"It is often argued that it is unfair to compare black students to immigrants, because they had a particularly pronounced incentive to come here and are therefore likely to push their kids harder than we have a right to expect native-born parents to. There is merit to the observation..." Why? Pushing your kids *hard* is something white and Asian parents often do, and that's why their kids succeed. Why can't we 'expect' black parents to do the same?
As you and Glenn have often noted, black immigrant families from countries with slavery legacy nevertheless do much better than their AA peers here *because their parents push them*. Once again, a problem that *black people* can solve. It's not racism or this allegedly all-pervasive 'white supremacy stacked against us' that's holding them back, it's not trying her in school and to ignore the malign influences of those around them.
I was a graduate student at a UC campus in the mid-80's. My roommate was a first year med student. One Friday evening, I joined a group of his classmates for beer. They joking referred to themselves as "minority" students. My roommate confided a small, nagging envy. The "majority" students knew they were there based on individual talent and accomplishment. He would never know how his race influenced in his admission. He was robbed of the assurance that he, as an individual, met the standard. His "minority" classmates silently concurred. A lifetime of doubt.
“Dispreferenced”? It seems obvious to me he is referencing Kendi’s philosophy that the only way to remedy discrimination is discrimination. Why does John try to change what is currently going on with racial discrimination against whites and asians as “dispreference”? Call it what it is…. Discrimination… being a linguist, John’s knows the impact of the word “discrimination” why is he trying to soften the impact of what is happening?
I will leave it to the stakeholders to decide if affirmative action should end. John being one and the few in the comments here apparently believe it should end and that is all well and good. But if you think it will make the racists here and elsewhere hate you any less you are sadly mistaken.
I had forgotten about this segment with Glenn and John. I don't know how because it has to be one of my all-time favorites.
As a teen matriculating into college in '83, I was confronted with these feelings big-time, and so were most of my peers. It was an experience that ultimately led to my later and permanent disdain for affirmative action policies, particularly the ones that focused on African-Americans.
*Before* my friends and I entered (predominately White) colleges and universities, we believed we were ready because our elders led us to believe just that. But in most cases, it took less than a semester for us to realize we had been hoodwinked so to speak. And suddenly, you are this kid having to face some really deep insecurities.
We have all experienced some version of this, but this is different. Instead of being forced to rise up and confront the issue as is, pass or fail, you are instead immediately embraced by this mesmerizing culture of progressive excuse-making and patronizing, which feels pretty good at first and even empowering later on. But deep down, somehow or another, you realize it's a false power. But one that nevertheless sustains indefinitely until you finally decide to break free and deal with reality.
If and when you ever do, it's pretty late in the game. I hate to be cliché and say, "It's a vicious cycle", but it is.
And the irony is crazy. This nonsense not only affects African-Americans negatively under the guise of helping, but it simultaneously feeds into the most basic beliefs of true-blue White racists.
If and when you ever do finally wake up and achieve, legitimately, real empowerment sets in, and it's a much better feeling. Trust me.
Yet still, you cannot fully escape the frustrations that come with observing generations behind you experiencing a similar madness; in some cases, for less legitimate reasons.
Fact: There are people in this world who genuinely believe that Black people are innately inferior intellectually and that there is nothing anybody can do about it. There are also people who believe quite strongly that White people are innately and *especially* gifted intellectually. (And it's not just White people who buy into these ideas.)
To be blunt, I am definitely not one of those people. In fact, in my experience, many of the folks who believe as such are typically not very deep thinkers. (I am trying to be nice here.) I would even venture to say that a lot of them are dealing with their own versions of inferiority complex.
That said, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Because if you are a serious person--or a serious people--realizing other people have self-esteem issues will never cure your own. We must all deal with our own issues of insecurity and underachievement, one way or another; but preferably in ways that achieve genuine, positive results.
The racial preferences argument that McWhorter critiques is based on reasons for disadvantage. Reasons are vulnerable to glass half-full/empty perception and are ad-hoc or random. I suggest the racial preferences advocates create a structured argument based on rules, where “disadvantage X violates fairness rule Y”. APA should offer guidance.
An APA-mentored structure should categorize official vs. unofficial privilege. Officially, I can drive a car, vote, enter a nightclub and buy alcohol, tobacco, firearms because I am over 21; official privilege.
