7 ms·

Culture still doesn’t explain poverty

50 points by jamesbritt 16y ago

Joakal 16y ago
Some research material I found on poverty: Don't fall in the poverty trap, you might never get out (Best): http://trueslant.com/megancottrell/2009/11/13/dont-fall-in-the-poverty-trap-you-might-never-get-out/ http://trueslant.com/megancottrell/2009/11/13/dont-fall-in-t... Economics of being poor (Second best): https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/17/AR2009051702053.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/0... Poor nutrition stunts growth of millions: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/12/2740530.htm http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/12/2740530.htm Life on $234 a week: no fresh food, holidays or visits to the doctor: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/life-on-234-a-week-no-fresh-food-holidays-or-visits-to-the-doctor-20110104-19f57.html http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/life-on-234-a-we... (You hear all about a dollar a day feeds the poor elsewhere) The paradox of American poverty: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/sep/17/census-bureau-poverty http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/sep/... Poverty not Taliban causing war: Afghans: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/18/2746886.htm http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/18/2746886.htm Statistics and pictures of children in poverty: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/poverty-forces-children-sleep-strangest-places/15237 http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/poverty-forces... Poor people spend 9% of yearly income on lottery tickets: http://www.walletpop.com/2010/05/31/poor-people-spend-9-of-income-on-lottery-tickets-heres-why/ http://www.walletpop.com/2010/05/31/poor-people-spend-9-of-i...
- Duff 16y ago
  The poverty trap is a great article. The thing not mentioned is that you need two incomes to get by. "Poor" people generally have one. Even folks who make more money can fall into this sort of realm. Say you have a couple where one person makes $100k, and the other $50k. Then children arrive. The person making $50k faces several years where their salary is essentially paying for childcare exclusively. So you face this bizarre choice. Pay an outrageous sum of money and have people making $11/hr raise your children, or drop out of the workforce and become nearly unemployable when the kids get older.
- elptacek 16y ago
  I wish I could upvote this comment twice. There's a tremendous amount of data freely available and it doesn't take a PhD to see correlations between motivations and consequences. To this list, I add: http://www.amazon.com/American-Project-Rise-Modern-Ghetto/dp/0674008308 http://www.amazon.com/American-Project-Rise-Modern-Ghetto/dp... Tough read. Worth reading.
bokonist 16y ago
Attention conservation notice - this article is more of a summary of the debate of over culture and poverty, a sort of "who said what when". I found it interesting because it mentioned a couple books I didn't know about that I now want to read. But the article itself hardly makes any evidence based contributions to the debate. So don't read the article expecting to learn something about the link between culture and poverty.
philwelch 16y ago
Culturalists confuse cause and effect, arguing that lack of social mobility among black youth is a product of their culture rather than the other way around. I recognize this pattern. This is what happens when both sides of an argument perceive at least part of a feedback loop, but neither side perceives the feedback loop itself.
- antihero 16y ago
  This was one thing I was starting to really dislike about the article - as if they hadn't quite plugged the output into the input. It's rather a chicken and egg - it was obviously started by many years of oppression, but now both the culture and the lack of social mobility are cause and effect - it's a big cycle, that needs to be tackled on both fronts not individually - black culture is a huge rebellion against the norms perpetrated by the square America, the same America that has locked them out of it, and in doing so making the only dignified reaction to reject it. Of course a disillusioned youth is going to ignore an education that is perceived as teaching culturally irrelevant principles and skills. An (sort of) example from here in the UK is that in a local comprehensive school, teachers were getting a lot of flak for having less great English results than the local Catholic Grammar school. This completely ignored the fact that the vast majority of the intake at the comprehensive were people who did not speak English at home/spoke it as a second language, whereas of course the grammar school had their pick of the white, middle class students who'd passed the entrance exam. This of course is one in a multitude of reasons why school league tables are awful, but that's a tangent for another time.
  - thirdusername 16y ago
    You might be interested in reading this blog post which made adjustments to education statistics for that exact thing: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-about-pisa-scores-usa.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou...
    - antihero 16y ago
      Another interesting read. Not sure where they were going with the anti-liberal tangent, but ignoring that, it's quite a clever look at things. I would say that it needs to be a bit more in-depth than simply discounting 1st/2nd generation immigrants, but as I said, interesting nonetheless.
nazgulnarsil 16y ago
freetochoose.tv episode 4 of the 1980's series. specifically the debate section (second half of each program)
VB6_Forever 16y ago
If chinese, Indians and Koreans do well is it only because white people haven't enough resources to keep them down too?
- Anechoic 16y ago
