5 ms·

I agree. Culture is a large umbrella term. I am mainly talking about the unquestioned assumptions, values and expectations of people living in the sub-culture.

I agree. Culture is a large umbrella term. I am mainly talking about the unquestioned assumptions, values and expectations of people living in the sub-culture. Especially how the sub-culture, and especially parents, value (or not) education and intellectual pursuits. People of different races but sharing compatible sub-cultures have a lot more in common than people of the same race that don’t.

didibus 5y ago
What I wonder though is how useful the distinction becomes. Maybe I'm reading into it, but I feel some people want to say that it's their fault, because their culture doesn't value education and intellectual pursuits and honesty, and hard work, etc. And it seems to become a justification why they don't deserve any help or support or special treatment. But to me, it seems to be exactly why something would need to be done. You don't actually choose your culture, you're born into it, and that seems unfair if by culture we imply those essential things that matter for success in life. Especially if we talk about certain races, where other races probably directly contributed to that culture by forcibly curbing their interest in education, intellectualism and ambitions.
- mbrodersen 5y ago
  The distinction is important because you can’t change race but you can change culture. However it isn’t easy and it has to start with the children. It is too late for the adults. And any practical solution (boarding schools for talented kids designed to extract them from their dysfunctional culture) has serious negative consequences as well. Australia tried to change the culture of the indigenous population and it ended badly. It is a very hard problem. Especially because the feedback loop of the culture is self-reinforcing. When I lived in the US I remember talking to a successful well-educated African-American that I worked with who said he was called an “Icecream” (black on the outside white on the inside) by other African-Americans! In other words, people in his community resented his success instead of celebrating it. That just blew my mind.
  - didibus 5y ago
    What you're saying to me here sounds to be talking about culture as in clothing, language, food, music, hairstyles, etc. I find more modern efforts are probably going to yield much better effects on value of education, intellectualism and work ethics. And those are things like actual financial support and investment into better schooling for underprivileged neighborhoods, better access to loans, more access to paid for higher education programs, and yes, even things like accepting more people from those "cultures" into high paying jobs, and good graduate programs and schools, even if they aren't necessarily the top performers, as long as they still show the qualities needed to succeed. Otherwise you've got a chicken and egg problem, so you need to take the ones that show promise to be able to break out, and really give them that chance and help them doing so, that can break the cycle. I'm happy to adapt this to not a traditional notion of "race", there are white sub-culture like you say that suffer from these difficulties as well, and I think they'd need similar support. Tangentially, on the topic of "ice-cream", I think you're simplifying things. It's a well known issue where hiding your culture (as in the way you dress, talk, eat, joke, the music you listen too, etc.) when your culture is surrounded by negative bias, can be necessary for yourself to enter higher financial spheres. Being called an ice-cream doesn't mean that the person was a cop out because they have a good job or make good money, it generally means that they adopted actual white cultural norms, as in, clothing, hairstyles, accent, behaviors, etc. And not as-in, honesty, hard working, and intellectualism.

didibus 5y ago

What I wonder though is how useful the distinction becomes. Maybe I'm reading into it, but I feel some people want to say that it's their fault, because their culture doesn't value education and intellectual pursuits and honesty, and hard work, etc. And it seems to become a justification why they don't deserve any help or support or special treatment. But to me, it seems to be exactly why something would need to be done. You don't actually choose your culture, you're born into it, and that seems unfair if by culture we imply those essential things that matter for success in life. Especially if we talk about certain races, where other races probably directly contributed to that culture by forcibly curbing their interest in education, intellectualism and ambitions.

mbrodersen 5y ago
The distinction is important because you can’t change race but you can change culture. However it isn’t easy and it has to start with the children. It is too late for the adults. And any practical solution (boarding schools for talented kids designed to extract them from their dysfunctional culture) has serious negative consequences as well. Australia tried to change the culture of the indigenous population and it ended badly. It is a very hard problem. Especially because the feedback loop of the culture is self-reinforcing. When I lived in the US I remember talking to a successful well-educated African-American that I worked with who said he was called an “Icecream” (black on the outside white on the inside) by other African-Americans! In other words, people in his community resented his success instead of celebrating it. That just blew my mind.
- didibus 5y ago
  What you're saying to me here sounds to be talking about culture as in clothing, language, food, music, hairstyles, etc. I find more modern efforts are probably going to yield much better effects on value of education, intellectualism and work ethics. And those are things like actual financial support and investment into better schooling for underprivileged neighborhoods, better access to loans, more access to paid for higher education programs, and yes, even things like accepting more people from those "cultures" into high paying jobs, and good graduate programs and schools, even if they aren't necessarily the top performers, as long as they still show the qualities needed to succeed. Otherwise you've got a chicken and egg problem, so you need to take the ones that show promise to be able to break out, and really give them that chance and help them doing so, that can break the cycle. I'm happy to adapt this to not a traditional notion of "race", there are white sub-culture like you say that suffer from these difficulties as well, and I think they'd need similar support. Tangentially, on the topic of "ice-cream", I think you're simplifying things. It's a well known issue where hiding your culture (as in the way you dress, talk, eat, joke, the music you listen too, etc.) when your culture is surrounded by negative bias, can be necessary for yourself to enter higher financial spheres. Being called an ice-cream doesn't mean that the person was a cop out because they have a good job or make good money, it generally means that they adopted actual white cultural norms, as in, clothing, hairstyles, accent, behaviors, etc. And not as-in, honesty, hard working, and intellectualism.