On alleged “advantage” of immigration-incentivized families; there is much cultural and historical variation. Some children of immigrants that I know will be lucky if they can complete a remedial high-school equivalency program.
Pushing a kid, any kid, into a pool that is above his competitive ability, is a bad idea. Marxism traveled on the rails that you “pull down” from envy that which you cannot “push up” through additional effort. But the undeserving scholar, athlete or anything else will still be just an opportunity for someone else that was thrown away out of signaling.
I'm 72 years old, and learned through hard experience to never play by your adversaries' rules. Play in the real world! I worked in a very ruthless organization that didn't give a rat's ass about meritocracy or facts.
I couldn't read the entire article because I refuse to pay The Atlantic for anything. I think John is using his own family experience as both a child and a parent to say that there are some Black kids whose experience is similar enough to the white kids with whom they attend school that they should be judged exactly the same--also the kid a few shows ago who was confused, "Am I oppressed?" But there are probably some other middle-class Black kids who don't have family networks that know a lot about the college application process (or even who will say to them, "Ta-Nehisi. You're not going to 13th grade." It was a great line on the part of Coates, Sr., what can I say?) who don't know what their grades and test scores would get them into even if affirmative action didn't exist. Other kids may be treated identically with poor Black kids by the schools they attend for a whole host of reasons.
Can't you simply click on the "Read ->" just under "An guest essay by John McWhorter" and just above the number of comments and the new comment window? When I do that, I can scroll down to the text of the essay. No Atlantic involved at all.
Ah, my mistake. Rothstein's piece was a link too far for me. I, too, find the assumption that people will be subbed to all these different sources endlessly frustrating. My nemesis is the WSJ's firewall, though its crossword puzzle section—recycled LA Times fare—is readily accessible.
All these subscriptions and the prices they are asking are one of my triggers, so here I go again.
You used to be able to subscribe to online journals (anything from say WSJ to Gray Zone to Reason and everything in between) for around $50/yr and get access to a variety of commentors and people actually doing journalist work.
Now everyone's off on Substack going solo and asking the same price (or more) to read their commentary on the passing scene. Sorry, I have a budget to spread around, and most of you ain't getting' a piece. And you don't need a PhD in economics like Glenn to know that I'm not the only creature in existence with a "budget constraint", however high or low it might be. In fact, every creature that has ever crawled out of the ooze has one.
So most of these people will fail to draw many subscribers, at least at these rates. They remind me of the kids whose career plan is to be a rapper or a professional athlete. Most will never be heard from.*
(*Unless, for example, as in the case of one of the former, they die under a police officer's knee.)
Reminds me. Let me know if and when any of my links dead end into a sub required no-go. If so, I'll see if I can find an alternative non-sub required source. Hard to tell whether it's a "protected" piece or not when you're already subbed to the site. (This should be a feature sites put in place to distinguish the two types of material.)
Imagine a world where every American child had access to top tier education, athletics and three healthy meals a day. Instead we get bussing, affirmative action, racist math, and gay porn.
It is time everyone just realized this problem is not intended to be fixed, otherwise it would have been a long time ago.
Precisely. And the imagine that high intellect students are prepared according to their aptitude and high mechanical students are prepared according to their aptitude and every student had a solid grounding in a classical education. What a world that would be.
Bussing: do we still have bussing? My county has “centers” which gives the best and brightest a chance to go to a “better” school. You are screwed if you are normal in a sucky part of the county.
Alternative action: don’t know if that means anything in k-12. Agree that college is not the place to fix earlier failures.
Racist math: this one boggles me. There are better ways to teach math. When I went to school there was “partial credit” to account for good mathematical thinking but getting the wrong answer. I can see from my kids, that such thinking is not predominating now. Now, there is no partial credit but grade inflation and lots of extra credit. The white supremacy is the “focusing on getting the right answer”.. I agree that the thinking is more important. I am biased. I missed exactly one point on a test (I believe it was ”mass transfer” in chemical engineering when I multiplied 3*2 and got 5. It didn’t affect the answer significantly, and was clearly a stupid math error amongst much more complex concepts. So “white supremacy” in math is stupid, but math is really worth partial credit.