  Are they doing well? http://www.aafederation.org/research/wbp/Poverty%20Report%20Exec%20Sum.pdf http://www.aafederation.org/research/wbp/Poverty%20Report%20... http://www.chhayacdc.org/ourissues_sasians.html http://www.chhayacdc.org/ourissues_sasians.html Certainly median and average incomes (and outcomes) for Asians and Indians tend to be above average but is that because the group as a whole is outperforming or because the top end screws the picture? These are not rhetorical questions, I'm seriously asking - it seems like poverty rates in the Asian community are fairly high in NYC and other locations.
  - jerf 16y ago
    A few rich people on the "top end" can screw up the average, but they don't do very much to the median. If the median is higher that's pretty strong evidence that they are, as a whole, outperforming.
    - Anechoic 16y ago
      And yet in regions with significant Asian populations you see poverty rates in excess of the white population (although generally better than blacks and Latinos). http://www.arthurhu.com/index/apoverty.htm http://www.arthurhu.com/index/apoverty.htm (from the '90s, possibly outdated) http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/acrossstates/Rankings.aspx?ind=44 http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/acrossstates/Rankings.a... http://diversityjobs.com/news/despite-having-more-household-income-than-any-other-race-asian-americans-are-still-a-disadvantaged-minority-group/ http://diversityjobs.com/news/despite-having-more-household-... http://www.asian-nation.org/demographics.shtml http://www.asian-nation.org/demographics.shtml Median income is only part of the story, especially when looking at national vs regional figures.
      - 16y ago
tsotha 16y ago
I don't buy it. To believe the black family is in such a state purely because of racism is to believe racism is worse now than it was in the '60s.
- maxklein 16y ago
  In other words, you are saying African-American culture is the sole reason for all the problems blacks face in the U.S? I'm sure that's helpful to the 6 year old child when he is given the book that explains the two different culture choices he has in life, and that he should select one, and it will automatically become his.
  - true_religion 16y ago
    Even if this is true: > In other words, you are saying African-American culture is the sole reason for all the problems blacks face in the U.S? Why---apart from needless snark---should the following thought be necessary? > I'm sure that's helpful to the 6 year old child when he is given the book that explains the two different culture choices he has in life, and that he should select one, and it will automatically become his.
  - Duff 16y ago
    The six year old born into poverty doesn't get a choice, regardless of race, because the chances are very high that he's the son of a single mother who either has access to a support network (grandparents, aunts/uncles) and works day and night OR who does little and relies on assistance and disability. If that child is African-American, circumstances are often crueler. 1 in 9 black men (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html) in the key fatherhood ranges for 20-34 are in jail or prison. The cultural issue is that in spite of (or because of) government intervention, the African-American family is in shambles. Public assistance essentially requires that able-bodied males get out of the picture, which is a large contributor to the fact that a two-parent household has been the exception for several generations. At the same time, society has become more cruel to the poor -- factory jobs don't exist, you need a car to function in society, and tax policy encourages the decay of cities in favor of suburbs, which are segregated by class. (no car, no life in suburb) Most people in technical fields don't get this. The vast majority are from middle class backgrounds and got started with computers 'on their own' at home. There are no computers at home in poor families with a few hundred bucks a month in income.
maxklein 16y ago
Blaming culture is the Pontius Pilate method - the people who do so think "it is their choice, they suffer the consequences, so there is nothing we can or should do".
lionhearted 16y ago
> nation to confront its collective guilt and responsibility for two centuries of slavery and a century of Jim Crow I reject collective guilt entirely. My ancestry is one of immigrating away from hardship, my great-grandparents were literally dirt poor, and despite it, my family has always been very cool and welcoming to people having a hard time of all backgrounds. I have no collective guilt, and reject the idea as counterproductive nonsense. I'll lend a hand if I can be of assistance to someone who has taken responsibility for their own life, but I think it's dangerous and perverse to let people like the author saddle you with guilt even if you've never been part of the problem, and always part of the solution. It's perverse - I encourage you to accept none of that guilt and shame and bad feelings they're peddling. None.
forkandwait 16y ago
Practice theory (Giddens and Bourdieu are the big authors) is an attempt to analyze the interaction of "structure" (social racism) and "habitus" (individual habits taken on because of growing up in a society). The interaction between class dynamics and internalized culture happens with white people too. It would go a long way to elucidating the dynamics here (let me give a small town white example): white child grows up in poverty, learns aggressive habits to survive ("habitus") and cultural indicators like a "pimp roll" or bad grammar, tries to get a job (interfaces with "structure"), fails when he picks a fight with his boss or doesn't understand work ethic, his boss then confirms to himself never to hire anyone from that family, family continues to inculcate itself in aggressive alienated behaviors, family stays in poverty, rinse repeat... You don't need racism to screw people over -- in fact, I think debates about racism hide the real important thing, which is class.
drndown2007 16y ago
