5 ms·

> Different "worlds" (neighbourhoods, schools, health care) doesn't happen because of skin color, it happens because of wealth/poverty. This is false. But let

> Different "worlds" (neighbourhoods, schools, health care) doesn't happen because of skin color, it happens because of wealth/poverty. This is false. But let me charitably engage your argument and ask you the following -- if your premise is correct, that means that lower access to education and economic attainment among under represented people of color has nothing to do with racism, and everything to do with...something. What is that thing? Why would it be the case that, as Philosopher Liam Bright says, "the people who have the stuff still tend to be white, and blacks must still sell our labour to them if we are to get by"?

tomp 4y ago
Do Obama's daughters have lower access to education? No. So it's not about race. (I just gave you proof.) It's about wealth and social class. Sure, those might correlate with race, and even be caused by racism (past or present), but virtually all real world consequences are downstream of wealth (in particular the ones mentioned: where you live, what you can afford, the amount of free time you have, your health, your nutrition, access to education/jobs, ...). If you ignore wealth and focus on race, you're racist.
- rrradical 4y ago
  Has there ever been a poor person that has succeeded in our society? Of course. Therefore I proved money doesn't matter. (Do you see how stupid this argument is?)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
nonethewiser 4y ago
> that means that lower access to education and economic attainment But you're not arguing that we give opportunities to people without good access to education and poor finances. You're arguing we give opportunity based off race. In fact, there are far more white people in the US with poor access to education. If you really wanted to increase opportunities for such people you wouldn't accomplish it by judging by race.
- ParetoOptimal 4y ago
  > there are far more white people in the US with poor access to education More total or more per-capita?
thegrimmest 4y ago
> What is that thing? The people who study this stuff seriously end up concluding that cultural and domestic factors are the biggest predictor. There are plenty of minority groups who at one point didn't have any stuff, and were discriminated against (Jews, Irish, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, etc.). The main difference seems to be cultural values that prioritize the nuclear family and educational attainment. The SAT isn't racist, poor black people who study do far better than rich white people who don't. If America was so racist, the single most successful ethnic minority wouldn't be Nigerians. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the culture, family, and values you grew up with.
- _manifold 4y ago
  >If America was so racist, the single most successful ethnic minority wouldn't be Nigerians. Do you have a source for this? Not for debate, I'm genuinely wondering where the information comes from. From time to time I've heard things about people from Nigeria being hardworking - haven't looked into it very deep though.
  - jimmygrapes 4y ago
    Not a direct source but https://africacheck.org/fact-checks/spotchecks/yes-nigerian-americans-do-well-arent-most-successful-ethnic-group-us https://africacheck.org/fact-checks/spotchecks/yes-nigerian-... pops up as a fact check after the same claim was made by Candace Owens. This link (from 2018) refers to several reputable sources of the time. I would guess that there are updated data from the US Census Bureau et al if you want to double check, but from all sources linked it seems Nigeria is and has been on an upward swing as far as exporting educated, successful people to the U.S. (and perhaps retrieving them to prevent brain drain, but I cannot be sure). FWIW and from anecdotal accounts of acquaintances of mine (not a lot but in the double digits), this comes down to a cultural focus on education and family structure from a young age. Compare to the culture and family values promulgated elsewhere.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > The people who study this stuff seriously end up concluding that cultural and domestic factors are the biggest predictor. There are plenty of minority groups who at one point didn't have any stuff, and were discriminated against. ...It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the culture, family, and values you grew up with. This might actually be the best plausible argument in favor of affirmative action and D&I policies targeted towards these folks. By making it easier for them to enter especially high-skilled industry sectors such as tech we strengthen their incentive for adopting more effective cultural norms, which has significant benefits in the longer run. (Unfortunately, this won't do any good if the educational system as a whole is not up to reasonable standards - if you're uneducated, you're still practically barred from the most productive and lucrative careers. And U.S. K-12 public education sucks.)
PathOfEclipse 4y ago
No, it's not, What the GP said is true. as I responded to someone else, you really should study Thomas Sowell because he articulates this stuff better than anyone else. I would specifically recommend Black Rednecks and White Liberals for a discussion about negative cultural elements that trace back to rural areas of Scotland, Ireland, and England, were transplanted to the American south, and eventually transplanted to African americans, who themselves eventually migrated from the south for more opportunity. He also talk about how leftists exacerbate the problem. Wealth, Poverty, and Poltics reads like a textbook, but provides a wealth of information about causes of disparity that have nothing to do with racism. Similarly, conquest and cultures talks a lot about disparate impact throughout history. One of the foundational tenets of CRT is that all racial disparity is caused by systemic racism, and, therefore, that all racial disparity must be addressed by systemic change until there are equal outcomes. This idea is fundamentally wrong on a billion levels, and also insanely harmful to society. It is one of the main reasons, if not the primary reason, why CRT is so wrong and so dangerous. When you diagnose the illness so completely wrong, and then diagnose the cause of the alleged illness so completely wrong, then, your prognosis is not only going to fail to improve anything, it's going to make things worse for everyone!
dr_dshiv 4y ago
The poverty achievement gap is nearly 3x the race achievement gap. Targeting disadvantaged people seems like the better goal for equity. Edit: according to this study, there is no race achievement gap—it is entirely accounted for by poverty https://edsource.org/2019/poverty-levels-in-schools-key-determinant-of-achievement-gaps-not-racial-or-ethnic-composition-study-finds/617821 https://edsource.org/2019/poverty-levels-in-schools-key-dete...
int_19h 4y ago
The beauty of it is that you don't have to figure out what the underlying mechanism is. You just need to help people on the basis of those measurable metrics - poverty, access to education etc - while ignoring other factors. If it so happens that those other factors have a causal correlation with poverty etc, well, you've just mitigated that.
SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
Why should there be any one, single thing? Maybe it's the aggregate of a million small factors which don't add up to any compact story. That's not a terribly exciting hypothesis, and I don't have any great answers for what to do about it, but it seems a lot more plausible than the epicycles required to explain how overrepresented people of color and Indian CEOs are compatible with a white-led racial hierarchy.