Gay porn: I’m anti porn in general, but that isn’t school that is causing this problem. More regulation? I don’t know, but it’s a weird thing to add to the list of ways the public schools fail us. It’s worth sticking to the utter failure to teach math and reading to graduates.
Amy, why don't the parents move (with their smart kids in tow) to where the opportunity exists? As I recall, there existed a strong pull of talented Hungarians, especially Jews, to Budapest during the early 20th century where intellectual and artistic talent was concentrated. If that's the case where you are, it should be a simple matter for those motivated to do so (even at some level of personal sacrifice) to "vote with their feet," no?
As I recall, there has been a marked drop in people moving for better opportunities. I’m not a sociologist, so I don’t know why. I know when I had the reason to, I did just that. But perhaps that is a mindset not everyone has. I have a lot of cousins, and to the one, the willingness to move away from where they grew up is correlated with their economic success. We are talking white country boys… so…?
Yes, they are teaching gay porn in schools, and no, bussing isn't around anymore, but it once served as a "solution" when the real solution is providing good schools.
Break a mirror, intend to fix it (after your 7 years of bad luck, natch). Have at it.
Mix flour and eggs and sugar and milk together and bake. Then realize you need an egg for something else. Intend to retrieve it from the cake. Have at it.
Not everything is fixable. And almost nothing having to do with people is reversible. Go ahead and break someone's trust in you. That should illuminate matters sufficiently.
Schools are buildings, easily built where and when you want. Good schools are buildings with good students in them. Do you understand the difference?
If you're providing "decent food" to children, then their parents must not be doing so. Why not? How do you propose to change the parents' behavior in tending to their children (or at least have no more of them to be similarly neglected)?
The most significant economic unit, and life is economic at its simplest level, is the nuclear family: a man and woman raising the children they created together. We can bend and tweak and excuse other models out of compassion, but they do not stand up on empirical evidence.
We adopted several children (hold your applause…no signaling here), and the data on all “progressive” family definitions turns up inferior outcomes. Trot out the “bad father” and “blame the victim” narratives, but the core data does not lie.
The problem with Blacks and the lower classes is that we have cavalierly destroyed the family and shamed anyone stupid enough to defend it in mixed company.
Yeah, it helps when you don't sell the economic base out to foreign workers and wreck the neighborhoods, but in the meantime, investing in schools is how you produce to good students.
Investing in quality food and making it available in neighborhoods where today people shop at liquor stores would help to.
You act like this all has been a bottom up problem. It is top down and on purpose.
Speaking from the outside, I believe racism today remains very much alive, in large part because all of us have been taught the idea of race is real. When you take a stand that race is a false idea, that it has no more intellectual validity than astrology, a new perspective can take hold, one with a jaw dropping realization of how incredibly stupid racism has been. Yes, we all knew it was vile but now we can add stupid. An example: Would you buy into the notion that Taurus people are meant for physical labor? Or that Sagittarius people are hot headed? Of course not. But for centuries people thought descendants of Africans were meant for physical labor. How stupid can you get?
60 years ago Affirmative Action was a decent start to remedy to this stupidity. Isn't it time to go after the root cause? Race is a */stupid idea/*; We are all equal in our humanity and deserve to be treated equally.
"When you take a stand that race is a false idea, that it has no more intellectual validity than astrology, a new perspective can take hold, one with a jaw dropping realization of how incredibly stupid racism has been. Yes, we all knew it was vile but now we can add stupid."
Racism is a power relationship. Africans were brought here to mal-distribute massive generational wealth and power to whites. Racism is a competitive relationship between groups for ownership and control of resources for wealth and power. Europeans got the head start with genocide, black chattel slavery, billions of acres of free indigenous land, Jim Crow, apartheid, and colonization.
Racism isn't about getting along; it's a team sport. For example, the Koreans own and control the billion dollar black hair products industry: Manufacturing, distribution, and retail. Do blacks own and control Korean nail salons or restaurants? The Arabs own and control most of the gas stations in predominately black Detroit. Furthermore, many have entered the bail bond businesses. Blacks have never been part of the race. Defaulting isn't an option.
Stupid racism? How about stupid social integration that's not measurable, not creating black group wealth and empowerment in order to deal seriously with racism? How does sleeping with Becky empower me? When it sours, Becky goes back on code. Meritorious Manumission doesn't make logical sense. Shelby Steele's advocation of bargaining/begging for white affirmation/respect?
