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 ultimately. 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.
I am happy to hear that you agree with me that some people are unable to provide for their own needs. As to your list of things one needs to do to survive, you forget about people who inherit property. I personally know an example of a woman who has not had to work for most of her life thanks to a large house she had inherited from her parents. People can also inherit other sources of income.
Yes, there are people who can earn quite a lot of money thanks to the fact that lots of other people can't afford to buy a house or apartment. At least some of these people ruthlessly exploit the situation of their tenants.
It's a hard line to walk - the one on which one finds a pride and blessing in one's race or ethnicity and at the same time finds a willingness to critique trends or behaviors manifested by some (many?) who also belong. For me, it's the very line God called the Israelites to walk as recorded in the Old Testament.
"the editor has had trouble getting black writers to write about something other than race. He's asked them to, and they say, no, what I want to do is this. And there's a value to it. But if you ask me, it's a little 1970, as if nobody else would write about these things if black people didn't."
If black people didn't, then white people might! Horrors!
Need to listen to a Greenwald interview of Amy Wax and Norman Finkelstein on the same topic which has put Amy Wax under possible dismissal. It is good to have this topic be spoken of almost simultaneously. Makes for greater fire to address.
Audio sucked at times, but the content was stellar. Amy Wax is another of my hero(in)es. Her 2009 "Race, Wrongs, and Remedies: Group Justice in the 21st Century" was excellent. The woman is one serious piece of artillery!
It's really so much simpler than all that. It really is.
We overcomplicate this very human issue by pouring 'race' all over it (or age, or sex, or ??)... but the complication is artificial.
Everyone is asked, challenged, pushed (positively, negatively) to prove themselves. And everyone believes that that challenge is unfair, undeserved, not right, no good, and comes inevitably from a place of irrational bias.
You didn't pick me for the basketball team 'cause I'm short. I didn't make the team because I'm short. I sat the bench, because I'm short!!! And that's just not right; I'm just as good as those other guys!
So prove it, bucko. Kick their butts all over the court. Fast break 'em till they can't stand. Rainbow jumper their ass! And well -- you either do, or don't. And if you can't, you learn pretty quickly to shut-up and go home and work to get better. That's all there is to it.
I had a conversation years ago with a young, Black substitute teacher who told me, "My class is filled with racists! And it's just so hard!" I asked what they were doing...why she believed they were racists. She said it was because they were always on her....they were always challenging her in class....they were giving her a hard time. She said, "Just because I'm Black, I have to prove my humanity every single day!" She was understandably upset.
I probably didn't help because I told her...'You may or may not have actual real racists in the class, who knows. But everything you describe happens to every new, young, substitute teacher. That's how students of that age act. And they act that way consistently. And they do it, with more than a little joy when they make the newbie feel and act uncomfortable. It's not a race thing; it's a young, newbie, substitute thing.
I knew a man, an experienced manager, who was hired into an upper level position in a new firm. He was pleased, of course, but weeks later ....when we met he was upset, angry, frustrated. "I just don't get it," he told me, "They hired me because of my record, but no one listens to what I have to say. I find myself working twice as hard just to do what I was doing with the back of my hand at the old place. It's not right; it's not fair. And it's because I'm just not one of the 'good old boys'!"
This refrain is sung by all of us, at one time or another, and usually multiple times for multiple reasons. It's a very familiar tune.
But we're almost always wrong.
The truth is: We're all doubted. We're all challenged. And pushback is a given.
Of course we're all tempted to find comfort in the crutch...in the rationalization that these challenges are coming to me NOT because it's fair that my bona fides must be validated...but because, so goes Temptation's Whisper, "I'm ... a fill-in-the-blank; and that's not right!"
Maybe it's the 'because I'm Black'...maybe because I'm a woman... maybe because I'm old...or short....or young...or male...or White...or have an accent....or am Jewish...or Catholic....or from a small town...or didn't go to an Elite School....or you name it. We always feel it's unmerited. We always feel we're not appreciated as much as we most truly deserve. We ask in angry anguish: How could THOSE PEOPLE be so wrong???
You want to spend your time writing about how hard it is to be YOU? To be a member of a class or group or category that -- by golly & gosh -- is just not treated right...THAT's what you want to write about? That's the size of the cross you carry? That's what you want us to appreciate?
Well forget it.
No one really cares. Not really. It's tough to be anybody. It's tough to be alive (tougher, I would imagine, to be dead). And nobody knows the trouble any one of us has seen. So what?
So yes, we're all going to be challenged; and probably, in an ideal world in which our own best attributes are most fully known & appreciated, a goodly portion of those challenges might go away. But this is not that world; and they're not going away. In fact, they're doubling down.
And if we really were as good as we think we are...we'd embrace every single challenge there was. You want me to prove it? Well bring it on. We'll see who's standing at the end.
Either that or we melt, we whine, we complain, and protest. In our bitterness, maybe, we even refuse: Hell no, I'm not going to have to demonstrate to you that I can write a sentence or do simple arithmetic problem. Ok, that's your choice. The opportunity passes you by. And when that happens (as it will) we just become that much more bitter, that much more resistant...that much more convinced that 'It's not ME; it's them!! It's their fault!"
Maybe we wake-up; maybe we grow-up...but increasingly that possibility seems less and less likely as the State rushes to intervene, kiss it and make it better. Maybe the steel is stronger for the fire...but damn, that fire is sure hot (and did I tell you I don't really like it??).
Great rant! There it is, folks, the facts of life. Used to be we knew this stuff—our dads and our buddies and the adults around us "growing us up" lived it and demanded we live it as well. Not so much anymore, alas.
I with the dick bicker; it was a grant rant and very truthful and complete. Well done, BDarn. I would have written it myself but other people just never give me a break or like because <my excuse here>.
There are fabulous economic opportunities in the US being accessed by well-educated foreigners because our public schools are miserably failing to educate enough students to qualify as doctors, engineers, etc.
RE: Detroit It was hollowed, after the auto industry there collapsed, because its public schools would/could not educate students to a level of competency and competitiveness, then and now.. The auto industry, like so many other union and government jobs, camouflaged the root problem of widespread undereducation.
Not everyone can qualify for a knowledge based technical career nor does everyone want to. The idea that everybody should go to college is becoming less popular, but we no longer have all the skilled trades that provided well paid work for a big percentage of our population until the collapse of our manufacturing economy in the 1980's. The industries in Detroit created jobs for tens of thousands of people that ranged from non-skilled to skilled crafts, to engineering to executive positions.
Detroit was also an appallingly racist city when I first lived there in 1963 and remained so for a long time after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Prior to the collapse of the auto industry the city was not a uniformly low income black city. It was a patchwork of neighborhoods spanning the range of socioeconomic levels, and these certainly did include large neighborhoods populated almost exclusively by low income black people. There were, however, also upper middle and upper class black people, as well as white and racially mixed neighborhoods. During the mid 1970's the racial mix within the city limits was about 50/50 black/white. After the collapse of the auto industry the people who had the money to get out did so. The people who remained were mostly older and poorer black residents who either couldn't afford to move or who wanted to stay because of social ties.
Sandra, what is this "collapse of the auto industry" you keep referring to? When did it occur? Where exactly (only in Detroit, Midwest, USA)? What vehicle replaced the automobile after the collapse? What companies replaced the auto companies that presumably were destroyed in the "collapse"? I have a very different recollection of Detroit's automotive history than yours.
This is a brief summary that appeared first on a casual search. What I remember are mostly conversations with my Dad during the 1970's. Some of the things he told me about I didn't understand, and I am definitely not an expert on the demise of Detroit. The above account generally matches what I remember.
My parents moved to Detroit when I was in high school (1963). I left Michigan for the West Coast in 1978. My parents stayed in Detroit and I had friends there, so I was in touch with what was going on for a few years after I moved, but not much after 1985.
That "history" you cited is cursory, biased, and contains many errors of fact and interpretation. My mother worked at the River Rouge plant as a typist (as did my wife a generation later only in computer support for executives). Our family manufacturing business was only a couple miles from the complex before we moved it out of Detroit in the early 1990s. I was present in Detroit during the same years you lived in the area although I left in the mid-1970s and returned in the early 1990s to raise a family and help with the family business, leaving for good in 2007. I still have family and friends in the area who keep me more or less up to date on, um, developments.
Central to any argument is the willingness to have it, and to have it honestly. That requires looking beyond external factors involved and considered the individual's role. Can black people succeed? Of course, they can. It is silly to even ask that considering the millions of black people working in a cross-section of industries and living productive, normal lives.
What is mind-boggling is the contention in some quarters that life is somehow more difficult for minorities today than it was in the Jim Crow era and before. That defies all logic and reason. The convenient playing of the race card for any negative outcome that a black person experiences has become an exclusive excuse that no other group can access. What is the white guy's reason for coming up short? The Hispanic person's? The Asian's? Everyone fails in something at some point. Many people fail often; it's part of testing one's limits and failure is integral to learning. It's when you fail repeatedly at the same thing that this becomes worrisome, as that indicates a refusal to learn.
