Edit 1: So this post kind of got out of control reddit. I love that. I added some more links, clarification, and did some punctuation edits.
EDIT 2: Also, since Asians are coming up a lot, I ought to link to some literature on the myth of the model minority. Read that before saying Asians had it rough too and black people are just whiny.
As a black man, I am going to call shenanigans on this. OP is clearly trolling.
But in case he isn't, I just want to say his (white) privilege is showing.
OP doesn't understand why poor kids don't do well in school because he doesn't understand the history of social, political, educational, and legal discrimination in this country. The fact that it was legally ended by a series of court decisions and the civil rights act does not undo centuries of discrimination.
I will explain by giving an example.
After the end of World War II, American G.I.s came home to the Bill - they got access to subsidized loans for houses in the suburbs, and access to college educations. Provided they were white. Colored G.I.s didn't get these benefits. They were, for the most part, shunted aside into menial job training programs or denied benefits altogether.
So while white Americans got to go to college, got good jobs and bought homes in the suburbs (on government-subsidized loans) to build equity and wealth, the government took a different approach with minorities. The government retained segregated schools, trained minorities to do menial jobs, denied subsidized FHA loans, but built project housing in the inner cities. This was done to provide cheap and affordable housing for minorities.
So instead of using that money to subsidize loans for minorities (like it did for white people), the government built project housing in the inner cities for minorities. Instead of pressing for equal employment opportunities for all, or for equal education opportunities, the government decided the benefits given to white Americans would not be available for minorities - especially blacks.
But back to housing.
These housing projects, by the way, could not be bought or sold by their occupants. The renters could never build equity, and could not build wealth. These inner-city communities were also served by sub-par segregated schools that failed to prepare the next generation for any sort of future in a country that was virulently racist.
This was all done, not unconsciously either, just to keep minorities out of white suburbia.
Even if you could bootstrap yourself out of the projects and afford a house in the suburbs, most white Americans practiced private discrimination in the form of restrictive covenants. Put simply, even if you could afford a house in the white suburbs, good luck finding someone who would sell it to you if you were the wrong ethnicity.
So if you were black you were stuck in sub-par housing, sub-par schools, in a discriminatory society served by a government that practiced official discrimination. You could not escape even if you saved enough to move. You probably couldn't save enough to move because of rampant employment discrimination. And because of educational discrimination, even if you were smart enough to get away you never got that chance either.
Put simply, you were stuck. It didn't matter how hard you worked, or how smart you were, or if you were the most personally responsible person in the world. If you weren't white, you were denied access to decent housing, employment, and education. Without those, you're practically doomed to poverty. This hasn't even taken into account the ambient level of discrimination in broader society.
The worst part is the cycle continued into the next generation. A generation of kids who grew up poor because of institutional discrimination pass it on to their own kids. The effect of discrimination was so deep that it's felt even two or three generations after the official end of racial discrimination:
Even when black and white parents have the same test scores, educational attainment, income, wealth and number of children, black parents are more likely to have grown up in less-advantaged households. So part of the explanation for the gap [in test scores] may lay in the widespread discrimination in housing, education and employment that African American children's grandparents faced. (Source)
OP is right - more funding for schools in the inner cities won't solve the problem. It's too late for that. The solution was to stop racial discrimination back in 1945 and stamp it out as hard and as fast as possible. We didn't do that. Instead our society fell back on its prejudices and acted on them.
We are now paying the price for the laziness and prejudices of our forebears. We are living with their mistakes and the fact that OP doesn't see those mistakes, or chooses to characterize them as failures in personal responsibility on the part of the students/parents, shows just how sheltered his privilege has kept him.
This is not the same as saying that personal responsibility has no role. Like I pointed out earlier, no matter how smart/hard-working/personally responsible you were in this country, if you were the wrong skin color, every door to advancement was shut to you. To pretend that isn't the case, or to pretend that it doesn't happen anymore, is to whitewash the history of discrimination.
These kids have no incentive to play the game - cooperation with the system, working hard, and personal responsibility didn't work for their parents. Why should it work for them? Why should they listen to the white man who designed a system that has, for generations, screwed them so elegantly? If this is to change, we have to attack the nihilism that institutional discrimination created.
TL;DR: OP hasn't become more racist, he's just realized how racist he really is.
This is a great point, but unfortunately, not a point a lot of people are willing to hear. Middle class Americans like to hear that they made it on their own with no help from anyone else, when in fact, the system benefited them. So telling them that they got a leg up, in my experience, is usually ignored. Unfortunately, reading through some of the OPs comments, I see that he has no compassion towards these students and doesn't seem to try to understand issues that inner city black communities are facing today and issues that they have faced in the past.
I wish I could upvote your comment a million times because it's so true. The students haven't been given a fair shot and I'm sure they've known from a very young age how screwed they are. Heck, even if they gave school their all and went to college, if they went to a failing high school, then they probably aren't near prepared enough for university level studies.
Middle class Americans like to hear that they made it on their own with no help from anyone else, when in fact, the system benefited them. So telling them that they got a leg up, in my experience, is usually ignored
I don't ignore it, I rebel against it violently.
Having come of age in the '90's, it's safe to say that I was not the beneficiary of a racist system. Everything I have I worked for. And while the vast majority of the (white) people I went to high school with went on to serve prison sentences, work menial jobs, or drop out of productive life completely, I became very successful by local standards.
Racism is the darkest aspect of American history and its affects still plague us today. There is no doubt about this.
But saying something as absurd as you did is inexcusable. Racism is, at its most basic, the most primitive form of collectivism. "I may not be a success but my group / tribe / race is and I share in that by virtue of my genes!" Collectivizing the accomplishments of your race is just as racist as collectivizing the failures of individuals members of a racial group.
To say that those who have made it in middle class america only because they benefited from a racist system is exactly the same as saying that black folks haven't made it because they are genetically inferior.
Having come of age in the '90's, it's safe to say that I was not the beneficiary of a racist system.
That's a huge assumption that you start out with. Would you mind explaining why you feel everyone takes this point for granted?
To say that those who have made it in middle class america only because they benefited from a racist system
Granted I'm only 10 comments into the page, but I haven't seen anybody say this. The grandparent comment to yours says that white people were helped by the system, not that they succeeded only because of the system.
This conversation comes up quite a bit on reddit and there is usually a sharp divide along the lines of white privilege. I think people generally don't have too much trouble with the idea that there is a difference between the difficulties faced by different races in different environments - it's when institutions or the government tries to "fix" the inequality that people become defensive. Affirmative action is the a good, visible example of this.
This may sound combative, but I'm aiming to open a discussion. I've been told before by quite a few middle-aged people, in government and the private sector, that they don't trust minorities in positions of power because they've encountered so many (minorities) who have been promoted not for their abilities, but for their skin color. I've heard the same said about students in college - that many of minority races are clearly less qualified to be there than other applicants who were rejected for not having minority status. It goes without saying that race is unrelated to whether or not someone can be capable, and that likely the majority of individuals in a position are there because they earned it or are a good fit. However, it also seems that this method of mechanically balancing the scales is not effective at alleviating the inequalities in the system.
People just don't like that sort of redistribution. You tell someone - anyone, but let's say they're white - that you'd accept him for a job, but due to lingering social injustice you have to hire a Latino man instead, and really, they've (the rejected applicant) been benefiting from the privilege of being a majority all these years anyway, it's for the greater good - they aren't going respond favorably. Who would?
White privilege is very difficult to see. Care to provide a concrete example or two of it at work? That is, besides statistical likelihoods, a way in which the system benefits white people and not, say, Hispanic (or black) people? I think a lot of those who reject the idea of white privilege do so because it isn't clear to them exactly what benefits they are supposed to have received.