The Asians are bouncing dollars around in their communities several times before it leaves and taking wealth out of black communities. Jews? Arabs? Blacks: zero!
Glenn Loury occasionally rants about Blacks not being patriotic enough, which greatly pisses me off. Blacks have been the most patriotic group since they landed on this soil, having fought in every major war. He hasn't served in the military or in law enforcement. Glenn contributed to the "crack epidemic" in the 1980s, relating he was stressed out. Lol! He talks tough on fighting black on black crime with Draconian measures without a real proactive plan(s), but he was given a second chance with a slap on his wrist. Nonetheless, black communities were devastated by the crack cocaine crisis.
And you want to cowardly run away into the arms and comfort of white women.
Charles, you have a lot of work in resolving your personal internal conflicts. They're very obvious. Your ongoing begging for white affirmation is quite nauseating. My allies are not kneeling and sucking d... Many are doing exceptionally well, including myself.
My late grandfather, who owned a successful 400-farm under segregation, didn't get on his knees for the white man. He almost killed a white neighbor behind a property boundary dispute. Three of his sons were military veterans, ready to defend him and their families.
I think it will take a major catastrophic event in this country for black folks to wake the f**kup. Imagine you sucking Richard Spencer's or Jared Taylor's nuts, begging for your life? January 6 could have led to that. That would be hilarious to witness. Or perhaps you would have been a collaborator, like the Jewish collaborators (meritorious manumission traitors) during the German Nazi regime. Lol!!!!
Lastly, your riddled exchange with Bicker is very dorky. Some strange shit!
Just in the off chance that you have any curiosity at all about the strange thread attached to your comment, Bicker once told me a comment I wrote on a Glenn & John post was the stupidest he'd ever read.
So, FWIW, congratulations--I guess. Wear it with pride. I did.
This is a tough one. Your crime is already dead and buried and its soul burning in hell for all eternity. But this body is still warm and the pool of blood yet to congeal. It's got astrology, stupidity, and mendacity in quantities too copious to measure. He's even got "root cause," "equal in our humanity," and "deserve to be treated equally" IN THE SAME PARAGRAPH!
I'm sorry, LM. I gotta pull your paper, my friend. We have a new champion.
Congratulations, Mr. Nelson. Your prize will be coming soon in the mail inside a Publisher's Clearinghouse package—simply fill out all the requested information and you're a guaranteed winner!
Tough standards, but infinite opportunity for those willing and wanting to learn the great arts and sciences of western and American civilization. This should include a liberal arts underpinning acquired in elementary and high school. For example knowledge of the history and biology of the human species and how we evolved from the slime, became primates in the Eden of Africa and then left and dispersed around the world. A high school degree should certify that a person understands how to read and write and speak the common language, but it should also indicate a knowledge of world history and of the founding and history of our own republic. All this so as to insure loyalty to the republic and knowledge of its constitution and the duties of a citizen. This is paramount for the conduct of public business the common good and our very survival during war. We need to keep our land and resources and military the best possible shape because of international competitive pressure which always increases. The rest of the world does not care about our decadent modern sentimentality. So american educational standards and methods must reflect the real world : many levels of certification are possible but each should. be set by a long historical tradition or an industry group or a union or a professional association. International or federal agencies can also set degree requirements for some professions. Socio-economic status or race should be used to allocate government aid among accepted applicants.
As a minority, I have always pushed myself to achieve. I have never expected special consideration for education or jobs.
Judge me on my abilities fairly is all I expected, and I have done well, with God's grace.
As John McWhorter says, we all have obstacles, but we have to figure out the part of the solution that depends on us (paraphrasing).
And yes I went through overt discrimination, but I had a drive -- no one can stop me from reaching my goals. I am nobody's victim!
Too bad , John, you can’t quite come out and say it: Rothstein believes Blacks have lower IQs but wants to pretend he doesn’t AND blame whites.
Colleges can’t solve the single parent problem, and that’s the biggest problem.