Meanwhile, a host of policy decisions - from eliminating standardized tests to cutting out honors classes and so forth - represent a different and far more destructive form of bigotry. Those actions, usually undertaken by white leftists, are the worst kind of condescension. They say that blacks cannot achieve and what's more, that no one should expect them to achieve. What a toxic message to send. Imagine telling a five year old black kid that he/she can never amount to more than the lowest common denominator in the neighborhood simply because he/she is black.
Good points, all. However, you must also address the statistical certainty that American blacks, relative to American whites and ON AVERAGE, will show a deficit of around 1 standard deviation in any cognitively demanding task whether it be a test in K-12 eduction, performance and graduation rates in university, or professional participation and accomplishments.
So how do you thread the needle encouraging and supporting black development and achievement while the numbers demonstrating real and enduring racial differences in ability are there for all to see—stark, ubiquitous, significant, and unchanging?
But the easy answer is, I don't hire averages. I don't promote statistical certainties. I don't assign 'standard deviations' to complete a demanding project. I hire, promote, and assign people. And people are just people.
And most of us don't see the individuals who stand before us Category Representatives. We see them as Glenn, or Sam, or Rachel, or Ted, or Sandy. And if we work with them long enough & successfully enough, then we know what Glenn is good at it...where Sandy struggles...and where Ted might seem a genius.
I would suggest that we worry too much about average outcome differences and population disparities (all invisible conceptual things)....and not nearly enough at training Ted & challenging Ted & pushing Ted to be better than he is.
The problem, of course, is the host of Activists outside the door pointing out that THEY see Ted as ONLY a Category Rep...and that Ted's Category is, on average, not doing nearly as well as Glenn's.
YOU may not hire, promote, and assign people using detailed analysis of your staff's racial, sex/gender, and other identity characteristics. However, I can assure you that MANY other large organizations and ALL companies doing business with federal (and most state) government entities are REQUIRED to perform "bean counting" of this variety in order to comply with the law of the land. Should companies and institutions ignore or contravene those requirements, they are subject to legal action against them, fines, penalties, and loss of contracts, and/or time-consuming and expensive "compliance audits" as well consent decrees to "clean up their act" and begin the bean counting anew. Consider yourself and your company VERY fortunate that you've never been so constrained in managing your own employees.
Corporate is obsessed with such idiocy...and they're obsessed with it because the State is obsessed with it....and the obsession exists because way too many idiots drank the KoolAid, swallowed the blue pill, and became very small indeed.
As a result, Corporate (and every organization who believes in there insanity which is Diversity, Equity, & Inclusivity) rapidly swirls down the Mediocrity Death Spiral.
The good hire the less good because they look good ....who then hire the very average because they're not threatening.... who hire the poor.... and everything continues to run for awhile because it was originally built by the very good. But, eventually, inevitably, things start breaking. And the Diverse, Inclusive, and Equitable Eloi can't fix a damned thing.
On the other hand, they sure look diverse, inclusive, and equitable while failing.
As with anyone else; encourage them to equip themselves to the best of their ability and take that as far as they can. Having done all one can there is no shame in achieving less than someone else. The shame is in wasting what you have.
Agree entirely. I'm still a bit doubtful that, when push comes to shove, advocates of individual effort/reward will have the fortitude to maintain that position in the face of hostile charges of "racist discrimination" due to massive differences in representation levels across the board in various PMC positions. You prepared for that?
In that case, we have among us vast multitudes of disrepectors of the human individual, refusniks in standing for the moral choice, and shirkers, duckers, and dodgers of slings and arrows. (I can't really blame them for the last—those things hurt!)
So Glenn, a former drug addict, and deadbeat/absent dad says collectively black people have something to prove. No it seems like the burden of proof is on him. As Prof. Gates alluded to, discrimination often occurs under “Ceteris Paribus” conditions. If you don’t know what the Latin term means, get his “linguist” co-host to interpret. I’m sure he’s proved himself by mastering every major language since antiquity!
But everyone has something to prove, don't they? Isn't that what life's about?
And having proved that something once, aren't we all then challenged --over and over again -- to prove that same thing (or perhaps a different thing) over and over again?
You climb one hill and there's another before you...and another after that. It never ends. Or rather the need to face challenges ends only with death.
It's always difficult to deal with collective averages and then talk individuals, but sure -- since 73% of all NBA players are Black, would you not think it reasonable to say White BBall players (as a collective) 'have something to prove' if they're to be starters in the NBA? Of course they do. [Even though no coach evaluates collectives...they only evaluate players] So wouldn't it be equally reasonable to say, as Glenn has said, that Black's (as a collective) 'have something to prove' given the average crime rates, graduation rates, literacy rates, etc?
Of course they do (as a collective).
But again, if I'm hiring someone for a job I don't evaluate 'the collective'...I evaluate the individual. You don't have to prove anything for the Collective; you just have to prove yourself.
You seem to want it both ways. Of course each individual has to prove their own skills etc. As long as I manage myself and raise my children I’ve done my part. But who is this judge that black people must prove themselves too? When do we know if we get a passing grade. What jobs/roles in society are black people not capable of doing?
As I said, it's always difficult to deal with collective averages EXCEPT as a collective average. You can't switch back & forth from the collective average to the individual.
That's why the question you ask, "who is this judge that Black people must prove themselves to" can't be answered. There is no such judge....for the Collective. We only challenge & judge the Individual.
But, in fact, the collective average (like that seen with the White BBall Player Collective) does indeed tell us the collective does have something to prove.. If it didn't, the average wouldn't look so darn mediocre.
Surely you recognize that you, we, all of us inhabit multiple public identities? As an individual, yes, you're absolutely right -- we each have to prove our own capabilities (over and over again). Our own, individual competencies will continually be tested. But equally we are a member of multiple larger categories/groups. And there are qualities shared (on average) across those larger populations that we may or may not individually share.
The Black 'Collective' shares, for example, the fact that it exhibits a higher crime rate, a lower graduation rate, a higher poverty rate, a higher out-of-wedlock birth rate, etc. Any individual within that collective may be none of those things...but the collective they're a part of -- on average -- exhibits them all. And if you're a member of that collective, then you share -- like it or not -- the burden of those expectations.
So Glenn is absolutely right. Black people (as a collective) do have something to prove. And any member of that collective shares, at least to some extent, the requirement of that proof -- even though they may display none of the qualities equally shared (on average) across that collective population.
If I'm short, I'm a member of the 'short people collective'. On average, that collective is seen as not playing top-tier BBall. If I want to go out for the team, I will have to battle, first, the truism that 'short people can't play top tier BBall'. I may be a genius on the court, but until I prove that on an individual level, I share the burden that all short people share: that being, that we're -- on average -- not top tier BBall players.
The Collective will only get a passing grade when the collective's averages demonstrate they're -- collectively -- as good as any other group. Again, there is no judge -- there is only the arithmetic average. When the Black out-of-wedlock birth rate drops to the average level seen in the White or Asian populations, then it no longer negatively characterizes the Black population.
There is no job that Black people are not capable of doing. I would have thought that question had been answered generations ago. Any given individual -- given the talent, drive, and inclination -- can do anything. But the collective averages will tell us that it's unusual to find a 5'10" White guy playing the starting point position for the Lakers .... and it's unusual to find a Black neurosurgeon. That's not saying that either is impossible or that the category is incapable. It's just saying the collective averages -- if you're a betting man -- would tell us it's less probable.
And what means is the short White guy & Black neurosurgeon will probably each be expected to prove -- at an individual level -- that they can kick butt in each respective position.
Oh yeah, McWhorter didn’t see the big deal about the firing of Scott Adam’s (Dilbert) for saying that black people constituted a hate group, even though he admitted it was a racist statement. I challenge him to write a column suggesting that Jewish people are a hate group and see how long he remains a columnist for the New York Times!
Glenn is a good man and doesn’t deserve your attack. All of us have failed in aspects of our life. What separates the brave is that despite their flaws and failures, they keep trying to do good. And yes, black and white people both, as well as you and I, should do better. We don’t need to condemn each other to try and do better.
But you need to get past your shock at the use of a word (which was used entirely to shock) and consider what is being said in "The Spectacle of Mourning", particularly as it relates to leveraging family tragedies to highlight political agendas.
Assorted thoughts inspired by Glenn and John's remarks about proving yourself:
Until age-related decline really kicks in, how many of us, as individuals, have learned nearly as much as we are able to learn or achieved a level of physical well-being near what we could?
Until we believe that we have come close to topping out our own personal capabilities, it hardly seems to make sense to have too much concern about differences in averages across various characteristics between people of our own race and others.
(How much we push toward our various potentials is a matter of personal choice. However, Glenn mentions "competence", and we do owe it to ourselves and our fellow humans to try to attain a level of competence to produce things of value sufficient to trade for our basic needs.)
Gee, thanks for the civil reply. And also, thanks for the referral to the Murray book, which I downloaded earlier when I first went through the comments on this post.
It's fair to assume from your other comments that my third sentence--"Until we believe..."--is the one that triggered you. I actually don't agree with this sentence myself, and when I wrote it, I was curious about whether anyone would challenge it. It seems like no one will, which is fine by me. I was just laying the idea out if anyone was interested in taking the time to delve into it further.