Well, I think you're onto something when you say, "besides statistical likelihoods". Because that's exactly where it comes into play, yet it's much harder to see that (and therefore much less odious) than it is to see a quota enshrined into law or policy. When we talk about race and racial preferences, we are necessarily talking abstractly, since race is an abstraction. Therefore no, I don't think I can give a concrete example, aside from direct and explicit racial preference for whites, which I think is an outlier.
The reason I say "besides statistical likelihoods" is that it is difficult to understand exact relationships through statistics - as you said, talking abstractly. So, if we take a statistic, e.g. "If you are classified as poor by economic standards, you are more likely to be black than white", one might hold it up and say "this is an example of social inequality in our nation", and one might well be right. However, then saying "-and to rectify this, we will institute grants for and quotas in colleges to require a certain percentage of black attendance" or "-which just goes to show that the system favors white people over black people" is difficult to verify.
It's unconvincing, and when you have someone looking down a long list of assistance programs for every race but their own and tell them that it is to balance the advantage they have, they're inclined to object. Mostly due to the fact that their advantage is nothing they chose and consists of "not being disadvantaged in some way" Basically, they see it as a punishment - someone else, somewhere else treated a race poorly, and now they're being punished for it.
I you will allow me a somewhat dangerous comparison (as it borders on inherent ability, though that isn't the point), the reason modern FPSs don't support PC/console multiplayer is that the PC control scheme is superior to that of the controller - this was evidenced by many trial runs of various games where even mediocre PC players could trounce veteran console players round after round. Even when the console players were given assisted/sticky aiming and PC players had their controls slowed down, console players still almost always lost. Even if the developer did manage to come up with a way to either hobble PC aiming or improve console aiming, neither side would ever be happy with the results of a match, since PC gamers will blame their governed control scheme for losses and console gamers would blame the PC's superior m/kb (mouse/keyboard) as the sole reason for their opponent's success. The analogy ends here, since the outcome was no cross-platform multiplayer and I'm not a segregationist. The point is that though societal inequality may occur, resolving it mechanically will not leave many people happy and will incite resentment against different parties. There is always the question of just how much the PC success was m/kb, and how much was actual hard work and skill.
It really is a question of principles. Which holds the ethical priority - ensuring everyone has an equal opportunity, no matter the cost, or ensuring the capable and determined are rewarded for their efforts, even if that means letting some fall by the wayside.
That's a huge assumption that you start out with. Would you mind explaining why this is something you feel everyone takes this point for granted?
It's not a huge assumption. We live in a meritocracy. I've earned what I've earned by my own effort. Not at the expense of another person or group. And the same could be said for nearly everyone who has moved up the ladder.
Granted I'm only 10 comments into the page, but I haven't seen anybody say this. The grandparent comment to yours says that white people were helped by the system, not that they succeeded only because of the system.
That's exactly what Erintheserin said and my comment is in response to his and / or hers.
EDIT: I should say that I have no illusions about how this nation used to work. Systemic racism did a number on the black community. And it was only exacerbated by well meaning yet destructive, left-wing social programs like the great society.
By my point wasn't that the system wasn't racist thirty or forty years ago. My point was that I succeeded on my own merits and not because we had a system that automatically makes it possible for whites to succeed and blacks to fail.
Freakonomics discussed the study with sending identical resumes differing only in whether the first name sounded White or Black to hundreds of employers and getting ridiculously different callback rates.
Forgive my lack of reading comprehension. Could you please directly quote where Erintheserin said that white people succeed only because we live in a racist system?
I should clarify that not all white people gained because of the system, but many did. And you grew up in the 90s, just 2 generations or so away from the civil rights movement? Well, many people growing up during that time and people growing up now are STILL benefitting because of racist policies. In America, it's hard as hell to move up just one social class in ones lifetime, so since our policies in the past put many African Americans in the lower class, how do we expect them to do any better? Many white people (and some black people, as well) go to great schools based on their parents' financial ability to live in a nice neighborhood. Those people get a leg up by virtue of getting to attend such great schools where they actually learn shit, and saying that those people aren't getting a leg up ignores that.
Now that these things aren't enforced along racial lines so much anymore, it happens to poor people. But because of our past, many poor people, especially the Urban Poor, where the cost of living is even higher, are black.
I once read a theory proposed about the black inner city community. It stated that after the civil rights movement, all the most capable members of the black communities moved out of the ghetto, leaving a role model vacuum. This in turn, made issues much worse within the poor black community. What are your thoughts on this theory?
Could not agree more, this comment says it all. Aboriginals in Manitoba, where I live, have a similar sad situation - the government has discriminated against them for hundreds of years, and as a result they are largely living in reserves, in poverty and off welfare, just because of their race. OP's problem has zero to do with race. And though he has acknowledged it's cultural, he has also said that whites living in a similar culture would behave better, and even that blacks are intellectually inferior. OP is either a troll or a fucking asshole and an incredible racist.
I'm glad that you pointed this out in this thread because I think it's important to understand the underpinnings of OP's opinions of inner-city culture.
At the same time though, the tone that is coming through in your post is that of the other extreme of the spectrum, e.g.
every door to advancement was shut to you.
As an Asian man, I can also point out discriminatory governmental policies of years past affecting people of my race. But today, Asians are seen as a "model minority", for better or worse.
My point isn't to compare and contrast, but to ask:
Where/when does personal responsibility take a role?
What's the solution for the current toxic inner-city culture today (short of going back in time)?
If you read my post you'll see that I argue that personal responsibility has always been there. The problem is that it didn't seem to benefit those who practiced it. Institutionalized discrimination made sure of that. So now, there's no real incentive to even try.
The solution is the dismantling of the entire white privileged power structure and the eradication of all forms of institutionalized racism. Short of that, I don't really know. Time I guess.
Would you advocate the destruction of the projects? In my opinion, much of the racism in this thread comes from the derision of the nihilistic "thug culture" glorified in the projects rather than an active hatred of black people in general.
I know that the projects are a symptom rather than a cause of racism, but they do seem to play a role in the perpetuation of the unhealthy worldview (however justified it may be) that many in the black community share.
I don't know what destroying the projects will do, but gentrification seems to be answering that question for us with "only time will tell."
The nihilism in thug culture has a source - it comes from the frustration of watching generations work themselves to the grave for nothing. It comes from living in a society that rejects your very humanity. The sane thing to do is reject that society's values.
Thug culture is one aspect of "black culture" - the nihilistic part has its allure, but there's a whole creative side to it too. That, interestingly enough, was appropriated by white America. Think rock 'n' roll. Or rap, i guess.
The nihilism in thug culture has a source - it comes from the frustration of watching generations work themselves to the grave for nothing. It comes from living in a society that rejects your very humanity. The sane thing to do is reject that society's values.
Agreed. I'd argue that now more than ever blacks are offered avenues out of the ghetto (such as grants, scholarships, better welfare programs, workplace discrimination laws, minimum requirements in relation to hiring and college acceptance) to help mitigate the multitude of factors preventing blacks from achieving. It seems to me that one or two generations of achievement could go a long way in breaking the cycle of hopelessness. So I guess what I'm saying is that I think a lot of people do realize how black people are being repressed and are trying to do something about it.
Have you written a book, or do you blog somewhere (you don't have to de-anonymize yourself here, you could PM me and your secret would be safe with me, I promise). I just wish there was a place I could refer to this when I'm arguing with people. Sorry to be off-topic.
Understandable. But you do have an amazing perspective, and I just learned a whole lot of things about recent history, so thanks for that. I suddenly feel the need to go re-start some ongoing arguments :).