"It is often argued that it is unfair to compare black students to immigrants, because they had a particularly pronounced incentive to come here and are therefore likely to push their kids harder than we have a right to expect native-born parents to. There is merit to the observation..." Why? Pushing your kids *hard* is something white and Asian parents often do, and that's why their kids succeed. Why can't we 'expect' black parents to do the same?
As you and Glenn have often noted, black immigrant families from countries with slavery legacy nevertheless do much better than their AA peers here *because their parents push them*. Once again, a problem that *black people* can solve. It's not racism or this allegedly all-pervasive 'white supremacy stacked against us' that's holding them back, it's not trying her in school and to ignore the malign influences of those around them.
I was a graduate student at a UC campus in the mid-80's. My roommate was a first year med student. One Friday evening, I joined a group of his classmates for beer. They joking referred to themselves as "minority" students. My roommate confided a small, nagging envy. The "majority" students knew they were there based on individual talent and accomplishment. He would never know how his race influenced in his admission. He was robbed of the assurance that he, as an individual, met the standard. His "minority" classmates silently concurred. A lifetime of doubt.
“Dispreferenced”? It seems obvious to me he is referencing Kendi’s philosophy that the only way to remedy discrimination is discrimination. Why does John try to change what is currently going on with racial discrimination against whites and asians as “dispreference”? Call it what it is…. Discrimination… being a linguist, John’s knows the impact of the word “discrimination” why is he trying to soften the impact of what is happening?
I will leave it to the stakeholders to decide if affirmative action should end. John being one and the few in the comments here apparently believe it should end and that is all well and good. But if you think it will make the racists here and elsewhere hate you any less you are sadly mistaken.
A repost from "The Burden of Self-Knowledge" (a couple months ago).
Seemed relevant here. A personal story. Just for the hell of it.
_______________________________________________________________________________
CHARLES
Apr 16
edited Apr 16
I had forgotten about this segment with Glenn and John. I don't know how because it has to be one of my all-time favorites.
As a teen matriculating into college in '83, I was confronted with these feelings big-time, and so were most of my peers. It was an experience that ultimately led to my later and permanent disdain for affirmative action policies, particularly the ones that focused on African-Americans.
*Before* my friends and I entered (predominately White) colleges and universities, we believed we were ready because our elders led us to believe just that. But in most cases, it took less than a semester for us to realize we had been hoodwinked so to speak. And suddenly, you are this kid having to face some really deep insecurities.
We have all experienced some version of this, but this is different. Instead of being forced to rise up and confront the issue as is, pass or fail, you are instead immediately embraced by this mesmerizing culture of progressive excuse-making and patronizing, which feels pretty good at first and even empowering later on. But deep down, somehow or another, you realize it's a false power. But one that nevertheless sustains indefinitely until you finally decide to break free and deal with reality.
If and when you ever do, it's pretty late in the game. I hate to be cliché and say, "It's a vicious cycle", but it is.
And the irony is crazy. This nonsense not only affects African-Americans negatively under the guise of helping, but it simultaneously feeds into the most basic beliefs of true-blue White racists.
If and when you ever do finally wake up and achieve, legitimately, real empowerment sets in, and it's a much better feeling. Trust me.
Yet still, you cannot fully escape the frustrations that come with observing generations behind you experiencing a similar madness; in some cases, for less legitimate reasons.
Fact: There are people in this world who genuinely believe that Black people are innately inferior intellectually and that there is nothing anybody can do about it. There are also people who believe quite strongly that White people are innately and *especially* gifted intellectually. (And it's not just White people who buy into these ideas.)
To be blunt, I am definitely not one of those people. In fact, in my experience, many of the folks who believe as such are typically not very deep thinkers. (I am trying to be nice here.) I would even venture to say that a lot of them are dealing with their own versions of inferiority complex.
That said, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Because if you are a serious person--or a serious people--realizing other people have self-esteem issues will never cure your own. We must all deal with our own issues of insecurity and underachievement, one way or another; but preferably in ways that achieve genuine, positive results.
Or we can just keep going around in circles.
The racial preferences argument that McWhorter critiques is based on reasons for disadvantage. Reasons are vulnerable to glass half-full/empty perception and are ad-hoc or random. I suggest the racial preferences advocates create a structured argument based on rules, where “disadvantage X violates fairness rule Y”. APA should offer guidance.
