3 ms·

> So many of these articles are a single person who succeeds and as a result declares racism must not exist. That is not the evidence the author is submitting.

> So many of these articles are a single person who succeeds and as a result declares racism must not exist. That is not the evidence the author is submitting. His argument rests on the fact that Cuban immigrants outperform Mexican immigrants in many metrics, which thus disproves the racial discrimination hypothesis. He likewise cites the dramatically different performance of Ghanaian immigrants versus African Americans. These statistics are not subjective. He then draws on his own experience in the Latino community and hypothesizes the disparity of performance in Mexican immigrant communities stems from a parental culture that encourages short term gains at the cost of long term reward. There is more to the article but I’m going to butcher it by summarizing it. It is well worth reading and thought provoking.

hasilp89 6y ago
What I don’t understand about the whole cultural piece is the selection bias. My understanding is that the Cubans that came here had different circumstances, different opportunity and different resources (they came because they were successful). Otherwise are we just saying that Mexicans are lazy compared to Cubans and that is just culture? Or African Americans aren’t as hardworking as Ghanaians and that stereotype is what it is and we should just operate around it?
- requin246 6y ago
  > is that just culture? Yes, I think that is the author’s point. The values and habits of the Cubans who fled Cuba and Ghanaians who left Ghana are ones which lend to successful lives. These values and habits, such as placing importance on higher education and academic achievement, are partly what culture consists of. The alternative hypothesis, if one rejects the notion of value and habit transfer, is to claim that intelligence is genetically transmitted. That opens a very ugly can of worms and to my (limited) knowledge is unsupported by scientific evidence. In either case though, I think it is clear that the Cuban and Ghanaian example precludes the possibility of racial discrimination. It seems to me this has deep implications about effective and ineffective policies to raise the living standards of Mexican immigrants and African Americans. If we fail to address the root cause (poor cultural practices vs racial discrimination), the problem won’t get fixed.

hasilp89 6y ago

What I don’t understand about the whole cultural piece is the selection bias. My understanding is that the Cubans that came here had different circumstances, different opportunity and different resources (they came because they were successful). Otherwise are we just saying that Mexicans are lazy compared to Cubans and that is just culture? Or African Americans aren’t as hardworking as Ghanaians and that stereotype is what it is and we should just operate around it?

requin246 6y ago
> is that just culture? Yes, I think that is the author’s point. The values and habits of the Cubans who fled Cuba and Ghanaians who left Ghana are ones which lend to successful lives. These values and habits, such as placing importance on higher education and academic achievement, are partly what culture consists of. The alternative hypothesis, if one rejects the notion of value and habit transfer, is to claim that intelligence is genetically transmitted. That opens a very ugly can of worms and to my (limited) knowledge is unsupported by scientific evidence. In either case though, I think it is clear that the Cuban and Ghanaian example precludes the possibility of racial discrimination. It seems to me this has deep implications about effective and ineffective policies to raise the living standards of Mexican immigrants and African Americans. If we fail to address the root cause (poor cultural practices vs racial discrimination), the problem won’t get fixed.