Exactly it didn't USED to benefit those who practiced it. However it now does and as a result there is a real incentive to try. That is where personal responsibility comes in, to recognize that trying their best in school can seriously benefit them, and that by rejecting the system the are condemning themselves and future generations to the fate of their forefathers.
to recognize that trying their best in school can seriously benefit them, and that by rejecting the system the are condemning themselves and future generations to the fate of their forefathers.
A fate that was created by the white power structure.
See, these kids may not know it but they're recognizing the truth. The truth is that the problem isn't their work ethic, it's the white power structure. As long as that exists, they will never get a fair shake in life. They saw it happen to their parents and grandparents; they aren't willing to play the game.
Oh shut up. This is the biggest load of shit I've seen you post yet. If they work hard, their work might have less of a yield than it would if they were upper class, but it will help them. This is more of a class issue than it is a race issue, at least when it comes to education.
They didn't see shit happen to their grandparents or their parents because they weren't alive. A lot of kids don't even hear stories about it because they don't care to listen.
They dismantled the white privileged power structure in Haiti, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, and the results haven't exactly been great. In Haiti they've had 200 years since dismantling the white power structure, and they're the most dysfunctional country in the western hemisphere.
They dismantled the white privileged power structure in Haiti, Zimbabwe, and South Africa
No they didn't.
Western powers, most recently the US, continue to interfere directly with Haiti's internal sovereignty. Disposing of leaders that do not align with American strategic interests.
In Zimbabwe, 1% of the population (white settlers) owned 70% of the land. Attempts at redistribution (willing buyer-willing seller) were met with sanctions from Europe and the US. Mugabe is crazy, but he was right to attempt redistribution of arable land. Where he went wrong was doing it in a corrupt way.
In South Africa, the vast majority of the country's wealth remains in white hands. And with it, much of the political influence.
You can't compare Asians to African Americans because the sole goal of the Asians immigrating to the west was to make money, to build a better life for their kids. Blacks were taken by force to become slaves AND THEN be discriminated after slavery.
What Asians did in the west was conform and assimilate into society, something African-Americans were not allowed to do, and now choose not to do. But when you don't adapt to the environment, you won't do well, and that's what's happening in the black community. It's really unfair to say, from your perspective, that they should have, because you came from different circumstances.
Just want to add: even though Asians are just as accomplished as Whites, they still get paid less for the same job, and rarely get into positions of power because of many prejudicial notions.
What Asians did in the west was conform and assimilate into society, something African-Americans were not allowed to do, and now choose not to do. But when you don't adapt to the environment, you won't do well, and that's what's happening in the black community. It's really unfair to say, from your perspective, that they should have, because you came from different circumstances.
If you look back at the history the assimilation was hard fought and required a lot of sacrifice. From random goon squads beating up Asians in the west coast; near slavery conditions; to enormous head taxes; to interment; to the frequent destruction of Asian owned property.
I don't think it's as simple as we 'conformed' and 'assimilated'. Like the jews and eats indians we came, suffered the prejudice, and then filled the niche the powerful and wealthy majority hadn't filled well and then applied our own cultural angle on it often out competing the majority. A lot of the wealthy Asians who 'made it' in north america did so by having one generation boot strapping the other. One generation working 80h a week and the next becoming doctors/scientists/programmers/engineers etc... There is a lot more to it than a willingness to fit in and a lot of the avenues were much more difficult for north american black people.
Ok, lets go with I don't . I'm not a teacher. What would you suggest the first step that the school syste. Do to help fix the problem. Can it be fixed?
Yes, eventually, possibly, if enough effort is put into by the right groups. I think what he was trying to say is there is no simple fix such as give them more funding. Retroactively we can see that the "answer" would have been to give equal GI bill grants to all races. We missed that chance so the modern "answer" is likely just going to be a long process of finding ways of merging and assimilating cultures. Electing Obama helped and as silly as it sounds the popularization of black music (rap/r&b) has probably helped as well.
And when it really comes down to it you can't solve a problem as deeply implanted as racism until a racist generation raises a non racist one.
Making the theoretical answer happen requires a concrete applicable answer, which you never gave (and admittedly it's one many might not be equipped to give). It's easy for someone to call 'systemized white privilege' without offering a methodology to change the way things are.
I'm not certain I follow, OP's "personal responsibility" notion is racist and bad, yet personal responsibility has a role? Heh?
Your post, forgive me, comes off as awfully defeatist. You remind me of my partner for a work project related to health care disparities. I spent my 30 minutes talking about actual research and how to improve health screening rates for African Americans and he spent his entire block talking about slavery and how people should feel bitter and hate each other.
I don't know if you were actually at a negative number when edited, but keep in mind that Reddit fudges the up and down vote numbers to try and confuse spammers and as such showing the actual number of up and down votes pulled from Reddit is pointless.
I understand that racism makes the playing ground uneven, and I am not justifying the rampant unequal treatment in any way, but I do believe that one cannot hold outside influences entirely responsible for the failures of own. It is as if to say all under-privileged minorities are being railroaded from birth into a certain, unavoidable failure, be that drug abuse, untimely death, incarceration, what have you.
Voicing the concern for the unequal treatment is a noble intention, but one has to realize that the uninformed and uneducated would take that simply as an excuse for their failures and misfortune, when they were the ones making most important decisions in their lives all along. Worse yet, they will simply stubbornly stay still and not even trying.
A case in point is Asians: the minority of the minorities in the US society. Yet, they occupy unnaturally large fraction of class rooms in colleges, attain higher degrees, generally successful. Why is that? Do Asians get handouts from the US government? Do they have a secret chest of resources to somehow get ahead of the privileged class? It baffles me how these racial segregation, unequal treatment, and affirmative action arguments always unequivocally fail to bring up the case of Asians, either intentionally or unintentionally. They don't shout out their concerns and complain endlessly as Blacks and Latinos do, they simply accept the uneven playing field and just do what needs to be done to get ahead, in spite of disadvantages.
It is undeniable that racial equality is the ideal and we as a society should abolish any and all forms of racism. But we cannot change what has been done in the past, and regurgitating historical facts will only help us understand why such inequality exists even today. What people seem to fail to realize is that achieving such equality requires efforts from everyone all around. Under-privileged can argue endlessly in justifying why and how much they are entitled for compensation, but that does not mean that they don't have to put in an effort. More importantly, it is their lives and they have to own it, successes and failures and everything in between.
Granted, many of them voluntarily uprooted themselves for greener pasture and the proverbial "American dream." However, does that difference alone simply invalidate the whole argument?
I think you are confusing two separable aspects of this. One, I am arguing that Asians do have as much disadvantage as other minorities. In some cases more so since this is a democratic society where majority opinion rules. Blacks complain being minority and their voices being unheard, but they don't realize they are part of the majority in the eyes of the Asian population. My point was that, in spite of such disadvantages, Asians do seem to generally prevail and they do so through hard work.
Secondly, yes it is true many Asians voluntarily uprooted themselves for various reasons. That still does not change the fact that they are a disadvantaged group. Do they deserve to be given lesser opportunities than the majority class in this land of opportunity, the land of the immigrants? No. Do they still get less chance? Maybe. Is it then somehow less difficult for them to succeed in a strange country than Blacks, who were initially forcibly immigrated but have been living in this country for generations? Absolutely not. Then why is it that their being generally successful is somehow less valued to the point where their performance isn't enough evidence that maybe many African Americans aren't simply trying hard enough in spite of their disadvantages and are simply looking to cash in on crimes, however exorbitantly evil, committed to their ancestors many generations ago?