An APA-mentored structure should categorize official vs. unofficial privilege. Officially, I can drive a car, vote, enter a nightclub and buy alcohol, tobacco, firearms because I am over 21; official privilege.
On alleged “advantage” of immigration-incentivized families; there is much cultural and historical variation. Some children of immigrants that I know will be lucky if they can complete a remedial high-school equivalency program.
Pushing a kid, any kid, into a pool that is above his competitive ability, is a bad idea. Marxism traveled on the rails that you “pull down” from envy that which you cannot “push up” through additional effort. But the undeserving scholar, athlete or anything else will still be just an opportunity for someone else that was thrown away out of signaling.
I'm 72 years old, and learned through hard experience to never play by your adversaries' rules. Play in the real world! I worked in a very ruthless organization that didn't give a rat's ass about meritocracy or facts.
Word. Affirmative action of any type (race-based, gender-based, sexuality-based, etc.) must be time-bound, not indefinite.
I couldn't read the entire article because I refuse to pay The Atlantic for anything. I think John is using his own family experience as both a child and a parent to say that there are some Black kids whose experience is similar enough to the white kids with whom they attend school that they should be judged exactly the same--also the kid a few shows ago who was confused, "Am I oppressed?" But there are probably some other middle-class Black kids who don't have family networks that know a lot about the college application process (or even who will say to them, "Ta-Nehisi. You're not going to 13th grade." It was a great line on the part of Coates, Sr., what can I say?) who don't know what their grades and test scores would get them into even if affirmative action didn't exist. Other kids may be treated identically with poor Black kids by the schools they attend for a whole host of reasons.
Can't you simply click on the "Read ->" just under "An guest essay by John McWhorter" and just above the number of comments and the new comment window? When I do that, I can scroll down to the text of the essay. No Atlantic involved at all.
The Rothstein essay he's responding to is in the Atlantic so I don't know how Rothstein supported anything.
Ah, my mistake. Rothstein's piece was a link too far for me. I, too, find the assumption that people will be subbed to all these different sources endlessly frustrating. My nemesis is the WSJ's firewall, though its crossword puzzle section—recycled LA Times fare—is readily accessible.
It bites my butt when WSJ posts an article on LI and still hides it behind a paywall. Poor marketing strategy.
I am also defeated by the WSJ paywall but Apple News runs some of the stories anyway.
All these subscriptions and the prices they are asking are one of my triggers, so here I go again.
You used to be able to subscribe to online journals (anything from say WSJ to Gray Zone to Reason and everything in between) for around $50/yr and get access to a variety of commentors and people actually doing journalist work.
Now everyone's off on Substack going solo and asking the same price (or more) to read their commentary on the passing scene. Sorry, I have a budget to spread around, and most of you ain't getting' a piece. And you don't need a PhD in economics like Glenn to know that I'm not the only creature in existence with a "budget constraint", however high or low it might be. In fact, every creature that has ever crawled out of the ooze has one.
So most of these people will fail to draw many subscribers, at least at these rates. They remind me of the kids whose career plan is to be a rapper or a professional athlete. Most will never be heard from.*
(*Unless, for example, as in the case of one of the former, they die under a police officer's knee.)
Reminds me. Let me know if and when any of my links dead end into a sub required no-go. If so, I'll see if I can find an alternative non-sub required source. Hard to tell whether it's a "protected" piece or not when you're already subbed to the site. (This should be a feature sites put in place to distinguish the two types of material.)
I'll try and remember.
Imagine a world where every American child had access to top tier education, athletics and three healthy meals a day. Instead we get bussing, affirmative action, racist math, and gay porn.
It is time everyone just realized this problem is not intended to be fixed, otherwise it would have been a long time ago.
Precisely. And the imagine that high intellect students are prepared according to their aptitude and high mechanical students are prepared according to their aptitude and every student had a solid grounding in a classical education. What a world that would be.
Bussing: do we still have bussing? My county has “centers” which gives the best and brightest a chance to go to a “better” school. You are screwed if you are normal in a sucky part of the county.
Alternative action: don’t know if that means anything in k-12. Agree that college is not the place to fix earlier failures.