I agreed with much of it, until he inferred the " 'repertoire of infidelity' among low-income men" is because they don't have good jobs. "Does it matter how they approach procreation, how they juggle 'doubt, duty, and destiny' when they are denied the jobs that are the sine qua non of parenthood?" I think it DOES matter. It represents a level of maturity, respect for others, and thinking about the future. Those are principles that should be taught, and are often taught through culture. "It's all hopeless anyway" can explain why some fall victim to drugs and crime, but it's inexcusable to pull another person (the girl) or two (her baby) into the net. That is the essence of lack of responsibility. Other than this central issue, I agree with much else of what he wrote.
OasisG 16y ago
There is a limit to what empirical study can reveal. I've always been uneasy about these studies from either side of the debate because they are almost always conducted by people who have no other connection to the black community. That is, white researchers who live, work, and play among their white peers are drawing conclusions about a community they (socially) know nothing about. These researchers often have few/no black friends. Have never been to a predominantly black party. Never sat down in a black hair salon or barbershop and listened to the talk of the day. How we expect accurate analysis that can lead to meaningful solutions is beyond me. ETA: Persistent poverty in the black community is the result of many things. Misplaced and legitimate distrust of white people, misguided government programs, low expectations, too high expectations, racist laws, stereotypes about black intelligence, black people's internalization of those stereotypes... Anyone expecting a conclusive study that comes down on one side or the other, or that narrows the problem/solution to any one issue is living a pipe dream.
- Joakal 16y ago
  How about this study from a black professor into why rich black kids still flunk: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/gyrobase/rich-black-flunking/Content?oid=1070459&showFullText=true http://www.eastbayexpress.com/gyrobase/rich-black-flunking/C... He got his reputation attacked when it was shown that there was a belief that the school should take care of everything (Parents didn't encourage/supervise, students didn't care, etc).
  - OasisG 16y ago
    I'm familiar with the study and generally give it more weight than other studies by people who dip in and out of the black community solely to collect data. That said, I don't think it's entirely wrong to think that if you send your child to school for 6-8 hours a day, they should actually come home having learned something. I didn't have helicopter parents, my parents just watched for grades. No PTA meetings, no reviewing my hw, no private tutors... I grew up and went to schools in the hood, but still got great grades, took a dozen AP/advanced courses, was in IB, got into an ivy league college, etc. etc. So there was definitely something going on at school with regard to student expectations, curriculum, and teacher quality (I had amazing teachers).
elptacek 16y ago
When I first read this article, so many thoughts crowded into my mind that it was difficult to compose a coherent response. Since I often take the train through one of the less nice areas of Chicago, from time to time I catch myself gazing out at the dilapidated structures and piles of trash and thinking really hard about how a neighborhood goes from being founded in enterprise and hope to 'ruination.' I offer the following observations: 1. Hopelessness perpetuates from generation to generation, being passed from parent to child. Children are born to young, uneducated parents whose finances are already stretched to the limit. Not having been properly habilitated themselves, it is common for these parents to take their frustrations out on their children in the same way their parents did. So you've got this cycle of despair and depression that perpetuates across generations. 2. Certain characteristics of the impoverished class have been adopted by mainstream media -- particularly advertising media -- as if they are significant of some culture. Baggy clothing is used as an example. It's a little known thing that the 'zoot suit' of the from the 1930s and 1940s was considered a display of wealth. It meant that you could afford to have a suit made with volumes of fabric at a time when cloth was more dear than it is today. This display of wealth is consistent with the other characteristics of 'African American culture': large gold chains, gold teeth, everything covered in diamonds. At the risk of making a pun, this is a gold mine for advertising media. Think about it, it's an aggrandized display of excess that garners attention. 3. These characteristics do not define any kind of real culture. Last time I looked, there are more impoverished caucasian Americans than there are of any other skin tone. Careful examination will reveal that the dynamic is more or less the same regardless of the false delineation of 'race.' How different are spinning rims from the giant knobby tires on a Ford F250, really? 4. Which leads me to my final observation, in that I have for a long time considered identification with any sort of false 'culture' to be a form of self-segregation. History will show that encouraging a fractured 'hoi polo' is a very effective and powerful means of sustaining the status quo. </two_cents>
patrickgzill 16y ago
I admit to being quite unhappy about the "collective guilt and responsibility" line - Steinberg's parents likely emigrated to the USA after 1900, thus they were never in the country when slavery was happening, so he should know better. In my case, one side was non-slave-owning Northerners since 1729 where slavery was never legal, and the other side of my family wasn't in the USA until 1913. So how exactly am I or any of my family culpable? An aside: the first case in Virginia which legalized/recognized slavery under the courts, was brought by Anthony Johnson, who was able to convince the court that John Casor was his slave. Johnson, the slaveholder, was himself African : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_%28American_Colonial%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_%28American_Col...