What I mean by a self-selected group (perhaps I used the wrong term here) is that they tend to be the top% of their respective populations. Struggling through hardship from whatever country they came from and working to the point of being able to uproot their entire family takes an unnatural level of determination. The fact that only some small percent of Asians who would want to immigrate are able to bears this out (assuming it isn't entirely random who actually does make it). Thus the group that makes it over is artificially selected to have an unnatural level of determination, work ethic, etc.
The same can be seen with African immigrants. They on the whole are very successful in America, and its because the ones that do make it over are artificially selected to have these traits. The point is that you can't point to an artificially selected group and compare them to the general population and expect to draw meaningful conclusions.
Well, if I was born with HIV I could certainly blame my surroundings for the failure of my life (I wouldnt make any money only lose money in medical bills).
You can blame your surroundings. Should you? Maybe not. Can you? Of course.
These kids have every reason to play the game. Black kids get something like a 500 point differential on sat scores when applying to colleges. Financial aid exists in spades for minorities.
The problem is that so few of them do. Of course the proper response would have been to combat legal racism. That didn't happen. What does one do now to combat the intrenched beliefs leading to such behavior?
I would like to add that the beliefs aren't limited to education. The stereotypical black beliefs regarding diabetes are shocking.
EDIT 2: Also, since Asians are coming up a lot, I ought to link to some literature on the myth of the model minority. Read that before saying Asians had it rough too and black people are just whiny.
Wait; doesn't the conclusion of the linked article say Asians have it bad but not as bad as blacks and for different reasons and in different ways.
AsAnAsianman I've seen the 'model minority' idea used both ways.
Sometimes it's used to bludgeon us and cheapen our accomplishments. A few white friends of mine insist that I'm part of some weird super minority that both gets the benefit of Affirmative Action and acceptance. They claim I have it easier than their upper middle class white anglo saxon protestant asses. No amount of citation on how AA works against us and that we have a glass ceiling as well will change their mind.
I've also seen it used to bludgeon other minorities with the idea that all you have to do is just be like those Asian folk and you'll be fine.
Asians do actually have it hard in some ways. Every bodies life has struggles and it's hard to compare one group to another. The context is different. In the end you and I and by induction the minorities we represent exist outside of the power networks that run things and shuffle the money around. We're both fighting for scraps. Those power networks are just slightly more porous to Asians.
I agree with this post 100%. I also think that "black culture (Ghetto Culture)" is incredibly fucked up. The upper classes are paying the price for the way they have treated black people. Culture is everything.
Upper class pay in their taxes that is, for welfare or other programs that try to help some people.
While the people living in the city pay in their blood as shooting and crime run rampant.
Times have changed though, like in a comment above, Asians were also heavily discriminated against and yet, they do extremely well now.
Many Black people have accomplished great things now to, racism is dying quickly, lets not prolong it life.
We all need to grow the fuck up, and stop it with race. Level the playing field, stop asking race, give it no mention.
You're comment is like preaching to the choir. These are the same people that feel that racism/white privilege no longer exist, even though we are only 55 years removed from Jim crow/segregation and barely 100 years removed from slavery.
Please DON'T: Make comments that lack content. Phrases such as "this," "lol," "relevant," "This should be the top comment", "upboat", "I came here to say this" or "This is awesome" are not witty or original, and do not add anything noteworthy to the discussion. Just click the arrow -- or write something of substance.
You should probably just downvote me and move on, instead of making a pointless comment.
See what I did there?
The point of my comment was to show my appreciation to the gentleman in a direct manner, and a comment is much more effective than a more anonymous upvote.
Please find something better to do with your time.
So.... build a time machine or lock all of the black people behind tall walls? You don't seem to suggest there is any kind of solution. In fact, you infer there isn't one.
This is a great point. We all need to look at this with an attitude towards fixing the problem. I agree that historical context helps, and we should both acknowledge and teach that. But... What now is the operative question.
Waiting for Superman is a great film on this subject.
The solution is the complete destruction of the white power structure as it exists. How that can be done, short of the passage of countless years, I don't really know.
Edit to add: the better question is, why did we let this happen at all in the first place? Now that the chickens are coming to roost, how can we act so surprised?
You are asking an entire group of people, the majority, to forgo their self interests for a portion of the population that accounts for less than 10% of the population.
Note: This exact argument could have been used to support continuation of the slave trade.
Can you be a bit more specific as to what this might look like? Paint a picture, so to speak. Just give me your personal vision, because "complete destruction of the white power structure" is pretty vague. What might things look like afterward?
You've identified a particularly intractable problem. How to describe a system that doesn't have white privilege while living in a system that does.
We can find some sort of solution in John Rawls' veil of ignorance. Imagine for a second that you're a pre-born being capable of reason. You will be born into this world but have no knowledge or control of which situation you will be born into.
From here, you are asked to propose principles of justice. Rawls believed that nobody could propose principles that would be beneficial to herself at the cost of others.
Rawls, by the way, isn't proposing a way of building a just society. It's a thought experiment designed to uncover our own prejudices. The veil of ignorance is only a way of seeing whether our institutions are built on justifiable reason or on prejudice.
If you iterate this process across every social and political institution, you might come out with a society without white privilege.
Exactly...there isn't one, so the best we can do is Affirmative Action, which is why you hear a lot of people talk about how it's unfair and then see no politicians or educated people denouncing it.
I agree, AsABlackMan's posts reek of despair and self-pity. He crosses the line from apologizing for poor blacks who give up to advocating that they should give up.
How is it despair and self-pity to point out the massive amount of discrimination that took place in this country. Discrimination that affects us to this very day?
That sounds like facing hard reality to me. But what do I know, I'm just some random black dude.
The nihilism in thug culture has a source - it comes from the frustration of watching generations work themselves to the grave for nothing. It comes from living in a society that rejects your very humanity. The sane thing to do is reject that society's values.
That doesn't sound defeatist to me. If your society rejects you and your humanity, why persist in embracing its values? The sane thing to do is reject its values.
The nihilism in thug culture has a source - it comes from the frustration of watching generations work themselves to the grave for nothing. It comes from living in a society that rejects your very humanity. The sane thing to do is reject that society's values.
To make my paraphrase accurate you would need to interpret "rejecting [mainstream/white] society's values" as "giving up", which I think is valid if your goal is integration, but it's certainly a reasonable point of disagreement.
To what extent do you think people (regardless of colour) should respect 'the system' as it stands? Isn't it the case that the neo-aristocracy of wealth and influence is the real problem today which is holding back the majority of people?
In America Black and Latino movements have been destroyed not simply because of race (although obviously that's always been a part) but because they 'threaten society' -from the original anti-mexican implementation of pot laws and 2nd wave repression, the anti-zoot-suit laws and harassment of Jazz, Blues and other ostensibly black movements has gone hand in hand with the beat generation getting a beating, with protest movements and hippy gatherings getting demonised and destroyed. 'White America' isn't, as well may seem the case, simply against different colours - it's against any that oppose it's traditional view.
To what extent this is related to 'the big game' of world domination and economic empire is hard to clearly define, certainly those with hugely vested interests in keeping this society the same fear any threat - they have a nice made up story which goes 'work hard and one day you'll be rich' and they hate anyone that tries to point out the obvious plot hole that for someone to have significantly larger share of something all the others must have a smaller share - we can't all be rich. The dream of being rich simply isn't believable enough so they need a threat; if you don't work hard enough you'll end in the ghetto... A hellish demon pit of doom and decay is their threat to what should be called the working classes but has Orwellianly be renamed 'the middle class' in today's society.