Racist math: this one boggles me. There are better ways to teach math. When I went to school there was “partial credit” to account for good mathematical thinking but getting the wrong answer. I can see from my kids, that such thinking is not predominating now. Now, there is no partial credit but grade inflation and lots of extra credit. The white supremacy is the “focusing on getting the right answer”.. I agree that the thinking is more important. I am biased. I missed exactly one point on a test (I believe it was ”mass transfer” in chemical engineering when I multiplied 3*2 and got 5. It didn’t affect the answer significantly, and was clearly a stupid math error amongst much more complex concepts. So “white supremacy” in math is stupid, but math is really worth partial credit.
Gay porn: I’m anti porn in general, but that isn’t school that is causing this problem. More regulation? I don’t know, but it’s a weird thing to add to the list of ways the public schools fail us. It’s worth sticking to the utter failure to teach math and reading to graduates.
Amy, why don't the parents move (with their smart kids in tow) to where the opportunity exists? As I recall, there existed a strong pull of talented Hungarians, especially Jews, to Budapest during the early 20th century where intellectual and artistic talent was concentrated. If that's the case where you are, it should be a simple matter for those motivated to do so (even at some level of personal sacrifice) to "vote with their feet," no?
As I recall, there has been a marked drop in people moving for better opportunities. I’m not a sociologist, so I don’t know why. I know when I had the reason to, I did just that. But perhaps that is a mindset not everyone has. I have a lot of cousins, and to the one, the willingness to move away from where they grew up is correlated with their economic success. We are talking white country boys… so…?
Yes, they are teaching gay porn in schools, and no, bussing isn't around anymore, but it once served as a "solution" when the real solution is providing good schools.
Break a mirror, intend to fix it (after your 7 years of bad luck, natch). Have at it.
Mix flour and eggs and sugar and milk together and bake. Then realize you need an egg for something else. Intend to retrieve it from the cake. Have at it.
I do not understand these riddles
Not everything is fixable. And almost nothing having to do with people is reversible. Go ahead and break someone's trust in you. That should illuminate matters sufficiently.
I do not think you are making a cogent argument against building good schools, athletics and providing decent food to children.
Schools are buildings, easily built where and when you want. Good schools are buildings with good students in them. Do you understand the difference?
If you're providing "decent food" to children, then their parents must not be doing so. Why not? How do you propose to change the parents' behavior in tending to their children (or at least have no more of them to be similarly neglected)?
The most significant economic unit, and life is economic at its simplest level, is the nuclear family: a man and woman raising the children they created together. We can bend and tweak and excuse other models out of compassion, but they do not stand up on empirical evidence.
We adopted several children (hold your applause…no signaling here), and the data on all “progressive” family definitions turns up inferior outcomes. Trot out the “bad father” and “blame the victim” narratives, but the core data does not lie.
The problem with Blacks and the lower classes is that we have cavalierly destroyed the family and shamed anyone stupid enough to defend it in mixed company.
Yeah, it helps when you don't sell the economic base out to foreign workers and wreck the neighborhoods, but in the meantime, investing in schools is how you produce to good students.
Investing in quality food and making it available in neighborhoods where today people shop at liquor stores would help to.
You act like this all has been a bottom up problem. It is top down and on purpose.
What a great essay!
Very good essay.
Speaking from the outside, I believe racism today remains very much alive, in large part because all of us have been taught the idea of race is real. When you take a stand that race is a false idea, that it has no more intellectual validity than astrology, a new perspective can take hold, one with a jaw dropping realization of how incredibly stupid racism has been. Yes, we all knew it was vile but now we can add stupid. An example: Would you buy into the notion that Taurus people are meant for physical labor? Or that Sagittarius people are hot headed? Of course not. But for centuries people thought descendants of Africans were meant for physical labor. How stupid can you get?
60 years ago Affirmative Action was a decent start to remedy to this stupidity. Isn't it time to go after the root cause? Race is a */stupid idea/*; We are all equal in our humanity and deserve to be treated equally.
"When you take a stand that race is a false idea, that it has no more intellectual validity than astrology, a new perspective can take hold, one with a jaw dropping realization of how incredibly stupid racism has been. Yes, we all knew it was vile but now we can add stupid."
I will be framing this one!
Racism is a power relationship. Africans were brought here to mal-distribute massive generational wealth and power to whites. Racism is a competitive relationship between groups for ownership and control of resources for wealth and power. Europeans got the head start with genocide, black chattel slavery, billions of acres of free indigenous land, Jim Crow, apartheid, and colonization.
