent, children of biracial couples."(Foreign Born blacks only make up about 1% of the US population) http://thesouthern.com/news/opinion/editorial/page/article_2b589221-b917-54e5-a6b6-b57e3c25bf63.html http://thesouthern.com/news/opinion/editorial/page/article_2...
Anechoic 16y ago
There's an extreme anti-education element to black culture in the US. Caring about and one's education and working hard in school is derided as "acting white". This is a very popular meme in tech circles, based mainly on John Ogbu's work, but if you actually look at the literature in the area, the results are all over the place. Roland Fryer at Harvard is a proponent of the "acting white" theory, but even he didn't agree with Ogbu and he had to "adjust" the definition of acting white to show a trend: http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/Empiriccal%2Banalysis%2Bof%2B%2527acting%2Bwhite%2527_final%2Bmanuscript.pdf http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/Empiric... Tyson et al found that reduced academic achievement was generally for a variety of reasons ("fear of not doing well academically" being the biggest) and not "acting white": http://www.tc.columbia.edu/students/see/events/Darity_et_al_Understanding_Burden_Acting_White.pdf http://www.tc.columbia.edu/students/see/events/Darity_et_al_... Cook and Ludwig as well found that "acting white" was not much of a factor in academic perforamnce: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291520-6688%28199721%2916:2%3C256::AID-PAM4%3E3.0.CO;2-H/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291520-66... Erika Fisher: "According to the students themselves, their lack of academic success is not seen by them as a way to be anti-White or proBlack by any means. .. When asked how they felt about the high-achieving students, underachievers claimed to respect their determination and commitment to academics. They cite individual personality differences rather than a racial or ethnic divide as the cause of the achievement disparity between the groups." http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3626/is_200507/ai_n15743650/ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3626/is_200507/ai_n1...

by endtime 16y ago

airfoil 16y ago

I'd agree that the US school system is not be the primary reason for education problems among blacks, but neither is the "extreme anti-education element." This element isn't exclusive to blacks and I don't see it as significant enough to bring down aggregate measures for blacks. That's too easy. Most black parents want their kids to do well in school. Unfortunately single parent households are prevalent in the black community. When a single parent is struggling to pay bills and keep food on the table that doesn't leave a lot time for helping with homework. Also, the lack of black role models has an impact. Artists and athletes are the overwhelming majority of the successful blacks that we see and I wouldn't consider them most of them to be role models. How many blacks do you see out front in the most successful companies? The psychological impact is hard to quantify, but it's there. Why should a black kid be an engineer when he can be a rapper? This isn't necessarily "extreme anti-education" it's more pro-do-what-I-see-as-successful. This loop has existed for hundreds of years in various forms and is incredibly hard to break. Black kids desperately need to see success in areas other than entertainment and sports.

endtime 16y ago
Why do black people need their role models to be black? Plenty of white kids in my day looked up to Michael Jordan as an incredibly hardworking athlete. The "acting white" derision is pretty much exclusive to blacks, as far as I know. It's certainly not present among Asians or white people. I'm actually not sure about Hispanics but I've never heard of education being frowned upon by them. I don't know what you mean by "that's too easy", but I've heard it cited as the main problem in socio studies, by people like Bill Cosby, and in firsthand accounts in things like reddit AMAs.
- roc 16y ago
  "Acting white" is a black concept by definition. But poor whites absolutely do have an analogous cultural stigma: the concept of 'showing up' your parents/family/friends by doing better than them. You may have also heard this expressed as 'thinking they're better', general discouragement of learning, some uses of 'putting on airs', etc. As for role models, it's more important for minorities to see people like themselves in those roles, strictly because culture is otherwise telling them there are things they cannot and/or are not allowed to do, because of who they are. It's not that a would-be black scientist needs a black scientist to be inspired to pursue science. Nor a would-be gay politician needs a gay politician to be inspired to pursue public service. It's that a would-be black scientist or gay politician benefits from seeing anyone like themselves doing what they want to do, so they can know our culture is full of shit when it says they can't. It's far, far easier for a child to believe the lies and be discouraged from a challenging path if there is no evidence out there to disprove what the culture is telling them.
  - endtime 16y ago
    Sorry, I wasn't trying to play semantics with the phrase "acting white" - I've never heard of the whole "showing up" thing. I'm surprised to learn of it. That, uh, sucks. The only similar meme in my memepool is rural people feeling a bit miffed/abandoned by relatives or friends who move to a big city, but I didn't get the impression that this had to do with money or education.
  - 16y ago