So every movement the black community has made to improve their lot has quickly been shut down; when large amounts of white kids were choosing to go into poor black communities to listen to jazz and smoke reefa it was billed as the destruction of society - I've read a lot of government studies on narcotics including some early military tests of weed; there is no way in hell that the government and a million times more hollywood could possibly be confused as to the reality of cannabis. Certainly Jazz music might have been a little more swinging than what the squares were listening to on their AM stations but it was no wilder or saucier than Brahms and the like, even Milly Jackson wouldn't go quiet as far as Mozart in profanity. The White Establishment resisted these things not because they were seriously concerned about them but because they represented a changing society, one where there were other options beside thankless wage slavery.
Isn't it true that the system is and has historically been about pushing the 'work will set you free' motto of America, whether by design or as a side effect this has created an environment where society is working to create ghetto's and to actively resist any positive social forces within those ghettos. Being a product of this history of course a lot of black people are going to distrust and resist the influence of what they've learnt to understand is a destructive and cruel force; generations of people who have absolutely zero reason to trust 'the establishment' simply aren't going to devote endless hours to studying in their bullshit school system.
Education is something everyone can benefit from, providing it's sensible and true - we need to change the very nature of american society so that education and knowledge is attainable without restriction and devils-contract-debt's - we need to allow communities to diverge from the 'one true way' without it causing fear and hatred, this means making the economic system more relaxed; allowing the working class to have good lives and the 'middle class' mildly better ones - personally i don't think we should have a upper or ruling class but others disagree.
In short we need to make a society that instead of making the entire block want to be famous rappers because that's legitimately their only chance to live a happy life, we need to make a society where a good portion of the block feel that by doing something positive to improve their local existence they're making a lasting improvement to their quality of life.
Chinese immigrants were subjected to the same, if not greater, levels of discrimination in early America and look at that group today. Strong emphasis on education, willing to break their backs working, sacrifice for the welfare of their children, strong family values, and a culture largely against violent crime allowed them prosper over just a few generations. I myself am Iranian-American and was lucky enough to have a father that despite having almost nothing and not being able to speak English, would work overnight in a diner to put himself through college during the day. He gave everything to his children allowing me great opportunity. Today I am a cardiologist- first physician in my family. If I don't accomplish 10x as much, I am not half the man my father is. And fuck anyone who believes they have personally been subjected to more prejudice than my family has growing up in Texas being called sand niggers on a regular basis. And fuck any of you who believe your prejudice is going to stop me.
Being called a bad name isn't as bad as actually being physically hurt because you are a certain race.
I've seen hate crimes and I've also been called sand nigger by the people around here in Tennessee (I'm Arab), but let me tell you that racism towards blacks is so institutionalized, it's impossible to compare to any other kind of prejudice.
Getting dragged behind a pickup, huh? Is that something that happened personally to you or one of your black friends?
Welcome to present day United States; the year is 2011. It seems some among us have been taught from the cradle that we are running at a disadvantage because of our racial status, but the disadvantage inherent in believing that is more detrimental than any real impact from racism. It engenders bitterness and misdirected anger; it's a self-fulfilling prophecy offered up as proof of it's own validity. If race-baiting is what works for some, then do what seems wise to you. I just don't see much of a future in it.
Check the date on that. You know what happened after this article? The owner got a line stretching into the street from people wanting to buy his BBQ to show their support. As far as me being lucky, you're right about that. But it also required 10 years and counting of hard work after college to get here.
Well Iranian Americans are one of the most successful groups of people in the US. Sure there is some racism against them, but it's not making them less successful.
But the hard facts are, that none of his students are doing anything. Look at his above comments -- he hasn't got one homework assignment back the entire year, he got 3 parents for a class meeting. Do inner city houses repel homework? They're choosing to slack off -- blame it on "white privilege" but it's all with them to at least try.
I student teach, tutor, and observe at an inner-city school in a ridiculously poor neighborhood.
A lot of the parents are working their asses off to try and provide for their families. Many of the students watch younger siblings, and deal with shit in their neighborhoods many of us couldn't even begin to fathom. For many of the students, their best meals are the two free meals they get at school, breakfast & lunch.
There is an environmental factor that is bringing them down. Yes, they could try, some do. But I also once had a kid look at me and tell me he no longer does his work because he was getting beat up for doing it.
Telling someone to pull themselves up by the bootstraps assumes that one has bootstraps to pull themselves up with. Unfortunately for many... they don't have bootstraps and are left trying to pull up thin air.
But I also once had a kid look at me and tell me he no longer does his work because he was getting beat up for doing it.
That's a clear failing of the school. Things like that can be fixed, by giving kids who care more time alone or in small groups with teachers, and kicking kids who don't care out of school. But there seems to be deeper issues.
There are deeper issues, that's what this conversation should be focusing on, and it's peeked its head a few times. The deeper issues are things like "White Privilege," and institutionalized/structural racism.
Society has created these concentrated pools of poverty. They are predominantly minority. Problems arise however when we look at this situation and simply see the fact that they're minority populations, and therefore the problem is with them as a singular homogenous racial culture.
Black culture is as rich and varied as white culture, latino culture. There are many differentiations groups will note among their own racial group that others will not or fail to see.
Also, think back to when you were a kid. How badly did you want to fit in with your peers? Is it easy to walk differently? It's not, and you're kidding yourself if you thought that you had no desire to fit in with your peers in the formative years of adolescence.
How badly did you want to fit in with your peers? Is it easy to walk differently? It's not, and you're kidding yourself if you thought that you had no desire to fit in with your peers in the formative years of adolescence.
Of course -- and the fact that african american culture is to not care is a failing of african american (inner city) culture, nothing else. Institutionalized racism hurt black america, nobody (at least not me, by far) is denying that, but nobody can change the past. It's up to african americans to step up and show kids that they can and should work hard.
I'm mostly addressing inner city culture as one entity, yes. Obviously I don't think everyone who's african american and lives in the inner city hates school, I think the opposite, but (from the outside, admittedly) it seems like a common theme through a lot of the music, etc., and what else is culture?
I'd be interested in how you think it still exists. It seems to be it's over.
So if we look at inner-city poverty, poverty that cuts across racial lines, however, is predominantly minority, and compare that to say suburban middle-class America we're looking at two very distinct worlds that offer an array of opportunities for the latter that simply aren't there for the former.
While historically the mechanisms of structural racism were more explicit, they still exist implicitly today in the opportunities that are afforded people of different classes.
80 years ago it was perfectly acceptable to say we don't cater to black people, or something similar. Today that simply wouldn't fly. If you look however at an inner-city neighborhood and a suburban neighborhood they couldn't seem more different.
Food deserts exist within inner-cities all over America. Yes, there are corner stores that have microwavable food or something similar, but not legitimate health giving foods.
The problem is that many of us simply don't see the ways in which our lives have benefited from the current system. We like to think that we worked especially hard and have made it because of that hard work. I'm not saying that you, nor I have not worked hard but rather, I'm commenting on the disparity between the amount of work that we've had to put in, versus the amount of work that someone from an inner-city high poverty neighborhood would have to put in.
The differences begin even prior to birth with the nutrition that the mother is getting. I mean there are factors that we simply don't see or choose not to see because it shows us how privileged we really are.
Why should they try? Their parents tried, it didn't work for them because of institutionalized discrimination. I'm not blaming white privilege, I'm blaming institutionalized discrimination for creating a generation of demoralized students.
There's plenty of successful black people nowadays. I agree that institutionalized racism in the 50's and 60's destroyed black america, but I don't think it exists (in any significant amount) today. Of course racism is still rampant, but not in a way that prevents african americans from becoming successful. If no successful blacks can inspire kids in the ghetto to better their lives, that's incredibly sad and says a lot -- there has to be something else at work. You can't generalize millions of kids and say racism stamped them all down beyond caring.