Gotta own what you write. You be better next time.
I would be interested in your thoughts on Chapter 2 of "Real Education." Anything click or was it stale bread? I term the near total inability of higher-IQ folk—people like Glenn, John, and many (not all) participating in discussion of their ideas here and elsewhere—to understand the on-the-ground challenges lowish-IQ folk face day-in, day-out the "Reverse Dunning-Kruger Effect." There is no known cure for the malady...
I'm not ready to read and address the Murray book yet (nor the Bell Curve); it's just added to my list. As far as acknowledging the omissions from my "Until we believe..." sentence, the farthest I wanted to go myself with it here, if challenged, was to agree that there are more issues to address than dealing with how we each feel about the ultimate limitations to our own mental capabilities. We must do more than wallow in solipsism; we do have to consider what we can expect from others around us.
(And to have fruitful consideration of these matters, we must have honest conversations about them. These conversations must include people like Murray.)
You needn't read Murray's entire book (oh, and "people like Murray"—please explain). I only suggested that Chapter 2 of "Real Education" would be especially illuminating and relevant to the discussion here. If one short chapter in one short book is too much for you, I shudder to think of your tackling "The Bell Curve" in all its dense immensity (immense density?)...
1. "People like Murray" are people who express and thoughtfully defend points of view that can get them shouted down and even "cancelled" in our society.
2. I'm surprised you're so interested in having the author of what might be the stupidest of countless stupid comments on Glenn Show posts read and opine on chapter 2 of the Murray book.
3. Chapter 2 of Murray's book is about 30 pages; not exactly "short". Yeah, I looked it over, and it doesn't look like too tough a read, but you assume I have nothing else to do already. Still, I was going to see if I could squeeze in a quick read of the chapter this weekend, but then I had a personal mishap this morning (fortunately, no one hurt) which is going to suck even more of my time. We'll see; I'll ping you here if I am able to read it this weekend. Oh, and I have to finish my taxes. (And I already consumed some minutes on this board addressing a reply to another of my posts by one "Joanna", whom I see you also responded to.)
4. You needn't worry about me, should I choose to tackle "The Bell Curve". For example, I am currently reading "Microeconomic Theory: Basic Principles and Extensions" by Nicholson and Snyder. I assure you, that book is more densely immense or immensely dense than "The Bell Curve".
He’s a dick bickers; so there’s that. I reread your post and still think there is not much rationale for having to top out oneself before engaging in differences between races because it infers to me that either a) only the handful of people who have topped out can have the conversation, or b) you think lots (eg billions on earth) have topped out to their potential and this can engage in the differences. Neither a) nor b) are reasonable to me. Thus, I said it was convoluted. However, given your subsequent posts, I do see that you are thoughtful, sincere and respectful; and so I took the time to explain my comment. Take care and hope to see more of your comments here or on future essays.
Thanks. (I strive to be at least a bit better person than "literally Hitler".)
I can see that you're interested in signing off and moving on, but I do want to add a few things to try and clear up. My main point in the OP was that I don't think that people personally need to worry too much about the bell curves they're on and their own personal limits, because they rarely bump up against them. (And, in my aside, I tried to make clear that I don't even think people need to try always "be the best they can be". It's okay to take it easy sometimes, as long as you don't unduly burden others by it.)
As I admitted to Bickers yesterday, and in further discussion with him today, I worded my OP in a way that can be read to imply that this is the end of it and that there is no purpose for consideration of racial (or other category) differences. (I didn't do this to be a dick or hyper-provocative; I just strive to keep my posts short and direct and see if anyone wants to engage further. I think writing long posts on comment boards like this is USUALLY a waste of time--TLDR and what not--unless people first get interested in something you briefly write and want to talk more.) Anyway, as I have said to Bickers, I do agree with you; there are reasons to discuss differences between the races, even if it shouldn't matter much to how you feel about yourself.
So take care, and I hope to see you around again, too.
It's no surprise that when you try to find a path through "assorted thoughts", you merely find them "convoluted".
My main point was that, from a personal perspective, people should focus on their own potentials, and not trouble themselves over some bell curve they might be placed on. Nothing profound; just chiming in on some ideas from Glenn and John's conversation about proving yourself.
Then I felt compelled to add a parenthetical remark that I don't think anyone is actually obliged to strive to do anything to their full potential.
---
However, as I suggest in my reply to Bicker, I worded my third sentence in a way that was more general than just people addressing their personal intellectual concerns. Most of us also have concerns for other people and for the societies in which we operate, and I thought maybe someone from Bicker's perspective might come along and suggest that I overlooked racial differences as a possible issue from these perspectives. No one did.
Err, it's the most cogent comment here, albeit it side steps the race issue, so your response demonstrates suboptimal comprehension skills, or maybe you're having a bad day, or have poor eyesight.
And I take Glenn's point that Black people are assumed because of "culture" to have a metaphorical disability when the full intellectual potential of many Black people has never, ever been tried.
I am going to be a possibly very insulting devil's advocate. As someone with an autism diagnosis I would have a limited ability to prove my full humanity if the standard was more right-brain and holistic. This does not mean that I do not have strengths that can benefit people who don't have a disability.
I suggest the following order of priority for "proving" whatever about yourself:
1. Prove yourself to others to be competent as required to interact with them to provide for your basic needs. In simple terms, show that you can do a job.
2. Prove whatever you consider important about your "humanity" to yourself.
3. Prove things about yourself to others sufficient to meet your social goals.
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I'm not autistic myself, nor anything near an expert on autism, but it's just basic knowledge that 1 and 3 can be tough for people with autism--how tough depending on where you are on "the spectrum". About 2, I have no idea.
I question the assumption that everyone should be able to do a job which would provide for the person's basic needs. One's disabilities can seriously limit one's chances to find and keep a job which would provide for one's basic needs. Interestingly, many women don't have paid jobs and it is widely seen as normal. Only men are expected to survive from paid work.
I also question the assumption that "showing that one can do a job" is more important than proving what one finds important about one's humanity.
A. Of course, some people lack the ability to provide for their own needs. They should make a good faith effort to do what they can for themselves, though, even though in the end, they will require the charity of others to survive.
B. I see you've already been discussing women not having cash-earning jobs with Bicker. Maybe I'll comment a bit down there.
C. To undertake the task of "proving what one finds important about one's humanity", one has to be alive. There are certain basic things that one needs to be alive, and there are four ways to obtain them: (1) Produce them oneself; (2) produce things (including services) that one can trade for them; (3) steal them or take them by force from others; or (4) receive them as an act of charity by others. Thus, one needs to do one or more of these four things before proving one's humanity. I suggest making an effort at (1) or (2), not doing (3), and hoping for (4) only after trying at (1) or (2). Now for most people, (1) is not really possible; few people are an island unto themselves (or alone on one). My item 1. in my OP is implicit in doing (2).
This is not always true. Some of those women don't have children. Some of them no longer raise children. Some families can afford to pay other women for housework. In any case "keeping house" and looking after children are not the same as finding and keeping a job on a competitive job market. And let's not forget about women who "keep house" and raise children while also having a job outside home...
Many women benefit from the fact that it is culturally accepted to be a stay at home wife/girlfriend. It is difficult to say if these women would be able to survive from paid work. For some women the traditional feminine role is much more attractive than seeking and performing paid work, though mainstream feminism refuses to admit this fact.
Really, the only thing you give here which even appears like a contradiction of my point 1. in my OP is a woman in a childless relationship who does not do paid work or charitable work outside the house and who does not do much household work either.
This would be so rare that I think I could stop typing here, but I suggest that she probably is doing something, or some things, to induce her partner to keep her.
Well, of course she can be doing "something", like providing sex, companionship or even being a trophy wife/girlfriend for a well-off man. There are probably no statistics on the number of such women, but I don't know what makes you assume that the phenomenon is rare.
If some people are not expected to perform any paid work, there is no reason to claim that surviving from paid work is every person's duty. Let's not forget either about people who earn money e.g. from renting houses or apartments - they don't need any professional qualifications.
Not much is "always true," and the exceptions tend to prove the rule.
Where wide variance exists between current trends and traditional social practices, it serves us well to tread slowly and carefully with our eyes wide open. Current Western (and westernized Asian) countries have cratering TFRs which have never before been seen in history. Inverting the population pyramid is not exactly is not exactly a recipe for long-term success...
Glenn: Please quit beating yourself up about this particular nub of reality. The trouble with self-analysis is that sometimes we are too close to the forest to see the trees. Ask yourself (a) What is the typical home situation in which black kids find themselves? (b) What comprises their MAIN substance of their cultural life? (c) What subjective drags are there on them that might help to explain the shortfalls?
To make the most of our intellectual potential, growing up, we all need to live in a LEARNING ENVIRONMENT, with appropriate and attainable goals spelled out for us, complete with encouragement, interest in our progress, and censure when we stray from the path to the top where we unavoidably find ourselves in competition with others who HAVE grown up with such a support system, part material, part psychological. I hope everyone agrees with these fundamentals.