tomp 4y ago

Do Obama's daughters have lower access to education? No. So it's not about race. (I just gave you proof.) It's about wealth and social class. Sure, those might correlate with race, and even be caused by racism (past or present), but virtually all real world consequences are downstream of wealth (in particular the ones mentioned: where you live, what you can afford, the amount of free time you have, your health, your nutrition, access to education/jobs, ...). If you ignore wealth and focus on race, you're racist.

rrradical 4y ago
Has there ever been a poor person that has succeeded in our society? Of course. Therefore I proved money doesn't matter. (Do you see how stupid this argument is?)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

nonethewiser 4y ago

> that means that lower access to education and economic attainment But you're not arguing that we give opportunities to people without good access to education and poor finances. You're arguing we give opportunity based off race. In fact, there are far more white people in the US with poor access to education. If you really wanted to increase opportunities for such people you wouldn't accomplish it by judging by race.

ParetoOptimal 4y ago
> there are far more white people in the US with poor access to education More total or more per-capita?

thegrimmest 4y ago

> What is that thing? The people who study this stuff seriously end up concluding that cultural and domestic factors are the biggest predictor. There are plenty of minority groups who at one point didn't have any stuff, and were discriminated against (Jews, Irish, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, etc.). The main difference seems to be cultural values that prioritize the nuclear family and educational attainment. The SAT isn't racist, poor black people who study do far better than rich white people who don't. If America was so racist, the single most successful ethnic minority wouldn't be Nigerians. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the culture, family, and values you grew up with.