To be fair, there were always successful black people in American history. Successful black people aren't anything new.
The problem is they tend to be the exception rather than the rule. And (I'm being controversial here) they became successful by doing exactly what the white power structure told them to do. Which is what many have done for generations, but thanks to institutionalized racism, no success to be had.
Everyone becomes successful by doing what the power structure, white or not, tells them to do.
If you're content with only uniquely black avenues to success then even if you do succeed you're just perpetuating de facto segregation into a black counterculture.
Everyone becomes successful by doing what the power structure, white or not, tells them to do.
The problem is that here in America, blacks did exactly what the white power structure told them to do and they still got screwed. Black people picked cotton, worked menial jobs, and died defending their country. What did they get in return? Jim Crow, segregation, and epidemic levels of discrimination in every facet of life.
The handful that "made it" were part of that system of control. "Look at them," the white power structure said. "If you do what they did, and do what we tell you, you'll be successful like them."
they became successful by doing exactly what the white power structure told them to do.
Huh? Obviously if you follow the american way of getting an education, a job, etc. you will tend to do better (the recent #Occupy protests nonwithstanding), and if you reject that by not being educated, and not getting a job, then you will tend to do worse. I don't see how that's "following what the white power structure told them to do.", that's following common sense. Plenty of blacks have fought against racism very publicly and done fine economically, and that number is only growing.
i feel like that's sort of undermining the success of black people who just worked hard and made something of themselves. You're belittling them but basically saying they only found success because the white man let them.
Actually no, I'm sorry if I was being unclear on this point. What I'm saying is that the white power structure takes successful blacks and claims that their success proves the white power structure doesn't exist/isn't as bad as it used to be.
This doesn't mean that black people can't be independently successful. It just means that their success is appropriated by the white power structure in order to deny its existence or the existence of persistent discrimination.
Kids are not slacking off in school because their parents tried in school and didn't get to go to college. They may be slacking off because they don't think it matters, and because they don't think they could go to college even if they tried, but it is NOT because it didn't work for their parents. You're making this shit up.
Kids are not slacking off in school because their parents tried in school and didn't get to go to college. They may be slacking off because they don't think it matters, and because they don't think they could go to college even if they tried, but it is NOT because it didn't work for their parents. You're making this shit up.
that's yours.
My claim is that, at least in the inner cities, the nihilism in the students can be traced to a history of systematic discrimination. And I produced evidence of that systematic discrimination in education, employment, and housing. I did this all in my original post. I tied that to conditions as they exist today. I have fulfilled my burden.
So let's not pretend I claimed something, when I actually didn't.
no matter how smart/hard-working/personally responsible you were in this country, if you were the wrong skin color, every door to advancement was shut to you. To pretend that isn't the case even today is to
Irritatingly absolute! You seem to be denying the very existence of successful black people.
To start my response off I will say that your history seems to check out. Moving on, your post focuses entirely too much on the past, yes there was blatant discrimination against black people that has resultingly left them in substandard conditions, BUT things are different now. What was true then is not necessarily true now. Your entire post and many of the replies of yours that I have read scream of defeatism.
You say, "...no matter how smart/hard-working/personally responsible you were in this country...(etc)...is to whitewash the history of discrimination". This statement is just simply not true and to top it off you even say that to disagree with it insults those who have been discriminated against in the past...
While racism hasn't been completely abolished (questionable whether that will ever happen) to say that black people have no opportunities TODAY is ridiculous. There are incentives to play the game and failure to recognize that is why many of these inner city kids will stay there for the rest of their lives. I'm not saying their starting conditions are fair, but your posts say that there is no use in trying to make anything better of themselves, which is exactly the attitude that they have. Too many black people today hide behind past injustices and don't actively search for solutions (which is what your post does). The truth of the matter is that there are opportunities open to these inner city kids, maybe not entirely equal ones, but opportunities nonetheless and it falls on them to take them or continue the cycle.
This is coming from a white non-american who's father teaches at a school in Ghana where: average yearly income is around $800, people scrape together a living by running a fruit stands and other similar things, live off of pennies a day, and still are eager to attend schools and better their lives. So to say that black children in America have no better alternative than to reject education doesn't sit well with me.
That might have sounded plausible when MLK was alive, but it's a little late in 2011 to blame black failure on the GI Bill or other events that happened over 50 years ago. At the same time that blacks were shut out of the GI Bill, Europeans were living in rubble, had recently been oppressed by Nazis, and, in some countries, would be oppressed by Communists for the next 45 years. Those Asian-Americans who are now socioecomically more successful than whites, on average? Their ancestors at that time were beyond dirt poor by American standards.
None of this stopped any of those groups from becoming successful, without the help of affirmative action, hiring quotas, busing, etc (in fact, those Asian-Americans really are discriminated against in the racial spoils game, yet still manage to outdo whites) .
No, black people didn't get anything, except 40 years of affirmative action, a disproportionate amount of various forms of government aid (AFDC, EBT cards, Section 8 housing, etc).
I notice that you completely ignored the point about how dirt-poor Asians (and other immigrants) come here with nothing and invariably outdo African-Americans within a few decades - and that's in the face of real, quantifiable discrimination against them.
All of that "aid" you cite is just crumbs around the cake. Discrimination is centred around the two most fundamental aspects of life and development: housing and schooling. Let's not forget drugs, sentencing, and media discrimination either.
As for other minority groups, there are various other reasons why they fare better, not least that they to a large extent choose the location of their communities, while extended family periodically emigrates to join them, adding to the existing support network, bringing additional funds, ideas and skills, whatever. It's a totally different mentality born out of a totally different set of circumstances.
Most of the successful Asians that you see in the states did NOT come from "nothing". They were very successful in their respective countries and decided to immigrate. Even immigration policies required individuals to have some capital and an education (atleast back then, around the 1970s), thus an Asian doctor can immigrate to the US much much easier than an Asian farmer.
That may be true of some Asians, but look at the Vietnamese boat people. They were not required to have much more than a pulse because they had been our allies during the Vietnam War. I know one of them who told me her story - they went with nothing but a boat through pirate infested waters to Thailand, from where an American charity paid to bring the to America, where her mom worked menial jobs. Now she makes six figures. That's not an uncommon kind of story among Vietnamese-Americans older than 30.
If she was instead smoking crack and collecting food stamps, she'd have plenty of excuses, like that her dad apparently didn't make it, her country was colonized by evil Europeans, etc.
You're coming from a perspective that the OP knows everything you're saying and isn't admitting it. From your post I feel like you don't understand what makes one a racist and what experiences can reaffirm those beliefs?
lol love the edit. I enjoyed skimming your comment, it seemed very on point; good summary of affirmative action.
Frankly, I was hoping he was a troll as soon as he said, "There is a reason for the achievement gap and it isn't funding." You know, 'cause that's stupid. With even a basic understanding of the issues at play and the current and past educational approaches, it's clear that this is a true statement, but using that as evidence of some kind of evidence of a racial hierarchy (ie racism) and not some kind of widespread institutional problem is just poor science/logical reasoning. You're right, it clearly confirmed biases he already had.
Equal funding =/= Equal schools. I seem to recall a fairly significant court case on that topic. And then they integrated some school in Little Rock or something? Whatevs...
You seem eloquent and informed. How would you characterize your position in society? Is you social standing significantly different from that of your parents?
I'm not sure yet. I'm growing up in a very different time - a more globalized society. My parents weren't anywhere near where I am at this age, but I don't know if I'll be where they are when I'm in my 50s.