This may be a given in the few families that provide such a support system (intellectually, materially, by example and by encouragement, and where the child's playmates/classmates are not a drag on achieving, but are themselves competitors in scholastic achievement). In too many grade schools where the student body happens to be black or mostly black, we've all heard the student peer criticism of high-scoring students by those getting poorer grades, "Oh, you're just trying to be white!" Nothing similar is said of the good athletes. We excel in athleticism. Only in the scholastic arena.
In reaction, smart black kids sometimes are teased by their peers for doing well, stunting their zeal for knowledge and for excelling. (Yet later in life, when the noxious discouraging kids grow up and get in trouble, who do they go to to bail them out? The very kids they used to tease in school for being studious nerds.)
There are many debates over which educational path is better, an all-black college or an integrated college? Without this question devolving into questions of black pride, and acknowledging that many of us excel after attending an all-black institution, (a) the integrated situation is more likely to be cutting edge by its very nature, since politics see to it that such schools receive all the support that budgets and the brightest minds can provide. Thus are the odds subtly shifted in favor of the integrated situation. (b) A secondary benefit for black kids is, they become comfortable competing against ALL kids, so as life moves on, they inculcate a self-confidence which may temporarily elude them otherwise. Black pride makes it hard to admit this, but the dynamics simply operate that way, whether we like it or not. World-Class means what it says.
This is not to take away anything from black grads of all-black institutions. it is simply to shine a light on a psychological reality. We've all heard of black kids who feel adrift the first time they find themselves in an all-ethnicities learning environment for the first time. It's a form of culture-shock not experienced by black kids who have been in an all-inclusive learning environment since kindergarten.
Please, critics, don't let black pride skew your response to this reality. It is what it is. It is real. We deny it at our peril.
Then. while all parents want/hope their kids become achievers, which has the better likelihood? The kids in whose homes more-educated parents discuss matters of substance, have bookshelves full of books, who engage in constructive intellectual exercises such as debates, where the parents have time and motivation to push their kids to achieve, where they hear gatherings of grownups discuss weighty subjects? Or the homes where instead of books there is TV constantly on, where the parents themselves are ill-equipped to counsel or tutor their kids, where home life may be edgy instead of harmonious? These extremes are deliberately described as such for effect. There are many gradations from one to the other, but the more supportive the home is, the better the kids are likely to do scholastically and, let's face it, morally. (The lure of the street can derail the best of intentions. If what's hip or what's happening takes precedence over intellectual development, it will show by age 16.)
Finally, if the child's grades are mediocre, there is less outside help available (scholarships, programs of study, etc.)
These are the brutal realities having nothing to do with "black culture," but rather with the presence or absence of support systems that nurture scholastic development and self-confidence. And along the way, the more children are exposed to what life has to offer, the broader their horizons and the more intense are their ambition and goals. Black kids need that self-confidence deep down in order to prevail when the going gets tough.
Role models are also important. So the more that children can meet or see successful blacks, the more motivated they will be to emulate THEM, not the ne'er-do-wells that abound everywhere.
We seldom realize that economically-challenged white kids must run the same gauntlet to keep up with the pack, and/or lead the pack. It's just that they face no prejudice as they try, and find acceptance more readily and easily.
In the end, each of us is a product of our personal merits, what we have met along the way, and where our perseverance takes us. If we know we face greater challenges based on our appearance and the prejudice that triggers, we must prepare all the more to meet and overcome the barriers meant to discourage us. The US Army's slogan is "Be all you can be." Good advice for any of us to follow. To arrive where you want to be, do what is needed to get there. Persevere. Delay gratification until you reach your goal. Sidestep the bad and destructive; embrace the constructive. Avoid bad habits; develop good habits. As my elders taught me at age 7: "Your body is the temple in which your spirit lives. To nurture your sprit, respect its temple. Treat it right." Nourish it; don't abuse it. All things in moderation.
These are not mere aphorisms; they are tips on how best to prevail in a competitive, challenging world. In the end, YOU are responsible for you.
This is essential to the completion of any kind of training program. One of the things that enables people to delay gratification is confidence that the goal, usually in the form of a desired job, is available out there in reality after the training is completed. What happens when those jobs are not out there anymore? They aren't out there for any Americans, even though a lot of jobs were here, within the memory of many adults. This is written from the perspective of a 75 year old white person. As a young woman I thought that a successful civil rights movement would lead to black people, women and everybody else having an equal opportunity to get their slice of the famous American pie. Now the pie itself has gone away to a significant extent, and in the area of manufacturing jobs, to a great extent. How do people sustain themselves through long training programs with hope of seizing the prize when there is no prize?
But it's not that the prize has vanished...it's that the prize is no longer where it used to be.
And if we've prepared to seize that prize -- as a for instance -- in Detroit, on the line, manufacturing gas-powered muscle cars, then we'll probably fail to find it.
What you describe is a complex problem....and a major part of it is the classic 'buggy whip dilemma'. If my family, for generations, has successfully specialized in the creation of World's Best BWhips'...and I myself spent years apprenticed to that trade...and the business collapses because buggies are replaced by whipless cars, then -- as you say -- my hope of seizing the same prize my parents and their parents successfully seized (where & how they seized it)... my hope crashes & burns.
Another part of our problem is the shortness of our own, individual time horizon. From a larger, historical perspective what we see (thinking 'big picture') is the classic ebb & flow of the market, as pushed and prodded by a rapidly changing world and evolving technologies. From that persepective the prize remains constant (skilled labor being page good wages for productivity)...and the prize winners even remain constant...its just that market supply & demand shifts.
But you're absolutely right -- on the individual's time scale, if I'm 53 years old...with 12 years left until retirement....the obsolescence of my skill set is staggering. What do I do? How do I begin any kind of training program (assuming I can find someone to invest in a 53 yr. old) that can be completed in time to fund the balance of my life? If jobs are available in Omaha and I'm in Detroit...how do I handle the cost of dislocation? What does that do to my family?
Looking forward we can emphasize job skill training over much of the crap which is being taught today. We can emphasize the permanence of certain job classes over others (we'll always need plumbers, carpenters, repairmen, masonry specialists, painters, wood rot repair people, etc.). We can help disincent the relocation of factories to cheap-labor environments. Lots of things we can do in the future. The problem for which there is no obvious solution is the impact of shifting markets on those whose lives are tied to buggywhips, et al. today.
"Creative destruction" is to be expected in a capitalist economy and has many analogs in the natural world. While individuals, especially those in particularly vulnerable situations, can be negatively impacted by sudden and wrenching change, others presently lacking good opportunities will find their futures broadened and their lives enriched. Generally, with some noteworthy exceptions, the process works to increase productivity, efficiency, and the delivery of objectively better goods and services to consumers.
But if I'm that vulnerable 53 yr. old with a limited and now obsolete skill set -- it's painful as hell.
As painful, perhaps, as the massive flood which destroys the fields, kills the crops, and craters the community's economic well being. In the long run, the deposits of all that bottom silt will probably be a good thing for both the river and the fields. But no one wants to slog through all that mud to get there.
Good point, and one made clearly and at length by sociologist William Julius Wilson in his 1987 study "The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy."
It's a standard in the biz. Not blacks' fault for inner city dysfunction—rather, capitalist competition forced mass employment businesses out of central cities and blacks, unable to relocate for various well-documented reasons, lost employment, so income, thence middle-class values. Thus was "ghetto culture" born.
My Dad worked in the auto industry, so we witnessed the tragic collapse of Detroit in real time. It's heartbreaking to watch now as the cores of other great cities collapse. This time it was brought on intentionally by so-called Progressive Democrats in those cities, but the shift to virtual work during the pandemic lockdowns has greatly accelerated the decline.
Question: Assume your recommendations are taken fully to heart by the powers that be and widely implemented across the country. Assume as well sufficient time has elapsed to fully establish the program and behavioral changes—say 25 years (more or less if you wish). What do you estimate would be the effect on the current black "achievement gap" shown during cognitive ability testing of approx. 1 standard deviation when compared to whites, approx. 1.5 s.d. compared to East Asians, and approx. 2 s.d. compared to Ashkenazi Jews?
I wonder the same thing, just from a perspective of scientific interest. This is where research is indispensable for answering questions, and obviously that is not about to happen in our current political environment.
My "question" was a bit tongue-in-cheek. It's been asked and answered many times over just about everywhere and since long ago. The research results lie dormant and undisturbed under ever deepening layers of dust, waiting in vain for those courageous enough to rediscover the ugly truths within.
What we do not know from testing is to what extent we are measuring the construct of "innate ability," an invisible something that is like the Postmodern non-reality---we can't touch it directly. We theorize that a large percentage of intellectual performance reflects this innate ability. We also know that kids who live in homes where there is more intellectual engagement and resources develop their innate ability more than other kids, and this difference appears to reflect actual brain development. So the enhanced level of ability becomes part of the child's innate package and equips the child to learn more effectively, but it was added after birth through interaction with the environment and is not heritable.
There could be another level of interaction if a kid who has the genetic background of say, Ashkenazi Jews, can utilize the environmental stimulation more effectively than kids from other genetic backgrounds, so he manages to build even more brain capabilities than kids from other genetic backgrounds who have the same quality of family environment.