_manifold 4y ago
>If America was so racist, the single most successful ethnic minority wouldn't be Nigerians. Do you have a source for this? Not for debate, I'm genuinely wondering where the information comes from. From time to time I've heard things about people from Nigeria being hardworking - haven't looked into it very deep though.
- jimmygrapes 4y ago
  Not a direct source but https://africacheck.org/fact-checks/spotchecks/yes-nigerian-americans-do-well-arent-most-successful-ethnic-group-us https://africacheck.org/fact-checks/spotchecks/yes-nigerian-... pops up as a fact check after the same claim was made by Candace Owens. This link (from 2018) refers to several reputable sources of the time. I would guess that there are updated data from the US Census Bureau et al if you want to double check, but from all sources linked it seems Nigeria is and has been on an upward swing as far as exporting educated, successful people to the U.S. (and perhaps retrieving them to prevent brain drain, but I cannot be sure). FWIW and from anecdotal accounts of acquaintances of mine (not a lot but in the double digits), this comes down to a cultural focus on education and family structure from a young age. Compare to the culture and family values promulgated elsewhere.
zozbot234 4y ago
> The people who study this stuff seriously end up concluding that cultural and domestic factors are the biggest predictor. There are plenty of minority groups who at one point didn't have any stuff, and were discriminated against. ...It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the culture, family, and values you grew up with. This might actually be the best plausible argument in favor of affirmative action and D&I policies targeted towards these folks. By making it easier for them to enter especially high-skilled industry sectors such as tech we strengthen their incentive for adopting more effective cultural norms, which has significant benefits in the longer run. (Unfortunately, this won't do any good if the educational system as a whole is not up to reasonable standards - if you're uneducated, you're still practically barred from the most productive and lucrative careers. And U.S. K-12 public education sucks.)

PathOfEclipse 4y ago

No, it's not, What the GP said is true. as I responded to someone else, you really should study Thomas Sowell because he articulates this stuff better than anyone else. I would specifically recommend Black Rednecks and White Liberals for a discussion about negative cultural elements that trace back to rural areas of Scotland, Ireland, and England, were transplanted to the American south, and eventually transplanted to African americans, who themselves eventually migrated from the south for more opportunity. He also talk about how leftists exacerbate the problem. Wealth, Poverty, and Poltics reads like a textbook, but provides a wealth of information about causes of disparity that have nothing to do with racism. Similarly, conquest and cultures talks a lot about disparate impact throughout history. One of the foundational tenets of CRT is that all racial disparity is caused by systemic racism, and, therefore, that all racial disparity must be addressed by systemic change until there are equal outcomes. This idea is fundamentally wrong on a billion levels, and also insanely harmful to society. It is one of the main reasons, if not the primary reason, why CRT is so wrong and so dangerous. When you diagnose the illness so completely wrong, and then diagnose the cause of the alleged illness so completely wrong, then, your prognosis is not only going to fail to improve anything, it's going to make things worse for everyone!

dr_dshiv 4y ago

The poverty achievement gap is nearly 3x the race achievement gap. Targeting disadvantaged people seems like the better goal for equity. Edit: according to this study, there is no race achievement gap—it is entirely accounted for by poverty https://edsource.org/2019/poverty-levels-in-schools-key-determinant-of-achievement-gaps-not-racial-or-ethnic-composition-study-finds/617821 https://edsource.org/2019/poverty-levels-in-schools-key-dete...

int_19h 4y ago

The beauty of it is that you don't have to figure out what the underlying mechanism is. You just need to help people on the basis of those measurable metrics - poverty, access to education etc - while ignoring other factors. If it so happens that those other factors have a causal correlation with poverty etc, well, you've just mitigated that.

SpicyLemonZest 4y ago

Why should there be any one, single thing? Maybe it's the aggregate of a million small factors which don't add up to any compact story. That's not a terribly exciting hypothesis, and I don't have any great answers for what to do about it, but it seems a lot more plausible than the epicycles required to explain how overrepresented people of color and Indian CEOs are compatible with a white-led racial hierarchy.