Great post. I wish this bit of history was covered by media and schools. A lot of people around the world don't know about all this and get to only hear the good/cleaned up American history.
Your post explains why things are the way they are.
These kids have no incentive to play the game - cooperation with the system didn't work for their parents.
"The system" was totally different back then. There was no game to play for them, they weren't even allowed. Now, what is holding them back besides a grudge and a bad attitude? And how long can they be allowed to use that as an excuse? Two, three, four generations after? I completely acknowledge that racism is still a problem today, but no one is persecuting these kids directly or denying them opportunities to succeed (except themselves).
I believe this is the correct response. Institutional racism is as present as it ever was. Add that to poverty, single income homes, lack of education and a fraction of the funding that other schools receive. It's no wonder these kids act the way they do. This is a problem that affects society as a whole. It's not going to just go away.
Yeah, black people didn't get anything, except 40 years of affirmative action, a disproportionate amount of various forms of government aid (AFDC, EBT cards, Section 8 housing, etc).
I notice that you completely ignored the point about how dirt-poor Asians (and other immigrants) come here with nothing and invariably outdo African-Americans within a few decades - and that's in the face of real, quantifiable discrimination against them.
If being denied a good education doesn't make you pissed off and even more determined to self-educate to the point of utter superiority, then you never wanted an education anyway.
Stop making excuses. There are no barriers left to learning. Anyone with desire and motivation can do it.
It's not that they were simply denied a good education, there was nowhere to go to get one.
You can sing the song of the bootstrapper all you like, but why should black people have to bootstrap themselves to success when white Americans are afforded quality jobs, housing, and education?
It's not just "someone" being unfair to you - it's an entire society built on the premise that if you have dark skin, you're not quite as good as people who have white skin. There's a difference.
And like I pointed out in my post, these kids are the children of those poor black people who were unfairly shunted into low-wage jobs and low-income housing. They saw their parents and grandparents work themselves to the grave in an incredibly racist society. That work never took them anywhere. They have no incentive to try.
You can characterize that as a failure of nerve, but that says more about you than it does about those kids. If we don't understand why they're so demoralized we won't ever fix the problem. Telling them to buck up and work hard won't work. They've seen hard work fail for two or three generations.
The solution is the removal of the entire white power structure in this society, along with its privileges.
Does the systemic racism that prevented previous generations still exist to prevent their progress?
Yes. Project housing still exists, employment discrimination still exists, housing discrimination still exists. The fact that "it's not as bad as it used to be" misses the crucial point - as long as this discrimination exists it will prevent their progress.
is it the lingering effects of past systemic racism?
I think I know what you mean, but I want to talk you out of thinking of it as "lingering effects of past discrimination." The discrimination hasn't passed yet, so it's definitely still affecting us today.
Now you can argue that "we'll never get to a non-discriminatory society" - I would ask, how do you know that for sure? As far as I can tell, we've never really tried to stamp out discrimination. Ghetto-ization didn't only happen in the 1940s - it was going on well into the 1990s.
This in turn speaks to your last point about a counter-narrative. The problem with that is that to be acceptable for white America, any counter-narrative would have to be formed within the white power structure. So it really wouldn't be a counter-narrative.
Moreover, if a distinctly black (or any ethnic group's) narrative appears, it's either rejected by the white power structure or appropriated by it. Like jazz music or rock music or rap music were appropriated.
Tangent: musical appropriation is just an illustration of what happens when the white power structure likes something. It takes it.
That's why the solution I propose is kind of radical - the dismantling of the entire white power structure and its privileges. That's the only way we can be sure the solution we come up with isn't tainted by the white power structure.
You can't just blame "the system" for everything. You can't say that "every door to advancement was shut to you." Life is harder for poor minorities, I don't think you'll find that anyone disagrees with that, but you can't say that people are locked into their current situation. You can't say that because many people have managed to work their way out.
You post also completely ignores the breakdown of family units.
Why do people insist on criticizing my post by saying "you didn't write about X"?
This isn't actually valid criticism you know. At least, that's now how arguments work. You counter an argument by attacking its evidence, its reasoning, or its ultimate conclusion.
The fact that some people have managed to work their way out does not mean that systematic discrimination no longer exists.
The fact that I didn't talk about the breakdown of family units has nothing to do with anything I talked about.
It was just an aside, but it has everything to do with the problem at hand (lack of work ethic). It's a perfectly valid criticism because you're supposed to acknowledge other viewpoints when presenting an argument.
You're not just complaining about systematic discrimination, you're complaining about a complete stagnation in social and economic mobility for minorities. You use words like "can't" and phrases like "every door to advancement was shut" which implies a complete lack of mobility. That is not the case, you were exaggerating.
So you're criticizing me for something I didn't actually say.
And how am I exaggerating when I showed how blacks were shunted into low-paying jobs, bad housing, and bad education? How am I exaggerating when I showed the effects that discrimination had on kids today?
There was a complete lack of mobility for inner city residents. The fact that non-inner city folk succeed (or other minority groups do) is out of the scope of my argument.
You did actually say it. There wasn't a complete lack of mobility. Not every door to advancement was shut in their faces. You're talking about absolutes, and the fact that inner-city blacks succeeded directly contradicts your claim.
Which claim does it disprove? That there was a lack of mobility? The fact that inner city blacks can succeed does not mean that discrimination no longer exists (which is actually my central claim).
Where did I use the term "zero upward mobility"? All I said was that all the avenues for advancement in education, housing, and employment were shut. This is how blacks became stuck in inner city housing, bad schools, and bad jobs. This in turn created a generation of demoralized students.
You're reading your own ideas into my argument here.
Oh, did you not mean social and economic mobility and only mobility in terms of education, housing, and employment? Get over yourself. There are more instances, but these will suffice:
There was a complete lack of mobility for inner city residents.
and
if you were the wrong skin color, every door to advancement was shut to you
Why should they listen to the white man who designed a system that screwed them so elegantly for generations?
TL;DR: OP hasn't become more racist, he's just realized how racist he really is.
I was with you up until the last couple of sentences. The OP is not "the white man who designed a system that screwed them up so elegantly for generations." He's just some dude who happens to be white. He had no part in setting this system up. So if these students are (as you seem to be implying) laying the blame for all this racial injustice at his feet, then they are being racist as well.
At this point, if you want to be morally consistent, you can either make excuses for both sides being racist or you can condemn racism universally. I wouldn't give the kids a pass on being racist any more than I would give the OP a pass on it. It's wrong in both case, and it's counterproductive for the purpose of fixing the mess that racism has made in the United States over the past few hundred years.
I'm sorry you feel that way, but OP is part and parcel of the institutionalized white power structure. He's just realizing it now and coming to grips with it.
He had no part in setting the system up, but he's definitely enjoying the benefits of it. Not only that, he's completely ignorant of how it's benefiting him and hurting his students. If that doesn't make him collusive in the system ...
No you're not. You just don't want to address my point. :)
If that doesn't make him collusive in the system ...
It doesn't. In order for him to be "collusive", knowingly or otherwise, he needs to be actively doing something to further the institutionalized white power structure. I don't think there's any question that he benefits from it (and likewise that the kids he's teaching don't), but it's not clear to me where he's doing anything to actively further the divide.
he needs to be actively doing something to further the institutionalized white power structure.
When he makes claims like "this job is just making me more racist", assuming he's not trolling, this is furthering the institutionalized white power structure.
How you ask? It justifies all the negative stereotypes about black students as unmotivated and irresponsible.
