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Does social determination include culture? That's a greater determinant of outcomes than skin color, as the example of outcomes between African Americans and Ni

Does social determination include culture? That's a greater determinant of outcomes than skin color, as the example of outcomes between African Americans and Nigerian immigrants indicates.

wbsss4412 4y ago
Culture is socially determined in the sense that culture is simply the collective actions and decisions that a group of people make. Reading the intent behind that statement, though, that Nigerians have succeeded in America despite any hinderances they may have faced due to wider societies treatment of black people, that would be somewhat outside of the framework of what I am talking about. The construction here is, do Black Americans have worse outcomes, on average, because of themselves, or because of societies treatment of them. Culture would fall into the bucket of “they are the reason for their own problems”. Obviously Nigerians do well on average, but they are also a small fraction of the population. Pointing to Nigerians and saying that race isn’t a contributing factor is making an argument after having found the statistical outlier that proves your argument, how do Nigerians compare to the top cohort of white Americans based on ethnicity or whatever? Is it possible that Nigerians would actually be doing better were there not racial barriers?
- MockObject 4y ago
  Rewriting "culture" as "they are the reason for their own problems” seems rather uncharitable, and unhelpful to the discussion. Why are you doing that, given that it's not adding any clarity? > having found the statistical outlier that proves your argument Well, why are they a statistical outlier? If you ask Nigerians, they'll tend to credit their culture. Do you have a different explanation? > Is it possible that Nigerians would actually be doing better were there not racial barriers? I suppose it's more possible that they should be doing much worse than they are, because of the racial barriers.
  - wbsss4412 4y ago
    > Rewriting "culture" as "they are the reason for their own problems” seems rather uncharitable, and unhelpful to the discussion. Why are you doing that, given that it's not adding any clarity? I was under the impression that it did add clarity, so I find your question odd. What would be the charitable interpretation of the statement “socioeconomic disparities between black Americans and white Americans are due to their respective cultures”?
    - thegrimmest 4y ago
      I mean, there's nothing "problematic" about having a different culture, with different values. There's also nothing surprising about the fact that different cultures and values produce people vastly differently suited to social and economic success. I don't see any issue with these facts in combination, nor do I need to reach for "marginalization" or racism to explain any of this.
      - wbsss4412 4y ago
        No one ever suggested that it was problematic that people have different cultures, or even that it’s bad to acknowledge that black culture is different from white culture, quite the contrary. What’s problematic is the degree to which people can’t even entertain the idea that racism is the primary driver of these disparities, rather than things that are specific to POC, such a culture or genetics, especially given the clear and obvious precedent that is firmly established within this country. What is a reach, is your reaction to this suggestion.
        thegrimmest 4y ago
        The research substantiates this thesis though. As cited variously in grandparent threads, domestic environment and culture are the main predictive factors of academic and economic outcomes. Poor kids who study do much better than rich kids who don't. We no longer deny people opportunities based on their race. If your SAT score is high, you'll be admitted anywhere you want. If you study hard, your score will be high. The reach is constructing the SAT, or any other similar test, as racist because the scores are not evenly distributed by race.
- erichocean 4y ago
  > do Black Americans have worse outcomes […] Black Americans do not have worse outcomes. Specifically, given the distribution of individuals in the group "Black Americans" across all socially relevant dimensions—including culture—individual Black Americans have identical* outcomes to similarly-situated individuals of every other group in America including Whites, Asians, etc. As you would expect in a country with equal opportunity for all, both legally and culturally. *Black Americans actually do better than expected because there's an enormous cultural push to promote Black Americans whenever possible—college admissions, management, etc. not to mention Black Americans being so over-represented in media that most Americans think the country is around 40% Black whereas the actual number is ~13%, i.e. they're off by a factor of 3.
zozbot234 4y ago
To be very clear about it, this is all the more impressive because Nigeria is, by and large, still a pre-industrial society. The differences in basic worldview and outlook (including attitudes towards education) brought by industrialization and modern economic development (often misattributed to "Whiteness" in divisive political rhetoric) are absolutely huge and easily overwhelm any model where "skin color" or "genetics" exogenously determine these outcomes. This is easily ascertained by looking at how individual countries in the modern West industrialized over time and went through these very changes in culture. The skin color of English lower classes did not change much from the 17th to the mid-19th century, but their culture absolutely did.
- tremon 4y ago
  Why do we immediately assume that that's "impressive" and not "telling"? Isn't that assumption plain old American/Western exceptionalism? Perhaps the hypotheses should be "maybe there is something in Nigerian/pre-industrial culture that allows children to thrive more than in American/industrialized culture"?