Racism isn't about getting along; it's a team sport. For example, the Koreans own and control the billion dollar black hair products industry: Manufacturing, distribution, and retail. Do blacks own and control Korean nail salons or restaurants? The Arabs own and control most of the gas stations in predominately black Detroit. Furthermore, many have entered the bail bond businesses. Blacks have never been part of the race. Defaulting isn't an option.
Stupid racism? How about stupid social integration that's not measurable, not creating black group wealth and empowerment in order to deal seriously with racism? How does sleeping with Becky empower me? When it sours, Becky goes back on code. Meritorious Manumission doesn't make logical sense. Shelby Steele's advocation of bargaining/begging for white affirmation/respect?
The Asians are bouncing dollars around in their communities several times before it leaves and taking wealth out of black communities. Jews? Arabs? Blacks: zero!
Glenn Loury occasionally rants about Blacks not being patriotic enough, which greatly pisses me off. Blacks have been the most patriotic group since they landed on this soil, having fought in every major war. He hasn't served in the military or in law enforcement. Glenn contributed to the "crack epidemic" in the 1980s, relating he was stressed out. Lol! He talks tough on fighting black on black crime with Draconian measures without a real proactive plan(s), but he was given a second chance with a slap on his wrist. Nonetheless, black communities were devastated by the crack cocaine crisis.
And you want to cowardly run away into the arms and comfort of white women.
Charles, you have a lot of work in resolving your personal internal conflicts. They're very obvious. Your ongoing begging for white affirmation is quite nauseating. My allies are not kneeling and sucking d... Many are doing exceptionally well, including myself.
My late grandfather, who owned a successful 400-farm under segregation, didn't get on his knees for the white man. He almost killed a white neighbor behind a property boundary dispute. Three of his sons were military veterans, ready to defend him and their families.
I think it will take a major catastrophic event in this country for black folks to wake the f**kup. Imagine you sucking Richard Spencer's or Jared Taylor's nuts, begging for your life? January 6 could have led to that. That would be hilarious to witness. Or perhaps you would have been a collaborator, like the Jewish collaborators (meritorious manumission traitors) during the German Nazi regime. Lol!!!!
Lastly, your riddled exchange with Bicker is very dorky. Some strange shit!
Just in the off chance that you have any curiosity at all about the strange thread attached to your comment, Bicker once told me a comment I wrote on a Glenn & John post was the stupidest he'd ever read.
So, FWIW, congratulations--I guess. Wear it with pride. I did.
Go find "Literally Mussolini"—he's got something of yours...
Here I am.
You're not stripping me of my superlative, are you?
This is a tough one. Your crime is already dead and buried and its soul burning in hell for all eternity. But this body is still warm and the pool of blood yet to congeal. It's got astrology, stupidity, and mendacity in quantities too copious to measure. He's even got "root cause," "equal in our humanity," and "deserve to be treated equally" IN THE SAME PARAGRAPH!
I'm sorry, LM. I gotta pull your paper, my friend. We have a new champion.
Congratulations, Mr. Nelson. Your prize will be coming soon in the mail inside a Publisher's Clearinghouse package—simply fill out all the requested information and you're a guaranteed winner!
Tough standards, but infinite opportunity for those willing and wanting to learn the great arts and sciences of western and American civilization. This should include a liberal arts underpinning acquired in elementary and high school. For example knowledge of the history and biology of the human species and how we evolved from the slime, became primates in the Eden of Africa and then left and dispersed around the world. A high school degree should certify that a person understands how to read and write and speak the common language, but it should also indicate a knowledge of world history and of the founding and history of our own republic. All this so as to insure loyalty to the republic and knowledge of its constitution and the duties of a citizen. This is paramount for the conduct of public business the common good and our very survival during war. We need to keep our land and resources and military the best possible shape because of international competitive pressure which always increases. The rest of the world does not care about our decadent modern sentimentality. So american educational standards and methods must reflect the real world : many levels of certification are possible but each should. be set by a long historical tradition or an industry group or a union or a professional association. International or federal agencies can also set degree requirements for some professions. Socio-economic status or race should be used to allocate government aid among accepted applicants.