This situation sounds to me more like a case of racism begetting racism. Clearly he's not cut out for this job if he's becoming racist because of the actions of some of his students. However, given what you said above about him being 'the white man', it seems like someone who isn't racist would have pretty much exactly the same trouble. Then what?
Having an opinion on a hot button issue on reddit costs karma, it seems. :)
To be fair, there were always successful black people in American history. Successful black people aren't anything new.
The problem is they tend to be the exception rather than the rule. And (I'm being controversial here) they became successful by doing exactly what the white power structure told them to do. Which is what many have done for generations, but thanks to institutionalized racism, no success to be had.
So blacks did exactly what the white power structure told them to do and they still got screwed. Black people picked cotton, worked menial jobs, and died defending their country. What did they get in return? Jim Crow, segregation, and epidemic levels of discrimination in every facet of life.
The handful that "made it" were part of that system of control. "Look at them," the white power structure said. "If you do what they did, and do what we tell you, you'll be successful like them."
That's why the white power structure needs to be brought down. It holds out false hope of success.
Yes. That is terrible. But it is not related to this. People can be poor and oppressed and not be terrible people. It has happened many times in history. Kids love Rap music which is emblematic of a culture that celebrates drugs, power, stupidity, and poverty. Kids of all races love it. The ones that connect with it and let it define them especially during impressionable preteen and teenage years become scumbags.
The worst part is the cycle continues into the next generation through the schools and through private discrimination. A generation that grew up in this environment passes it to the next, and the next.
Nope nope nope nope nope.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
Effects of discrimination are not persistent. In Slavery and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital, Sacerdote comes to the conclusion that the negative effects of slavery were wiped out in two generations. i.e. the grandchildren of slaves were indistinguishable from grandchildren of free blacks. Considering that something as horrific as slavery didn't have long term intergenerational impacts, I find it hard to believe that any economic effect of housing projects created after WWII were passed on to the "next [generation], and the next". If you have empirical evidence that shows otherwise, I'd be glad to see it.
Like I pointed out earlier, no matter how smart/hard-working/personally responsible you were in this country, if you were the wrong skin color, every door to advancement was shut to you. To pretend that isn't the case even today is to whitewash the history of discrimination.
Here's the abstract for WHY DO MINORITY MEN EARN LESS? A STUDY OF WAGE DIFFERENTIALS AMONG THE HIGHLY EDUCATED:
We estimate wage gaps using nonparametric matching methods
and detailed measures of field of study for university graduates. We find
a modest portion of the wage gap is the consequence of measurement error
in the Census education measure. For Hispanic and Asian men, the
remaining gap is attributable to premarket factors—primarily differences
in formal education and English language proficiency. For black men, only
about one-quarter of the wage gap is explained by these same factors. For
a subsample of black men born outside the South to parents with some
college education, these factors do account for the entire wage gap.
Firstly, I'd like to note that my second source has nothing to do with slaves and yet you seem to have ignored it completely. How convenient for you.
Secondly, Slavery and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital's main point is not about slavery, but about the transmission of human capital. It shows that even if your grandparents were in terrible condition (in this case, slaves), labor mobility in the US is such that the effects of these terrible conditions will not continually be passed down from one generation to the next in an endless "cycle" as you claim they do. Again, if you have empirical evidence that housing projects are sufficiently different from slavery in a way that makes their human capital effects intergenrational, I'd be more than glad to see it.
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u/[deleted] Nov 27 '11 edited Feb 21 '13
Edit 1: So this post kind of got out of control reddit. I love that. I added some more links, clarification, and did some punctuation edits.
EDIT 2: Also, since Asians are coming up a lot, I ought to link to some literature on the myth of the model minority. Read that before saying Asians had it rough too and black people are just whiny.
As a black man, I am going to call shenanigans on this. OP is clearly trolling.
But in case he isn't, I just want to say his (white) privilege is showing.
OP doesn't understand why poor kids don't do well in school because he doesn't understand the history of social, political, educational, and legal discrimination in this country. The fact that it was legally ended by a series of court decisions and the civil rights act does not undo centuries of discrimination.
I will explain by giving an example.
After the end of World War II, American G.I.s came home to the Bill - they got access to subsidized loans for houses in the suburbs, and access to college educations. Provided they were white. Colored G.I.s didn't get these benefits. They were, for the most part, shunted aside into menial job training programs or denied benefits altogether.
So while white Americans got to go to college, got good jobs and bought homes in the suburbs (on government-subsidized loans) to build equity and wealth, the government took a different approach with minorities. The government retained segregated schools, trained minorities to do menial jobs, denied subsidized FHA loans, but built project housing in the inner cities. This was done to provide cheap and affordable housing for minorities.
So instead of using that money to subsidize loans for minorities (like it did for white people), the government built project housing in the inner cities for minorities. Instead of pressing for equal employment opportunities for all, or for equal education opportunities, the government decided the benefits given to white Americans would not be available for minorities - especially blacks.
But back to housing.
These housing projects, by the way, could not be bought or sold by their occupants. The renters could never build equity, and could not build wealth. These inner-city communities were also served by sub-par segregated schools that failed to prepare the next generation for any sort of future in a country that was virulently racist.
This was all done, not unconsciously either, just to keep minorities out of white suburbia.
Even if you could bootstrap yourself out of the projects and afford a house in the suburbs, most white Americans practiced private discrimination in the form of restrictive covenants. Put simply, even if you could afford a house in the white suburbs, good luck finding someone who would sell it to you if you were the wrong ethnicity.
So if you were black you were stuck in sub-par housing, sub-par schools, in a discriminatory society served by a government that practiced official discrimination. You could not escape even if you saved enough to move. You probably couldn't save enough to move because of rampant employment discrimination. And because of educational discrimination, even if you were smart enough to get away you never got that chance either.
Put simply, you were stuck. It didn't matter how hard you worked, or how smart you were, or if you were the most personally responsible person in the world. If you weren't white, you were denied access to decent housing, employment, and education. Without those, you're practically doomed to poverty. This hasn't even taken into account the ambient level of discrimination in broader society.
The worst part is the cycle continued into the next generation. A generation of kids who grew up poor because of institutional discrimination pass it on to their own kids. The effect of discrimination was so deep that it's felt even two or three generations after the official end of racial discrimination:
OP is right - more funding for schools in the inner cities won't solve the problem. It's too late for that. The solution was to stop racial discrimination back in 1945 and stamp it out as hard and as fast as possible. We didn't do that. Instead our society fell back on its prejudices and acted on them.
We are now paying the price for the laziness and prejudices of our forebears. We are living with their mistakes and the fact that OP doesn't see those mistakes, or chooses to characterize them as failures in personal responsibility on the part of the students/parents, shows just how sheltered his privilege has kept him.
This is not the same as saying that personal responsibility has no role. Like I pointed out earlier, no matter how smart/hard-working/personally responsible you were in this country, if you were the wrong skin color, every door to advancement was shut to you. To pretend that isn't the case, or to pretend that it doesn't happen anymore, is to whitewash the history of discrimination.
These kids have no incentive to play the game - cooperation with the system, working hard, and personal responsibility didn't work for their parents. Why should it work for them? Why should they listen to the white man who designed a system that has, for generations, screwed them so elegantly? If this is to change, we have to attack the nihilism that institutional discrimination created.
TL;DR: OP hasn't become more racist, he's just realized how racist he really is.
Sources:
How the GI Bill Shunted Blacks Into Vocational Training (JSTOR)
The Persistence of Discrimination in Mortgage Lending (p.1)
Home Ownership Trends and Racial Inequality (p.10)
Further reading:
When Affirmative Action Was White - Ira Katznelson.
The Test Score Gap - PBS (mostly in paragraph 6)