8 ms·

The article has enriched me by a new concept: voluntary vs involuntary minorities. Thanks, upvoted. A disturbing thought: if black racist sentiment says "Plato

The article has enriched me by a new concept: voluntary vs involuntary minorities. Thanks, upvoted. A disturbing thought: if black racist sentiment says "Plato and hypotenuses are for whites", and white racist sentiment says "crime is for blacks", the performance disparity between the two racist asshole groups isn't all that surprising! I'd also be very interested in similar in-depth causal studies on the gap between white and Jewish academic achievement, because this makes me, and more importantly my kids in the future, part of the underachieving group.

ErrantX 17y ago
This is the inherent problem I see in the modern "casual" approach to racism. It's "ok" now to be vaguely anti-white/anti-black in an "im not really racist, honest" way. With just the one attitude in the room your probably ok (just get a bit of awkwardness) but with both the divide is doubled and problems appear. I get frustrated with some of the big "anti-racism" campaigners; they strike me as making the smaller issues big ones and causing divisions all over again. On the specific issue I think it's not so much because the students are black they have this attitude - just because they are in a minority and have the anti-majority sentiment. I saw a similar problem at my school when girls where let into the all male establishment for the first time. Even though girls tend to do better academically at that age in our school they did worse and had higher rates of no homework completion/detention (as I recall). Im guessing for very similar reasons. To be honest though I think parents are the main problem; and not just in minority groups now. Even my Aunt who is in her early 40's has no interest in her kids schooling - and they suffer for it. The current parental generation seems full of similar attitudes - my mother is a teacher and she says getting parents to take an interest, encourage learning out of school and other activities is the biggest challenge she faces at the moment.
- Tichy 17y ago
  Maybe parents are right in not being that interested in schooling. I think I wouldn't be. School is mostly about rote learning, fitting in and being a good worker drone. Sure, it worked in the past, but perhaps in the future other skills will matter more.
  - dagw 17y ago
    Maybe parents are right in not being that interested in schooling. I think I wouldn't be. You'd be doing your kids a great disservice. School is mostly about rote learning, fitting in and being a good worker drone. Only if that's what you want it to be about. My parents took a great interest in my schooling and I feel that those years where both educational and formative. First and foremost they where willing to acknowledge that not all schools are equal and that not all schools work for all people. So they made sure I went to good schools that worked for me. They also continuously monitored my progress and where in dialogue with my teachers and where willing to go to bat for me. They made sure I got extra tutoring in subjects I had problems in, and helped me advance in subjects I was doing well in. So while it is only one data point, I believe that the parents interest in their child's schooling is critical for the child getting anything out of school. You cannot show a complete disinterest in your child's education and then complain when he doesn't get education you think he needs or deserves.
    - Tichy 17y ago
      I hope my kids would do reasonably well in school. I wouldn't say "whatever" if they brought home very bad marks. I just would want to avoid making them believe that school is the only thing that matters. I acknowledge that it is necessary to learn putting up with unloved tasks - I am just not convinced that learning that has to take 13 years (length of school in my country). Maybe a couple of years of boredom could be shaved off without a great loss. I would certainly be very interested in making my kids become autonomous learners and achievers. Just, as I say, the school metric does not mean very much to me. In the best case scenario I hope to teach them how to cope with school without expending too much energy. I think I would also encourage them to do all sorts of voluntary school projects they can possibly do (like writing for the school magazine, making movies, drama, science projects, whatever). I would not encourage them to spend every waking hour learning arbitrary stuff for school. "My parents took a great interest in my schooling and I feel that those years where both educational and formative." So what were the things you took out of it? There are things to learn - namely, how to learn, I suppose. But again, as I said, I question the time it takes to learn these things.