chegra 16y ago

One point to note is that black culture in American is not monolithic. In this article, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/opinion/07kristof.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=kristof&st=cse http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/opinion/07kristof.html?_r=... , they mention the success of West Indian blacks. They pointed out in that articles West Indian born generally grow up with their fathers. I think this is important. Here is some statistics of being fatherless: 15.3 times more likely to have behavioral disorders 4.6 times more likely to commit suicide 6.6 times more likely to become teenaged mothers 24.3 times more likely to run away 15.3 times more likely to have behavioral disorders 6.3 times more likely to be in a state-operated institutions 10.8 times more likely to commit rape 6.6 times more likely to drop out of school 15.3 times more likely to end up in prison while a teenage 73% of adolescent murderers come from mother only homes 6.3 times more likely to be in state operated institutions http://www.fathersunite.org/statistics_on_fatherlessnes.html http://www.fathersunite.org/statistics_on_fatherlessnes.html 70% of Black Americans are raised in a single parent household and if you can combine that with the above statistics, the picture is not pretty. Yes so my point is if you cut the black culture along different lines you will get a pattern that emerges similar to the Jews and Asians.

Anechoic 16y ago
70% of Black Americans are raised in a single parent household and if you can combine that with the above statistics, the picture is not pretty. The problem with single-parent housing has more to do with the reduction in income than lack of an authority figure/role model: A substantial body of research has demonstrated that, once income differences are taken into account, differences between children in single mother and two-parent families are far less pronounced." http://www.alabamapolicy.org/pdf/currentfamilystructure.pdf http://www.alabamapolicy.org/pdf/currentfamilystructure.pdf The other thing is that West Indians and African immigrants outperform everyone (including Asians).
- chegra 16y ago
  I totally agree with it being an income issue, but I only had statistics about fatherless. If others are looking for a reference on what he is talking about regarding West Indian and African Black Immigrants see below: About 8 percent, or 530, of Harvard's undergraduates were black, they said, but somewhere between one-half and two-thirds of black undergraduates were "West Indian and African immigrants or their children, or to a lesser extent, children of biracial couples."(Foreign Born blacks only make up about 1% of the US population) http://thesouthern.com/news/opinion/editorial/page/article_2b589221-b917-54e5-a6b6-b57e3c25bf63.html http://thesouthern.com/news/opinion/editorial/page/article_2...

Anechoic 16y ago

There's an extreme anti-education element to black culture in the US. Caring about and one's education and working hard in school is derided as "acting white". This is a very popular meme in tech circles, based mainly on John Ogbu's work, but if you actually look at the literature in the area, the results are all over the place. Roland Fryer at Harvard is a proponent of the "acting white" theory, but even he didn't agree with Ogbu and he had to "adjust" the definition of acting white to show a trend: http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/Empiriccal%2Banalysis%2Bof%2B%2527acting%2Bwhite%2527_final%2Bmanuscript.pdf http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/Empiric... Tyson et al found that reduced academic achievement was generally for a variety of reasons ("fear of not doing well academically" being the biggest) and not "acting white": http://www.tc.columbia.edu/students/see/events/Darity_et_al_Understanding_Burden_Acting_White.pdf http://www.tc.columbia.edu/students/see/events/Darity_et_al_... Cook and Ludwig as well found that "acting white" was not much of a factor in academic perforamnce: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291520-6688%28199721%2916:2%3C256::AID-PAM4%3E3.0.CO;2-H/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291520-66... Erika Fisher: "According to the students themselves, their lack of academic success is not seen by them as a way to be anti-White or proBlack by any means. .. When asked how they felt about the high-achieving students, underachievers claimed to respect their determination and commitment to academics. They cite individual personality differences rather than a racial or ethnic divide as the cause of the achievement disparity between the groups." http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3626/is_200507/ai_n15743650/ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3626/is_200507/ai_n1...