50 points by jamesbritt 16y ago

Some research material I found on poverty: Don't fall in the poverty trap, you might never get out (Best): http://trueslant.com/megancottrell/2009/11/13/dont-fall-in-the-poverty-trap-you-might-never-get-out/ http://trueslant.com/megancottrell/2009/11/13/dont-fall-in-t... Economics of being poor (Second best): https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/17/AR2009051702053.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/0... Poor nutrition stunts growth of millions: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/12/2740530.htm http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/12/2740530.htm Life on $234 a week: no fresh food, holidays or visits to the doctor: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/life-on-234-a-week-no-fresh-food-holidays-or-visits-to-the-doctor-20110104-19f57.html http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/life-on-234-a-we... (You hear all about a dollar a day feeds the poor elsewhere) The paradox of American poverty: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/sep/17/census-bureau-poverty http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/sep/... Poverty not Taliban causing war: Afghans: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/18/2746886.htm http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/18/2746886.htm Statistics and pictures of children in poverty: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/poverty-forces-children-sleep-strangest-places/15237 http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/poverty-forces... Poor people spend 9% of yearly income on lottery tickets: http://www.walletpop.com/2010/05/31/poor-people-spend-9-of-income-on-lottery-tickets-heres-why/ http://www.walletpop.com/2010/05/31/poor-people-spend-9-of-i...

Duff 16y ago
The poverty trap is a great article. The thing not mentioned is that you need two incomes to get by. "Poor" people generally have one. Even folks who make more money can fall into this sort of realm. Say you have a couple where one person makes $100k, and the other $50k. Then children arrive. The person making $50k faces several years where their salary is essentially paying for childcare exclusively. So you face this bizarre choice. Pay an outrageous sum of money and have people making $11/hr raise your children, or drop out of the workforce and become nearly unemployable when the kids get older.
elptacek 16y ago
I wish I could upvote this comment twice. There's a tremendous amount of data freely available and it doesn't take a PhD to see correlations between motivations and consequences. To this list, I add: http://www.amazon.com/American-Project-Rise-Modern-Ghetto/dp/0674008308 http://www.amazon.com/American-Project-Rise-Modern-Ghetto/dp... Tough read. Worth reading.