- Retric 17y ago
  My first boss was a black guy who graduated from Yale. It took 7 years before I was making more money than he did. I tried to get him to move to a new company, so I could get a signing bonus, and he could get a 30k raise, but had little interest. My father grew up as a poor white guy and had the same attitude. "I make a lot of money why strive for more?" The people I work with have this attitude that 300k/year is expected (aka middle class) from a two income family. IMO, DNA has little impact on Black achievement, rather culture is "crushing" black America. When 80% of any population is not playing the game they hold the average hostage. My personal theory is you tend to measure yourself in comparison the well to do people around you. If you fail to reach that level you are more likely to push your children up a notch. However, everyone needs to balance success vs. personal sacrifices and needs to decide when enough is enough.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    My father grew up as a poor white guy and had the same attitude. "I make a lot of money why strive for more?" This attitude is quite logical and reasonable if you consider relative achievement vs. absolute achievement. If you've started out near the back of the pack economically or socially, and make good, there's no shame in enjoying the fruits of your labors and directing your focus onto other things besides competition. Money is one measure of success, but if you're making what you consider to be enough money, you may find other uses for your time whose utility is less obvious to other people but significant to you. Autonomy is often its own reward.
  - kingkongrevenge 17y ago
    I've seen the claim that black academic test scores are consistently one standard deviation below the norm regardless of the test: sat, gre, lsat, mcat, erb, afqt, whatever. Always one standard deviation. Unfortunately, that lends weight to the genetic argument.
    - Retric 17y ago
      People that are 1/4th black and identify themselves as black, have the same issue on standardized tests as people that are 3/4+% black. If DNA was the cause you would expect a non uniform distribution.
TheElder 17y ago
>I'd also be very interested in similar in-depth causal studies on the gap between white and Jewish academic achievement I'm not sure what you mean here. There are European White Jews (They are the Jews with elevated IQ, Ashkenazi), African Jews, Oriental Jews, and so on. You can't say that Jews are not white or Jews are not black. You'd be surprised by the number of blond hair, blue eyed Jews in Israel. There are Jews with a Jewish characteristic, but just as many without. There are also non-Jews with Jewish characteristics. In my Jewish circle, they all claim to be white, and that's what you'd call them, you'd never know any difference unless you found out that they go to synagogue.
- cousin_it 17y ago
  I'm interested in the academic gap between Ashkenazim and non-Jewish whites. Even if you're bad at distinguishing the two groups by naked eye, it still exists.
  - TheElder 17y ago
    Of course it exists, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. This can be seen in the numbers at any top university, Noble prize winners, advancement in science, engineering, and and so on. That part isn't so interesting, what is interesting is how this elevated IQ came about. There are a few ideas of why this happened. The slower, unable to adapt, were killed off over thousands of years. When finding a mate, it was recommended to marry the child of a scholar. Jews are one of the oldest groups to become fully literate, as it was required to read and study the Torah, which later gave them the name "People of the book". European Jews were regulated in the type of commercial occupations that they could hold, that being money lending. Money lending required higher IQ over other occupations. All of these compounded over hundreds and possibly thousands of years could have possibly affected the IQ of the Jewish population. There is one problem with this idea, in that most of that requires an elevated IQ to begin with. I'll end with a quote from this article https://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/jewish-genius-10855?page=all https://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/jewish-ge... >Insofar as I am suggesting that the Jews may have had some degree of unusual verbal skills going back to the time of Moses, I am naked before the evolutionary psychologists’ ultimate challenge. Why should one particular tribe at the time of Moses, living in the same environment as other nomadic and agricultural peoples of the Middle East, have already evolved elevated intelligence when the others did not?