The opposite effect on the brain is caused by childhood trauma, especially abusive and chaotic homelife. These kids can be less developed in abilities that are required for knowledge based careers, although they may be more developed in skills required for surviving in an abusive family. Overall, however, they are likely to show lack of development in some basic areas.
This last finding has been seized upon by the critical social justice cult to rationalize a transformation of K-12 teaching into amateur trauma therapy. The Social Emotional Learning proponents argue in the usual general vague woke way that a high percentage of children, meaning mostly children of color, trans children and the usual list, fall behind in school because of trauma. Period. While they are correct that high levels of domestic violence or other abuses at home can interfere with learning, there is not evidence that this is the main reason for disparities in achievement. It is a fact that domestic violence, substance abuse and other forms of neglect go on in upper income families as well as lower income ones. It is true, on the other hand, that there is a significantly higher rate of physical abuse of children in black homes (more households involved and more severe levels of abuse), as well as much more severe peer group violence in lower income black neighborhoods.
The last variable I will mention is the extent of the cultural valuation of intellectual training, achievement, and the status of knowledge based careers. Having gotten to know a fair number of Chinese Americans, Indian Americans and Israelis, I can attest that the cultures of these countries are way, way, more focused and driven to succeed in school and in their subsequent careers than the average American family. The pressure to achieve academically is so intense in some of the homes in these cultures that I think it is not healthy, based on the level of anxiety that is created about mistakes, failures, laxity of effort, etc. So, I acknowledge that my relatively moderate position on pushing kids to succeed reflects my own cultural values, but there are also objective reasons to think that maximum pressure to succeed is implicated in at least some suicides, especially in China, Japan and perhaps other countries in Eastern Asia, and probably with heightened anxieties of various kinds. The up side of all the pressure is that the above named cultures as well as some others with similar values are able to achieve extremely high scores on tests and to perform with excellence in their jobs. I personally believe that a significant part of their superior performance is due to the amount of time and the intensity of work that people from the above culture put into every project that is important to them. I certainly would not dismiss the possibility that innately superior intellectual ability relative to people with different genetic heritages is a major contributor to their success.
In social science there is actually not a way to know for certain what variables cause later outcomes when the latter are as complex as intellectual ability, academic achievement, career success and so on. To claim that research results show causation of an outcome, studies have to be carried out over years. The investigators also have to measure a lot of variables at the beginning , because they don't know in advance what could turn out to be the cause of something downstream. For obvious ethical reasons, it is also not possible to assign kids at the beginning to potentially damaging environments so as to see how that affects them later.
So, scientifically speaking, we do not know the causes of the differences in intellectual ability between groups of people from different gene pools. I personally do not have much emotional attachment to any side of the debate about what percentage of the disparities is caused by innate factors and what percentage is an outcome of environmental conditions. I do wish that people would try to do their best to succeed, but I would not favor pushing children as much as is done in the most high performing cultures. I can certainly understand Glenn Loury's positions as he expressed them, regarding the longing to see black kids give it their all and see how far they can go.
Evidently you have been through the stacks—would that many more would do the same. Great post, Sandra, with which I have little either to add or rebut. Thanks.
“What I fear is not that black Americans will fail to measure up. I fear that we’ll never know if they do, because they will not confront the struggle head on.”
I LOVE this statement. Absolutely true. And I think this can only happen when well-meaning but ultimately ignorant Woke white people STOP patronizing black Americans.
What evidence is there of these woke white people being well-meaning? Because I don't see it. They have control of the education system for most of my life and performance seems to have gotten worse rather than better. Those woke leftists engage in the worst kind of bigotry, the kind that goes beyond saying blacks cannot achieve and essentially says no one should expect them to. That's not accidental. The woketarians need an underclass of mascots whom they can use to advance whatever crackpot idea is being pushed. The last thing they want is for black people to understand that they're being used.
"All men are created equal..." All our dysfunction follows from this false premise.
In societies founded on democratic ideals—and especially ones given over to humoring female sensitivities—(Peterson's) hierarchies of competence MUST be torn down (or never allowed to be organically constructed in the first place) since they provide concrete evidence of the differing ability levels and predilections of races, ethnicities, and sexes.
Or perhaps Glenn's "black Americans" know something he doesn't...
See Chapter 2 in Charles Murray's "Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality" for the best explanation EVER of just how limiting lower IQ is in the real world. The book is freely available online in PDF format—Murray told me he's fine with people accessing it in that way as he values people reading and considering the material more than he does income from the book's sales.
You have about say, half with truancy problems. Like in The Wire.
Real problems. Hard to practice factorization when when man no.22 is pounding out mom, sister got a train run on, brother shot dead, rent tripled, no more school meals, 1000 dollar emergency finally.happened, etc. Social welfare issues that take about a generation to fix.
The other half just need a foot up they ass. Mom and Pop buy them a PS5 as a distraction device, no focus on class. So someone needs to put a foot up they ass. 10,000 times. Until they habits change.
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 ultimately. 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.
I am happy to hear that you agree with me that some people are unable to provide for their own needs. As to your list of things one needs to do to survive, you forget about people who inherit property. I personally know an example of a woman who has not had to work for most of her life thanks to a large house she had inherited from her parents. People can also inherit other sources of income.
Yes, there are people who can earn quite a lot of money thanks to the fact that lots of other people can't afford to buy a house or apartment. At least some of these people ruthlessly exploit the situation of their tenants.
Deleted by author.
It's a hard line to walk - the one on which one finds a pride and blessing in one's race or ethnicity and at the same time finds a willingness to critique trends or behaviors manifested by some (many?) who also belong. For me, it's the very line God called the Israelites to walk as recorded in the Old Testament.
"the editor has had trouble getting black writers to write about something other than race. He's asked them to, and they say, no, what I want to do is this. And there's a value to it. But if you ask me, it's a little 1970, as if nobody else would write about these things if black people didn't."
If black people didn't, then white people might! Horrors!
Need to listen to a Greenwald interview of Amy Wax and Norman Finkelstein on the same topic which has put Amy Wax under possible dismissal. It is good to have this topic be spoken of almost simultaneously. Makes for greater fire to address.
Audio sucked at times, but the content was stellar. Amy Wax is another of my hero(in)es. Her 2009 "Race, Wrongs, and Remedies: Group Justice in the 21st Century" was excellent. The woman is one serious piece of artillery!
It's really so much simpler than all that. It really is.
We overcomplicate this very human issue by pouring 'race' all over it (or age, or sex, or ??)... but the complication is artificial.
Everyone is asked, challenged, pushed (positively, negatively) to prove themselves. And everyone believes that that challenge is unfair, undeserved, not right, no good, and comes inevitably from a place of irrational bias.
You didn't pick me for the basketball team 'cause I'm short. I didn't make the team because I'm short. I sat the bench, because I'm short!!! And that's just not right; I'm just as good as those other guys!
So prove it, bucko. Kick their butts all over the court. Fast break 'em till they can't stand. Rainbow jumper their ass! And well -- you either do, or don't. And if you can't, you learn pretty quickly to shut-up and go home and work to get better. That's all there is to it.
I had a conversation years ago with a young, Black substitute teacher who told me, "My class is filled with racists! And it's just so hard!" I asked what they were doing...why she believed they were racists. She said it was because they were always on her....they were always challenging her in class....they were giving her a hard time. She said, "Just because I'm Black, I have to prove my humanity every single day!" She was understandably upset.
I probably didn't help because I told her...'You may or may not have actual real racists in the class, who knows. But everything you describe happens to every new, young, substitute teacher. That's how students of that age act. And they act that way consistently. And they do it, with more than a little joy when they make the newbie feel and act uncomfortable. It's not a race thing; it's a young, newbie, substitute thing.
I knew a man, an experienced manager, who was hired into an upper level position in a new firm. He was pleased, of course, but weeks later ....when we met he was upset, angry, frustrated. "I just don't get it," he told me, "They hired me because of my record, but no one listens to what I have to say. I find myself working twice as hard just to do what I was doing with the back of my hand at the old place. It's not right; it's not fair. And it's because I'm just not one of the 'good old boys'!"
This refrain is sung by all of us, at one time or another, and usually multiple times for multiple reasons. It's a very familiar tune.
But we're almost always wrong.
The truth is: We're all doubted. We're all challenged. And pushback is a given.
Of course we're all tempted to find comfort in the crutch...in the rationalization that these challenges are coming to me NOT because it's fair that my bona fides must be validated...but because, so goes Temptation's Whisper, "I'm ... a fill-in-the-blank; and that's not right!"
Maybe it's the 'because I'm Black'...maybe because I'm a woman... maybe because I'm old...or short....or young...or male...or White...or have an accent....or am Jewish...or Catholic....or from a small town...or didn't go to an Elite School....or you name it. We always feel it's unmerited. We always feel we're not appreciated as much as we most truly deserve. We ask in angry anguish: How could THOSE PEOPLE be so wrong???
You want to spend your time writing about how hard it is to be YOU? To be a member of a class or group or category that -- by golly & gosh -- is just not treated right...THAT's what you want to write about? That's the size of the cross you carry? That's what you want us to appreciate?
Well forget it.