bokonist 16y ago

Attention conservation notice - this article is more of a summary of the debate of over culture and poverty, a sort of "who said what when". I found it interesting because it mentioned a couple books I didn't know about that I now want to read. But the article itself hardly makes any evidence based contributions to the debate. So don't read the article expecting to learn something about the link between culture and poverty.

philwelch 16y ago

Culturalists confuse cause and effect, arguing that lack of social mobility among black youth is a product of their culture rather than the other way around. I recognize this pattern. This is what happens when both sides of an argument perceive at least part of a feedback loop, but neither side perceives the feedback loop itself.

antihero 16y ago
This was one thing I was starting to really dislike about the article - as if they hadn't quite plugged the output into the input. It's rather a chicken and egg - it was obviously started by many years of oppression, but now both the culture and the lack of social mobility are cause and effect - it's a big cycle, that needs to be tackled on both fronts not individually - black culture is a huge rebellion against the norms perpetrated by the square America, the same America that has locked them out of it, and in doing so making the only dignified reaction to reject it. Of course a disillusioned youth is going to ignore an education that is perceived as teaching culturally irrelevant principles and skills. An (sort of) example from here in the UK is that in a local comprehensive school, teachers were getting a lot of flak for having less great English results than the local Catholic Grammar school. This completely ignored the fact that the vast majority of the intake at the comprehensive were people who did not speak English at home/spoke it as a second language, whereas of course the grammar school had their pick of the white, middle class students who'd passed the entrance exam. This of course is one in a multitude of reasons why school league tables are awful, but that's a tangent for another time.
- thirdusername 16y ago
  You might be interested in reading this blog post which made adjustments to education statistics for that exact thing: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-about-pisa-scores-usa.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou...
  - antihero 16y ago
    Another interesting read. Not sure where they were going with the anti-liberal tangent, but ignoring that, it's quite a clever look at things. I would say that it needs to be a bit more in-depth than simply discounting 1st/2nd generation immigrants, but as I said, interesting nonetheless.

nazgulnarsil 16y ago

freetochoose.tv episode 4 of the 1980's series. specifically the debate section (second half of each program)

VB6_Forever 16y ago

If chinese, Indians and Koreans do well is it only because white people haven't enough resources to keep them down too?

Anechoic 16y ago
Are they doing well? http://www.aafederation.org/research/wbp/Poverty%20Report%20Exec%20Sum.pdf http://www.aafederation.org/research/wbp/Poverty%20Report%20... http://www.chhayacdc.org/ourissues_sasians.html http://www.chhayacdc.org/ourissues_sasians.html Certainly median and average incomes (and outcomes) for Asians and Indians tend to be above average but is that because the group as a whole is outperforming or because the top end screws the picture? These are not rhetorical questions, I'm seriously asking - it seems like poverty rates in the Asian community are fairly high in NYC and other locations.
- jerf 16y ago
  A few rich people on the "top end" can screw up the average, but they don't do very much to the median. If the median is higher that's pretty strong evidence that they are, as a whole, outperforming.
  - Anechoic 16y ago
    And yet in regions with significant Asian populations you see poverty rates in excess of the white population (although generally better than blacks and Latinos). http://www.arthurhu.com/index/apoverty.htm http://www.arthurhu.com/index/apoverty.htm (from the '90s, possibly outdated) http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/acrossstates/Rankings.aspx?ind=44 http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/acrossstates/Rankings.a... http://diversityjobs.com/news/despite-having-more-household-income-than-any-other-race-asian-americans-are-still-a-disadvantaged-minority-group/ http://diversityjobs.com/news/despite-having-more-household-... http://www.asian-nation.org/demographics.shtml http://www.asian-nation.org/demographics.shtml Median income is only part of the story, especially when looking at national vs regional figures.
    - 16y ago

tsotha 16y ago

I don't buy it. To believe the black family is in such a state purely because of racism is to believe racism is worse now than it was in the '60s.