ErrantX 17y ago

This is the inherent problem I see in the modern "casual" approach to racism. It's "ok" now to be vaguely anti-white/anti-black in an "im not really racist, honest" way. With just the one attitude in the room your probably ok (just get a bit of awkwardness) but with both the divide is doubled and problems appear. I get frustrated with some of the big "anti-racism" campaigners; they strike me as making the smaller issues big ones and causing divisions all over again. On the specific issue I think it's not so much because the students are black they have this attitude - just because they are in a minority and have the anti-majority sentiment. I saw a similar problem at my school when girls where let into the all male establishment for the first time. Even though girls tend to do better academically at that age in our school they did worse and had higher rates of no homework completion/detention (as I recall). Im guessing for very similar reasons. To be honest though I think parents are the main problem; and not just in minority groups now. Even my Aunt who is in her early 40's has no interest in her kids schooling - and they suffer for it. The current parental generation seems full of similar attitudes - my mother is a teacher and she says getting parents to take an interest, encourage learning out of school and other activities is the biggest challenge she faces at the moment.

Tichy 17y ago
Maybe parents are right in not being that interested in schooling. I think I wouldn't be. School is mostly about rote learning, fitting in and being a good worker drone. Sure, it worked in the past, but perhaps in the future other skills will matter more.
- dagw 17y ago
  Maybe parents are right in not being that interested in schooling. I think I wouldn't be. You'd be doing your kids a great disservice. School is mostly about rote learning, fitting in and being a good worker drone. Only if that's what you want it to be about. My parents took a great interest in my schooling and I feel that those years where both educational and formative. First and foremost they where willing to acknowledge that not all schools are equal and that not all schools work for all people. So they made sure I went to good schools that worked for me. They also continuously monitored my progress and where in dialogue with my teachers and where willing to go to bat for me. They made sure I got extra tutoring in subjects I had problems in, and helped me advance in subjects I was doing well in. So while it is only one data point, I believe that the parents interest in their child's schooling is critical for the child getting anything out of school. You cannot show a complete disinterest in your child's education and then complain when he doesn't get education you think he needs or deserves.
  - Tichy 17y ago
    I hope my kids would do reasonably well in school. I wouldn't say "whatever" if they brought home very bad marks. I just would want to avoid making them believe that school is the only thing that matters. I acknowledge that it is necessary to learn putting up with unloved tasks - I am just not convinced that learning that has to take 13 years (length of school in my country). Maybe a couple of years of boredom could be shaved off without a great loss. I would certainly be very interested in making my kids become autonomous learners and achievers. Just, as I say, the school metric does not mean very much to me. In the best case scenario I hope to teach them how to cope with school without expending too much energy. I think I would also encourage them to do all sorts of voluntary school projects they can possibly do (like writing for the school magazine, making movies, drama, science projects, whatever). I would not encourage them to spend every waking hour learning arbitrary stuff for school. "My parents took a great interest in my schooling and I feel that those years where both educational and formative." So what were the things you took out of it? There are things to learn - namely, how to learn, I suppose. But again, as I said, I question the time it takes to learn these things.
Retric 17y ago
My first boss was a black guy who graduated from Yale. It took 7 years before I was making more money than he did. I tried to get him to move to a new company, so I could get a signing bonus, and he could get a 30k raise, but had little interest. My father grew up as a poor white guy and had the same attitude. "I make a lot of money why strive for more?" The people I work with have this attitude that 300k/year is expected (aka middle class) from a two income family. IMO, DNA has little impact on Black achievement, rather culture is "crushing" black America. When 80% of any population is not playing the game they hold the average hostage. My personal theory is you tend to measure yourself in comparison the well to do people around you. If you fail to reach that level you are more likely to push your children up a notch. However, everyone needs to balance success vs. personal sacrifices and needs to decide when enough is enough.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  My father grew up as a poor white guy and had the same attitude. "I make a lot of money why strive for more?" This attitude is quite logical and reasonable if you consider relative achievement vs. absolute achievement. If you've started out near the back of the pack economically or socially, and make good, there's no shame in enjoying the fruits of your labors and directing your focus onto other things besides competition. Money is one measure of success, but if you're making what you consider to be enough money, you may find other uses for your time whose utility is less obvious to other people but significant to you. Autonomy is often its own reward.
- kingkongrevenge 17y ago
  I've seen the claim that black academic test scores are consistently one standard deviation below the norm regardless of the test: sat, gre, lsat, mcat, erb, afqt, whatever. Always one standard deviation. Unfortunately, that lends weight to the genetic argument.
  - Retric 17y ago
    People that are 1/4th black and identify themselves as black, have the same issue on standardized tests as people that are 3/4+% black. If DNA was the cause you would expect a non uniform distribution.

TheElder 17y ago

>I'd also be very interested in similar in-depth causal studies on the gap between white and Jewish academic achievement I'm not sure what you mean here. There are European White Jews (They are the Jews with elevated IQ, Ashkenazi), African Jews, Oriental Jews, and so on. You can't say that Jews are not white or Jews are not black. You'd be surprised by the number of blond hair, blue eyed Jews in Israel. There are Jews with a Jewish characteristic, but just as many without. There are also non-Jews with Jewish characteristics. In my Jewish circle, they all claim to be white, and that's what you'd call them, you'd never know any difference unless you found out that they go to synagogue.

cousin_it 17y ago
I'm interested in the academic gap between Ashkenazim and non-Jewish whites. Even if you're bad at distinguishing the two groups by naked eye, it still exists.
- TheElder 17y ago
  Of course it exists, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. This can be seen in the numbers at any top university, Noble prize winners, advancement in science, engineering, and and so on. That part isn't so interesting, what is interesting is how this elevated IQ came about. There are a few ideas of why this happened. The slower, unable to adapt, were killed off over thousands of years. When finding a mate, it was recommended to marry the child of a scholar. Jews are one of the oldest groups to become fully literate, as it was required to read and study the Torah, which later gave them the name "People of the book". European Jews were regulated in the type of commercial occupations that they could hold, that being money lending. Money lending required higher IQ over other occupations. All of these compounded over hundreds and possibly thousands of years could have possibly affected the IQ of the Jewish population. There is one problem with this idea, in that most of that requires an elevated IQ to begin with. I'll end with a quote from this article https://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/jewish-genius-10855?page=all https://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/jewish-ge... >Insofar as I am suggesting that the Jews may have had some degree of unusual verbal skills going back to the time of Moses, I am naked before the evolutionary psychologists’ ultimate challenge. Why should one particular tribe at the time of Moses, living in the same environment as other nomadic and agricultural peoples of the Middle East, have already evolved elevated intelligence when the others did not?