No one really cares. Not really. It's tough to be anybody. It's tough to be alive (tougher, I would imagine, to be dead). And nobody knows the trouble any one of us has seen. So what?
So yes, we're all going to be challenged; and probably, in an ideal world in which our own best attributes are most fully known & appreciated, a goodly portion of those challenges might go away. But this is not that world; and they're not going away. In fact, they're doubling down.
And if we really were as good as we think we are...we'd embrace every single challenge there was. You want me to prove it? Well bring it on. We'll see who's standing at the end.
Either that or we melt, we whine, we complain, and protest. In our bitterness, maybe, we even refuse: Hell no, I'm not going to have to demonstrate to you that I can write a sentence or do simple arithmetic problem. Ok, that's your choice. The opportunity passes you by. And when that happens (as it will) we just become that much more bitter, that much more resistant...that much more convinced that 'It's not ME; it's them!! It's their fault!"
Maybe we wake-up; maybe we grow-up...but increasingly that possibility seems less and less likely as the State rushes to intervene, kiss it and make it better. Maybe the steel is stronger for the fire...but damn, that fire is sure hot (and did I tell you I don't really like it??).
Great rant! There it is, folks, the facts of life. Used to be we knew this stuff—our dads and our buddies and the adults around us "growing us up" lived it and demanded we live it as well. Not so much anymore, alas.
I with the dick bicker; it was a grant rant and very truthful and complete. Well done, BDarn. I would have written it myself but other people just never give me a break or like because <my excuse here>.
Oh, Jean Paul, you do get yourself so revved up emotionally. You seem to take everything so personally. You might want to take a look at that.
There are fabulous economic opportunities in the US being accessed by well-educated foreigners because our public schools are miserably failing to educate enough students to qualify as doctors, engineers, etc.
RE: Detroit It was hollowed, after the auto industry there collapsed, because its public schools would/could not educate students to a level of competency and competitiveness, then and now.. The auto industry, like so many other union and government jobs, camouflaged the root problem of widespread undereducation.
Not everyone can qualify for a knowledge based technical career nor does everyone want to. The idea that everybody should go to college is becoming less popular, but we no longer have all the skilled trades that provided well paid work for a big percentage of our population until the collapse of our manufacturing economy in the 1980's. The industries in Detroit created jobs for tens of thousands of people that ranged from non-skilled to skilled crafts, to engineering to executive positions.
Detroit was also an appallingly racist city when I first lived there in 1963 and remained so for a long time after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Prior to the collapse of the auto industry the city was not a uniformly low income black city. It was a patchwork of neighborhoods spanning the range of socioeconomic levels, and these certainly did include large neighborhoods populated almost exclusively by low income black people. There were, however, also upper middle and upper class black people, as well as white and racially mixed neighborhoods. During the mid 1970's the racial mix within the city limits was about 50/50 black/white. After the collapse of the auto industry the people who had the money to get out did so. The people who remained were mostly older and poorer black residents who either couldn't afford to move or who wanted to stay because of social ties.
Sandra, what is this "collapse of the auto industry" you keep referring to? When did it occur? Where exactly (only in Detroit, Midwest, USA)? What vehicle replaced the automobile after the collapse? What companies replaced the auto companies that presumably were destroyed in the "collapse"? I have a very different recollection of Detroit's automotive history than yours.
That's not exactly what happened in Detroit, Pam. What is the timeframe of your actual experience of the city?
http://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/Race/R_Overview/R_Overview5.htm
This is a brief summary that appeared first on a casual search. What I remember are mostly conversations with my Dad during the 1970's. Some of the things he told me about I didn't understand, and I am definitely not an expert on the demise of Detroit. The above account generally matches what I remember.
My parents moved to Detroit when I was in high school (1963). I left Michigan for the West Coast in 1978. My parents stayed in Detroit and I had friends there, so I was in touch with what was going on for a few years after I moved, but not much after 1985.
That "history" you cited is cursory, biased, and contains many errors of fact and interpretation. My mother worked at the River Rouge plant as a typist (as did my wife a generation later only in computer support for executives). Our family manufacturing business was only a couple miles from the complex before we moved it out of Detroit in the early 1990s. I was present in Detroit during the same years you lived in the area although I left in the mid-1970s and returned in the early 1990s to raise a family and help with the family business, leaving for good in 2007. I still have family and friends in the area who keep me more or less up to date on, um, developments.
No problem, Richard, I am not an expert on the demise of Detroit.
Central to any argument is the willingness to have it, and to have it honestly. That requires looking beyond external factors involved and considered the individual's role. Can black people succeed? Of course, they can. It is silly to even ask that considering the millions of black people working in a cross-section of industries and living productive, normal lives.
What is mind-boggling is the contention in some quarters that life is somehow more difficult for minorities today than it was in the Jim Crow era and before. That defies all logic and reason. The convenient playing of the race card for any negative outcome that a black person experiences has become an exclusive excuse that no other group can access. What is the white guy's reason for coming up short? The Hispanic person's? The Asian's? Everyone fails in something at some point. Many people fail often; it's part of testing one's limits and failure is integral to learning. It's when you fail repeatedly at the same thing that this becomes worrisome, as that indicates a refusal to learn.
Meanwhile, a host of policy decisions - from eliminating standardized tests to cutting out honors classes and so forth - represent a different and far more destructive form of bigotry. Those actions, usually undertaken by white leftists, are the worst kind of condescension. They say that blacks cannot achieve and what's more, that no one should expect them to achieve. What a toxic message to send. Imagine telling a five year old black kid that he/she can never amount to more than the lowest common denominator in the neighborhood simply because he/she is black.
Good points, all. However, you must also address the statistical certainty that American blacks, relative to American whites and ON AVERAGE, will show a deficit of around 1 standard deviation in any cognitively demanding task whether it be a test in K-12 eduction, performance and graduation rates in university, or professional participation and accomplishments.
So how do you thread the needle encouraging and supporting black development and achievement while the numbers demonstrating real and enduring racial differences in ability are there for all to see—stark, ubiquitous, significant, and unchanging?
It's a great question.
But the easy answer is, I don't hire averages. I don't promote statistical certainties. I don't assign 'standard deviations' to complete a demanding project. I hire, promote, and assign people. And people are just people.
And most of us don't see the individuals who stand before us Category Representatives. We see them as Glenn, or Sam, or Rachel, or Ted, or Sandy. And if we work with them long enough & successfully enough, then we know what Glenn is good at it...where Sandy struggles...and where Ted might seem a genius.
I would suggest that we worry too much about average outcome differences and population disparities (all invisible conceptual things)....and not nearly enough at training Ted & challenging Ted & pushing Ted to be better than he is.
The problem, of course, is the host of Activists outside the door pointing out that THEY see Ted as ONLY a Category Rep...and that Ted's Category is, on average, not doing nearly as well as Glenn's.
That is a sustainable model but not widely practiced any more. The schools are ensuring the qualified candidate pool is near nil.
Harrison Bergeron.
Love Harrison Bergeron!!
If only Diana Moon Glampers were here to help us! She'd get this equity thing straightened out pretty darned quick!
YOU may not hire, promote, and assign people using detailed analysis of your staff's racial, sex/gender, and other identity characteristics. However, I can assure you that MANY other large organizations and ALL companies doing business with federal (and most state) government entities are REQUIRED to perform "bean counting" of this variety in order to comply with the law of the land. Should companies and institutions ignore or contravene those requirements, they are subject to legal action against them, fines, penalties, and loss of contracts, and/or time-consuming and expensive "compliance audits" as well consent decrees to "clean up their act" and begin the bean counting anew. Consider yourself and your company VERY fortunate that you've never been so constrained in managing your own employees.
https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/hiring/affirmativeact
https://www.ogcsolutions.com/preparing-for-an-ofccp-audit/
Sad, but very true.
Corporate is obsessed with such idiocy...and they're obsessed with it because the State is obsessed with it....and the obsession exists because way too many idiots drank the KoolAid, swallowed the blue pill, and became very small indeed.
As a result, Corporate (and every organization who believes in there insanity which is Diversity, Equity, & Inclusivity) rapidly swirls down the Mediocrity Death Spiral.
The good hire the less good because they look good ....who then hire the very average because they're not threatening.... who hire the poor.... and everything continues to run for awhile because it was originally built by the very good. But, eventually, inevitably, things start breaking. And the Diverse, Inclusive, and Equitable Eloi can't fix a damned thing.
On the other hand, they sure look diverse, inclusive, and equitable while failing.
As with anyone else; encourage them to equip themselves to the best of their ability and take that as far as they can. Having done all one can there is no shame in achieving less than someone else. The shame is in wasting what you have.
Agree entirely. I'm still a bit doubtful that, when push comes to shove, advocates of individual effort/reward will have the fortitude to maintain that position in the face of hostile charges of "racist discrimination" due to massive differences in representation levels across the board in various PMC positions. You prepared for that?
Anyone who respects the human individual has no moral choice but to stand, whatever slings and arrows.
In that case, we have among us vast multitudes of disrepectors of the human individual, refusniks in standing for the moral choice, and shirkers, duckers, and dodgers of slings and arrows. (I can't really blame them for the last—those things hurt!)
So it would appear.