maxklein 16y ago
In other words, you are saying African-American culture is the sole reason for all the problems blacks face in the U.S? I'm sure that's helpful to the 6 year old child when he is given the book that explains the two different culture choices he has in life, and that he should select one, and it will automatically become his.
- true_religion 16y ago
  Even if this is true: > In other words, you are saying African-American culture is the sole reason for all the problems blacks face in the U.S? Why---apart from needless snark---should the following thought be necessary? > I'm sure that's helpful to the 6 year old child when he is given the book that explains the two different culture choices he has in life, and that he should select one, and it will automatically become his.
- Duff 16y ago
  The six year old born into poverty doesn't get a choice, regardless of race, because the chances are very high that he's the son of a single mother who either has access to a support network (grandparents, aunts/uncles) and works day and night OR who does little and relies on assistance and disability. If that child is African-American, circumstances are often crueler. 1 in 9 black men (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html) in the key fatherhood ranges for 20-34 are in jail or prison. The cultural issue is that in spite of (or because of) government intervention, the African-American family is in shambles. Public assistance essentially requires that able-bodied males get out of the picture, which is a large contributor to the fact that a two-parent household has been the exception for several generations. At the same time, society has become more cruel to the poor -- factory jobs don't exist, you need a car to function in society, and tax policy encourages the decay of cities in favor of suburbs, which are segregated by class. (no car, no life in suburb) Most people in technical fields don't get this. The vast majority are from middle class backgrounds and got started with computers 'on their own' at home. There are no computers at home in poor families with a few hundred bucks a month in income.

maxklein 16y ago

Blaming culture is the Pontius Pilate method - the people who do so think "it is their choice, they suffer the consequences, so there is nothing we can or should do".

lionhearted 16y ago

> nation to confront its collective guilt and responsibility for two centuries of slavery and a century of Jim Crow I reject collective guilt entirely. My ancestry is one of immigrating away from hardship, my great-grandparents were literally dirt poor, and despite it, my family has always been very cool and welcoming to people having a hard time of all backgrounds. I have no collective guilt, and reject the idea as counterproductive nonsense. I'll lend a hand if I can be of assistance to someone who has taken responsibility for their own life, but I think it's dangerous and perverse to let people like the author saddle you with guilt even if you've never been part of the problem, and always part of the solution. It's perverse - I encourage you to accept none of that guilt and shame and bad feelings they're peddling. None.

forkandwait 16y ago

Practice theory (Giddens and Bourdieu are the big authors) is an attempt to analyze the interaction of "structure" (social racism) and "habitus" (individual habits taken on because of growing up in a society). The interaction between class dynamics and internalized culture happens with white people too. It would go a long way to elucidating the dynamics here (let me give a small town white example): white child grows up in poverty, learns aggressive habits to survive ("habitus") and cultural indicators like a "pimp roll" or bad grammar, tries to get a job (interfaces with "structure"), fails when he picks a fight with his boss or doesn't understand work ethic, his boss then confirms to himself never to hire anyone from that family, family continues to inculcate itself in aggressive alienated behaviors, family stays in poverty, rinse repeat... You don't need racism to screw people over -- in fact, I think debates about racism hide the real important thing, which is class.

drndown2007 16y ago

I agreed with much of it, until he inferred the " 'repertoire of infidelity' among low-income men" is because they don't have good jobs. "Does it matter how they approach procreation, how they juggle 'doubt, duty, and destiny' when they are denied the jobs that are the sine qua non of parenthood?" I think it DOES matter. It represents a level of maturity, respect for others, and thinking about the future. Those are principles that should be taught, and are often taught through culture. "It's all hopeless anyway" can explain why some fall victim to drugs and crime, but it's inexcusable to pull another person (the girl) or two (her baby) into the net. That is the essence of lack of responsibility. Other than this central issue, I agree with much else of what he wrote.