Does social determination include culture? That's a greater determinant of outcomes than skin color, as the example of outcomes between African Americans and Nigerian immigrants indicates.

wbsss4412 4y ago

Culture is socially determined in the sense that culture is simply the collective actions and decisions that a group of people make. Reading the intent behind that statement, though, that Nigerians have succeeded in America despite any hinderances they may have faced due to wider societies treatment of black people, that would be somewhat outside of the framework of what I am talking about. The construction here is, do Black Americans have worse outcomes, on average, because of themselves, or because of societies treatment of them. Culture would fall into the bucket of “they are the reason for their own problems”. Obviously Nigerians do well on average, but they are also a small fraction of the population. Pointing to Nigerians and saying that race isn’t a contributing factor is making an argument after having found the statistical outlier that proves your argument, how do Nigerians compare to the top cohort of white Americans based on ethnicity or whatever? Is it possible that Nigerians would actually be doing better were there not racial barriers?

MockObject 4y ago
Rewriting "culture" as "they are the reason for their own problems” seems rather uncharitable, and unhelpful to the discussion. Why are you doing that, given that it's not adding any clarity? > having found the statistical outlier that proves your argument Well, why are they a statistical outlier? If you ask Nigerians, they'll tend to credit their culture. Do you have a different explanation? > Is it possible that Nigerians would actually be doing better were there not racial barriers? I suppose it's more possible that they should be doing much worse than they are, because of the racial barriers.
- wbsss4412 4y ago
  > Rewriting "culture" as "they are the reason for their own problems” seems rather uncharitable, and unhelpful to the discussion. Why are you doing that, given that it's not adding any clarity? I was under the impression that it did add clarity, so I find your question odd. What would be the charitable interpretation of the statement “socioeconomic disparities between black Americans and white Americans are due to their respective cultures”?
  - thegrimmest 4y ago
    I mean, there's nothing "problematic" about having a different culture, with different values. There's also nothing surprising about the fact that different cultures and values produce people vastly differently suited to social and economic success. I don't see any issue with these facts in combination, nor do I need to reach for "marginalization" or racism to explain any of this.
    - wbsss4412 4y ago
      No one ever suggested that it was problematic that people have different cultures, or even that it’s bad to acknowledge that black culture is different from white culture, quite the contrary. What’s problematic is the degree to which people can’t even entertain the idea that racism is the primary driver of these disparities, rather than things that are specific to POC, such a culture or genetics, especially given the clear and obvious precedent that is firmly established within this country. What is a reach, is your reaction to this suggestion.
      - thegrimmest 4y ago
        The research substantiates this thesis though. As cited variously in grandparent threads, domestic environment and culture are the main predictive factors of academic and economic outcomes. Poor kids who study do much better than rich kids who don't. We no longer deny people opportunities based on their race. If your SAT score is high, you'll be admitted anywhere you want. If you study hard, your score will be high. The reach is constructing the SAT, or any other similar test, as racist because the scores are not evenly distributed by race.
erichocean 4y ago
> do Black Americans have worse outcomes […] Black Americans do not have worse outcomes. Specifically, given the distribution of individuals in the group "Black Americans" across all socially relevant dimensions—including culture—individual Black Americans have identical* outcomes to similarly-situated individuals of every other group in America including Whites, Asians, etc. As you would expect in a country with equal opportunity for all, both legally and culturally. *Black Americans actually do better than expected because there's an enormous cultural push to promote Black Americans whenever possible—college admissions, management, etc. not to mention Black Americans being so over-represented in media that most Americans think the country is around 40% Black whereas the actual number is ~13%, i.e. they're off by a factor of 3.

zozbot234 4y ago

To be very clear about it, this is all the more impressive because Nigeria is, by and large, still a pre-industrial society. The differences in basic worldview and outlook (including attitudes towards education) brought by industrialization and modern economic development (often misattributed to "Whiteness" in divisive political rhetoric) are absolutely huge and easily overwhelm any model where "skin color" or "genetics" exogenously determine these outcomes. This is easily ascertained by looking at how individual countries in the modern West industrialized over time and went through these very changes in culture. The skin color of English lower classes did not change much from the 17th to the mid-19th century, but their culture absolutely did.

tremon 4y ago
Why do we immediately assume that that's "impressive" and not "telling"? Isn't that assumption plain old American/Western exceptionalism? Perhaps the hypotheses should be "maybe there is something in Nigerian/pre-industrial culture that allows children to thrive more than in American/industrialized culture"?