So Glenn, a former drug addict, and deadbeat/absent dad says collectively black people have something to prove. No it seems like the burden of proof is on him. As Prof. Gates alluded to, discrimination often occurs under “Ceteris Paribus” conditions. If you don’t know what the Latin term means, get his “linguist” co-host to interpret. I’m sure he’s proved himself by mastering every major language since antiquity!
But everyone has something to prove, don't they? Isn't that what life's about?
And having proved that something once, aren't we all then challenged --over and over again -- to prove that same thing (or perhaps a different thing) over and over again?
You climb one hill and there's another before you...and another after that. It never ends. Or rather the need to face challenges ends only with death.
It's always difficult to deal with collective averages and then talk individuals, but sure -- since 73% of all NBA players are Black, would you not think it reasonable to say White BBall players (as a collective) 'have something to prove' if they're to be starters in the NBA? Of course they do. [Even though no coach evaluates collectives...they only evaluate players] So wouldn't it be equally reasonable to say, as Glenn has said, that Black's (as a collective) 'have something to prove' given the average crime rates, graduation rates, literacy rates, etc?
Of course they do (as a collective).
But again, if I'm hiring someone for a job I don't evaluate 'the collective'...I evaluate the individual. You don't have to prove anything for the Collective; you just have to prove yourself.
You seem to want it both ways. Of course each individual has to prove their own skills etc. As long as I manage myself and raise my children I’ve done my part. But who is this judge that black people must prove themselves too? When do we know if we get a passing grade. What jobs/roles in society are black people not capable of doing?
You're missing the point.
As I said, it's always difficult to deal with collective averages EXCEPT as a collective average. You can't switch back & forth from the collective average to the individual.
That's why the question you ask, "who is this judge that Black people must prove themselves to" can't be answered. There is no such judge....for the Collective. We only challenge & judge the Individual.
But, in fact, the collective average (like that seen with the White BBall Player Collective) does indeed tell us the collective does have something to prove.. If it didn't, the average wouldn't look so darn mediocre.
Surely you recognize that you, we, all of us inhabit multiple public identities? As an individual, yes, you're absolutely right -- we each have to prove our own capabilities (over and over again). Our own, individual competencies will continually be tested. But equally we are a member of multiple larger categories/groups. And there are qualities shared (on average) across those larger populations that we may or may not individually share.
The Black 'Collective' shares, for example, the fact that it exhibits a higher crime rate, a lower graduation rate, a higher poverty rate, a higher out-of-wedlock birth rate, etc. Any individual within that collective may be none of those things...but the collective they're a part of -- on average -- exhibits them all. And if you're a member of that collective, then you share -- like it or not -- the burden of those expectations.
So Glenn is absolutely right. Black people (as a collective) do have something to prove. And any member of that collective shares, at least to some extent, the requirement of that proof -- even though they may display none of the qualities equally shared (on average) across that collective population.
If I'm short, I'm a member of the 'short people collective'. On average, that collective is seen as not playing top-tier BBall. If I want to go out for the team, I will have to battle, first, the truism that 'short people can't play top tier BBall'. I may be a genius on the court, but until I prove that on an individual level, I share the burden that all short people share: that being, that we're -- on average -- not top tier BBall players.
The Collective will only get a passing grade when the collective's averages demonstrate they're -- collectively -- as good as any other group. Again, there is no judge -- there is only the arithmetic average. When the Black out-of-wedlock birth rate drops to the average level seen in the White or Asian populations, then it no longer negatively characterizes the Black population.
There is no job that Black people are not capable of doing. I would have thought that question had been answered generations ago. Any given individual -- given the talent, drive, and inclination -- can do anything. But the collective averages will tell us that it's unusual to find a 5'10" White guy playing the starting point position for the Lakers .... and it's unusual to find a Black neurosurgeon. That's not saying that either is impossible or that the category is incapable. It's just saying the collective averages -- if you're a betting man -- would tell us it's less probable.
And what means is the short White guy & Black neurosurgeon will probably each be expected to prove -- at an individual level -- that they can kick butt in each respective position.
What a hateful comment!
They come out of the woodwork for Glenn! Out from under their rocks, as well.
Kudos to Glenn for giving the haters a forum in which to expose themselves.
We see you.
Oh yeah, McWhorter didn’t see the big deal about the firing of Scott Adam’s (Dilbert) for saying that black people constituted a hate group, even though he admitted it was a racist statement. I challenge him to write a column suggesting that Jewish people are a hate group and see how long he remains a columnist for the New York Times!
I’m not hiding. I fear no man in particular these two quislings!
Glenn is a good man and doesn’t deserve your attack. All of us have failed in aspects of our life. What separates the brave is that despite their flaws and failures, they keep trying to do good. And yes, black and white people both, as well as you and I, should do better. We don’t need to condemn each other to try and do better.
These guys specialize in Ad Hominem attacks. They called the funeral of Tyre Nichols a coon and minstrel show; so I have little respect for either.
But you need to get past your shock at the use of a word (which was used entirely to shock) and consider what is being said in "The Spectacle of Mourning", particularly as it relates to leveraging family tragedies to highlight political agendas.
Kneejerk reactions never serve us well.
Assorted thoughts inspired by Glenn and John's remarks about proving yourself:
Until age-related decline really kicks in, how many of us, as individuals, have learned nearly as much as we are able to learn or achieved a level of physical well-being near what we could?
Until we believe that we have come close to topping out our own personal capabilities, it hardly seems to make sense to have too much concern about differences in averages across various characteristics between people of our own race and others.
(How much we push toward our various potentials is a matter of personal choice. However, Glenn mentions "competence", and we do owe it to ourselves and our fellow humans to try to attain a level of competence to produce things of value sufficient to trade for our basic needs.)
Congratulations! You've evidently "topped out your personal capabilities."
This could well be the stupidest comment I've ever read on the Glenn Loury substack (and the competition for that honor is steep indeed).
Gee, thanks for the civil reply. And also, thanks for the referral to the Murray book, which I downloaded earlier when I first went through the comments on this post.
It's fair to assume from your other comments that my third sentence--"Until we believe..."--is the one that triggered you. I actually don't agree with this sentence myself, and when I wrote it, I was curious about whether anyone would challenge it. It seems like no one will, which is fine by me. I was just laying the idea out if anyone was interested in taking the time to delve into it further.
Gotta own what you write. You be better next time.
I would be interested in your thoughts on Chapter 2 of "Real Education." Anything click or was it stale bread? I term the near total inability of higher-IQ folk—people like Glenn, John, and many (not all) participating in discussion of their ideas here and elsewhere—to understand the on-the-ground challenges lowish-IQ folk face day-in, day-out the "Reverse Dunning-Kruger Effect." There is no known cure for the malady...
I do own what I write. You read better next time.
I'm not ready to read and address the Murray book yet (nor the Bell Curve); it's just added to my list. As far as acknowledging the omissions from my "Until we believe..." sentence, the farthest I wanted to go myself with it here, if challenged, was to agree that there are more issues to address than dealing with how we each feel about the ultimate limitations to our own mental capabilities. We must do more than wallow in solipsism; we do have to consider what we can expect from others around us.
(And to have fruitful consideration of these matters, we must have honest conversations about them. These conversations must include people like Murray.)
You needn't read Murray's entire book (oh, and "people like Murray"—please explain). I only suggested that Chapter 2 of "Real Education" would be especially illuminating and relevant to the discussion here. If one short chapter in one short book is too much for you, I shudder to think of your tackling "The Bell Curve" in all its dense immensity (immense density?)...
1. "People like Murray" are people who express and thoughtfully defend points of view that can get them shouted down and even "cancelled" in our society.
2. I'm surprised you're so interested in having the author of what might be the stupidest of countless stupid comments on Glenn Show posts read and opine on chapter 2 of the Murray book.
3. Chapter 2 of Murray's book is about 30 pages; not exactly "short". Yeah, I looked it over, and it doesn't look like too tough a read, but you assume I have nothing else to do already. Still, I was going to see if I could squeeze in a quick read of the chapter this weekend, but then I had a personal mishap this morning (fortunately, no one hurt) which is going to suck even more of my time. We'll see; I'll ping you here if I am able to read it this weekend. Oh, and I have to finish my taxes. (And I already consumed some minutes on this board addressing a reply to another of my posts by one "Joanna", whom I see you also responded to.)
4. You needn't worry about me, should I choose to tackle "The Bell Curve". For example, I am currently reading "Microeconomic Theory: Basic Principles and Extensions" by Nicholson and Snyder. I assure you, that book is more densely immense or immensely dense than "The Bell Curve".
He’s a dick bickers; so there’s that. I reread your post and still think there is not much rationale for having to top out oneself before engaging in differences between races because it infers to me that either a) only the handful of people who have topped out can have the conversation, or b) you think lots (eg billions on earth) have topped out to their potential and this can engage in the differences. Neither a) nor b) are reasonable to me. Thus, I said it was convoluted. However, given your subsequent posts, I do see that you are thoughtful, sincere and respectful; and so I took the time to explain my comment. Take care and hope to see more of your comments here or on future essays.
Thanks. (I strive to be at least a bit better person than "literally Hitler".)