OasisG 16y ago

There is a limit to what empirical study can reveal. I've always been uneasy about these studies from either side of the debate because they are almost always conducted by people who have no other connection to the black community. That is, white researchers who live, work, and play among their white peers are drawing conclusions about a community they (socially) know nothing about. These researchers often have few/no black friends. Have never been to a predominantly black party. Never sat down in a black hair salon or barbershop and listened to the talk of the day. How we expect accurate analysis that can lead to meaningful solutions is beyond me. ETA: Persistent poverty in the black community is the result of many things. Misplaced and legitimate distrust of white people, misguided government programs, low expectations, too high expectations, racist laws, stereotypes about black intelligence, black people's internalization of those stereotypes... Anyone expecting a conclusive study that comes down on one side or the other, or that narrows the problem/solution to any one issue is living a pipe dream.

Joakal 16y ago
How about this study from a black professor into why rich black kids still flunk: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/gyrobase/rich-black-flunking/Content?oid=1070459&showFullText=true http://www.eastbayexpress.com/gyrobase/rich-black-flunking/C... He got his reputation attacked when it was shown that there was a belief that the school should take care of everything (Parents didn't encourage/supervise, students didn't care, etc).
- OasisG 16y ago
  I'm familiar with the study and generally give it more weight than other studies by people who dip in and out of the black community solely to collect data. That said, I don't think it's entirely wrong to think that if you send your child to school for 6-8 hours a day, they should actually come home having learned something. I didn't have helicopter parents, my parents just watched for grades. No PTA meetings, no reviewing my hw, no private tutors... I grew up and went to schools in the hood, but still got great grades, took a dozen AP/advanced courses, was in IB, got into an ivy league college, etc. etc. So there was definitely something going on at school with regard to student expectations, curriculum, and teacher quality (I had amazing teachers).

elptacek 16y ago

When I first read this article, so many thoughts crowded into my mind that it was difficult to compose a coherent response. Since I often take the train through one of the less nice areas of Chicago, from time to time I catch myself gazing out at the dilapidated structures and piles of trash and thinking really hard about how a neighborhood goes from being founded in enterprise and hope to 'ruination.' I offer the following observations: 1. Hopelessness perpetuates from generation to generation, being passed from parent to child. Children are born to young, uneducated parents whose finances are already stretched to the limit. Not having been properly habilitated themselves, it is common for these parents to take their frustrations out on their children in the same way their parents did. So you've got this cycle of despair and depression that perpetuates across generations. 2. Certain characteristics of the impoverished class have been adopted by mainstream media -- particularly advertising media -- as if they are significant of some culture. Baggy clothing is used as an example. It's a little known thing that the 'zoot suit' of the from the 1930s and 1940s was considered a display of wealth. It meant that you could afford to have a suit made with volumes of fabric at a time when cloth was more dear than it is today. This display of wealth is consistent with the other characteristics of 'African American culture': large gold chains, gold teeth, everything covered in diamonds. At the risk of making a pun, this is a gold mine for advertising media. Think about it, it's an aggrandized display of excess that garners attention. 3. These characteristics do not define any kind of real culture. Last time I looked, there are more impoverished caucasian Americans than there are of any other skin tone. Careful examination will reveal that the dynamic is more or less the same regardless of the false delineation of 'race.' How different are spinning rims from the giant knobby tires on a Ford F250, really? 4. Which leads me to my final observation, in that I have for a long time considered identification with any sort of false 'culture' to be a form of self-segregation. History will show that encouraging a fractured 'hoi polo' is a very effective and powerful means of sustaining the status quo. </two_cents>

patrickgzill 16y ago

I admit to being quite unhappy about the "collective guilt and responsibility" line - Steinberg's parents likely emigrated to the USA after 1900, thus they were never in the country when slavery was happening, so he should know better. In my case, one side was non-slave-owning Northerners since 1729 where slavery was never legal, and the other side of my family wasn't in the USA until 1913. So how exactly am I or any of my family culpable? An aside: the first case in Virginia which legalized/recognized slavery under the courts, was brought by Anthony Johnson, who was able to convince the court that John Casor was his slave. Johnson, the slaveholder, was himself African : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_%28American_Colonial%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_%28American_Col...