I can see that you're interested in signing off and moving on, but I do want to add a few things to try and clear up. My main point in the OP was that I don't think that people personally need to worry too much about the bell curves they're on and their own personal limits, because they rarely bump up against them. (And, in my aside, I tried to make clear that I don't even think people need to try always "be the best they can be". It's okay to take it easy sometimes, as long as you don't unduly burden others by it.)
As I admitted to Bickers yesterday, and in further discussion with him today, I worded my OP in a way that can be read to imply that this is the end of it and that there is no purpose for consideration of racial (or other category) differences. (I didn't do this to be a dick or hyper-provocative; I just strive to keep my posts short and direct and see if anyone wants to engage further. I think writing long posts on comment boards like this is USUALLY a waste of time--TLDR and what not--unless people first get interested in something you briefly write and want to talk more.) Anyway, as I have said to Bickers, I do agree with you; there are reasons to discuss differences between the races, even if it shouldn't matter much to how you feel about yourself.
So take care, and I hope to see you around again, too.
I’m glad that a) I’m not the only one who thought it was convoluted, and b) that you don’t currently deem my comments as the stupidest :D.
It's no surprise that when you try to find a path through "assorted thoughts", you merely find them "convoluted".
My main point was that, from a personal perspective, people should focus on their own potentials, and not trouble themselves over some bell curve they might be placed on. Nothing profound; just chiming in on some ideas from Glenn and John's conversation about proving yourself.
Then I felt compelled to add a parenthetical remark that I don't think anyone is actually obliged to strive to do anything to their full potential.
---
However, as I suggest in my reply to Bicker, I worded my third sentence in a way that was more general than just people addressing their personal intellectual concerns. Most of us also have concerns for other people and for the societies in which we operate, and I thought maybe someone from Bicker's perspective might come along and suggest that I overlooked racial differences as a possible issue from these perspectives. No one did.
Your comments are always relevant and to the point—pithy, even!
Err, it's the most cogent comment here, albeit it side steps the race issue, so your response demonstrates suboptimal comprehension skills, or maybe you're having a bad day, or have poor eyesight.
And I take Glenn's point that Black people are assumed because of "culture" to have a metaphorical disability when the full intellectual potential of many Black people has never, ever been tried.
That's not a point—it's a forlorn and foolish wish. Shame on Glenn for such drivel.
I am going to be a possibly very insulting devil's advocate. As someone with an autism diagnosis I would have a limited ability to prove my full humanity if the standard was more right-brain and holistic. This does not mean that I do not have strengths that can benefit people who don't have a disability.
I suggest the following order of priority for "proving" whatever about yourself:
1. Prove yourself to others to be competent as required to interact with them to provide for your basic needs. In simple terms, show that you can do a job.
2. Prove whatever you consider important about your "humanity" to yourself.
3. Prove things about yourself to others sufficient to meet your social goals.
---
I'm not autistic myself, nor anything near an expert on autism, but it's just basic knowledge that 1 and 3 can be tough for people with autism--how tough depending on where you are on "the spectrum". About 2, I have no idea.
I question the assumption that everyone should be able to do a job which would provide for the person's basic needs. One's disabilities can seriously limit one's chances to find and keep a job which would provide for one's basic needs. Interestingly, many women don't have paid jobs and it is widely seen as normal. Only men are expected to survive from paid work.
I also question the assumption that "showing that one can do a job" is more important than proving what one finds important about one's humanity.
Thanks for your reply.
A. Of course, some people lack the ability to provide for their own needs. They should make a good faith effort to do what they can for themselves, though, even though in the end, they will require the charity of others to survive.
B. I see you've already been discussing women not having cash-earning jobs with Bicker. Maybe I'll comment a bit down there.
C. To undertake the task of "proving what one finds important about one's humanity", one has to be alive. There are certain basic things that one needs to be alive, and there are four ways to obtain them: (1) Produce them oneself; (2) produce things (including services) that one can trade for them; (3) steal them or take them by force from others; or (4) receive them as an act of charity by others. Thus, one needs to do one or more of these four things before proving one's humanity. I suggest making an effort at (1) or (2), not doing (3), and hoping for (4) only after trying at (1) or (2). Now for most people, (1) is not really possible; few people are an island unto themselves (or alone on one). My item 1. in my OP is implicit in doing (2).
Those women are "paid" by the working men to keep house, raise children, and keep the men ready, willing, and able to "bring home the bacon."
This is not always true. Some of those women don't have children. Some of them no longer raise children. Some families can afford to pay other women for housework. In any case "keeping house" and looking after children are not the same as finding and keeping a job on a competitive job market. And let's not forget about women who "keep house" and raise children while also having a job outside home...
Many women benefit from the fact that it is culturally accepted to be a stay at home wife/girlfriend. It is difficult to say if these women would be able to survive from paid work. For some women the traditional feminine role is much more attractive than seeking and performing paid work, though mainstream feminism refuses to admit this fact.
Really, the only thing you give here which even appears like a contradiction of my point 1. in my OP is a woman in a childless relationship who does not do paid work or charitable work outside the house and who does not do much household work either.
This would be so rare that I think I could stop typing here, but I suggest that she probably is doing something, or some things, to induce her partner to keep her.
Well, of course she can be doing "something", like providing sex, companionship or even being a trophy wife/girlfriend for a well-off man. There are probably no statistics on the number of such women, but I don't know what makes you assume that the phenomenon is rare.
If some people are not expected to perform any paid work, there is no reason to claim that surviving from paid work is every person's duty. Let's not forget either about people who earn money e.g. from renting houses or apartments - they don't need any professional qualifications.
Not much is "always true," and the exceptions tend to prove the rule.
Where wide variance exists between current trends and traditional social practices, it serves us well to tread slowly and carefully with our eyes wide open. Current Western (and westernized Asian) countries have cratering TFRs which have never before been seen in history. Inverting the population pyramid is not exactly is not exactly a recipe for long-term success...
Glenn: Please quit beating yourself up about this particular nub of reality. The trouble with self-analysis is that sometimes we are too close to the forest to see the trees. Ask yourself (a) What is the typical home situation in which black kids find themselves? (b) What comprises their MAIN substance of their cultural life? (c) What subjective drags are there on them that might help to explain the shortfalls?
To make the most of our intellectual potential, growing up, we all need to live in a LEARNING ENVIRONMENT, with appropriate and attainable goals spelled out for us, complete with encouragement, interest in our progress, and censure when we stray from the path to the top where we unavoidably find ourselves in competition with others who HAVE grown up with such a support system, part material, part psychological. I hope everyone agrees with these fundamentals.
This may be a given in the few families that provide such a support system (intellectually, materially, by example and by encouragement, and where the child's playmates/classmates are not a drag on achieving, but are themselves competitors in scholastic achievement). In too many grade schools where the student body happens to be black or mostly black, we've all heard the student peer criticism of high-scoring students by those getting poorer grades, "Oh, you're just trying to be white!" Nothing similar is said of the good athletes. We excel in athleticism. Only in the scholastic arena.
In reaction, smart black kids sometimes are teased by their peers for doing well, stunting their zeal for knowledge and for excelling. (Yet later in life, when the noxious discouraging kids grow up and get in trouble, who do they go to to bail them out? The very kids they used to tease in school for being studious nerds.)
There are many debates over which educational path is better, an all-black college or an integrated college? Without this question devolving into questions of black pride, and acknowledging that many of us excel after attending an all-black institution, (a) the integrated situation is more likely to be cutting edge by its very nature, since politics see to it that such schools receive all the support that budgets and the brightest minds can provide. Thus are the odds subtly shifted in favor of the integrated situation. (b) A secondary benefit for black kids is, they become comfortable competing against ALL kids, so as life moves on, they inculcate a self-confidence which may temporarily elude them otherwise. Black pride makes it hard to admit this, but the dynamics simply operate that way, whether we like it or not. World-Class means what it says.
This is not to take away anything from black grads of all-black institutions. it is simply to shine a light on a psychological reality. We've all heard of black kids who feel adrift the first time they find themselves in an all-ethnicities learning environment for the first time. It's a form of culture-shock not experienced by black kids who have been in an all-inclusive learning environment since kindergarten.
Please, critics, don't let black pride skew your response to this reality. It is what it is. It is real. We deny it at our peril.
Then. while all parents want/hope their kids become achievers, which has the better likelihood? The kids in whose homes more-educated parents discuss matters of substance, have bookshelves full of books, who engage in constructive intellectual exercises such as debates, where the parents have time and motivation to push their kids to achieve, where they hear gatherings of grownups discuss weighty subjects? Or the homes where instead of books there is TV constantly on, where the parents themselves are ill-equipped to counsel or tutor their kids, where home life may be edgy instead of harmonious? These extremes are deliberately described as such for effect. There are many gradations from one to the other, but the more supportive the home is, the better the kids are likely to do scholastically and, let's face it, morally. (The lure of the street can derail the best of intentions. If what's hip or what's happening takes precedence over intellectual development, it will show by age 16.)
Finally, if the child's grades are mediocre, there is less outside help available (scholarships, programs of study, etc.)
These are the brutal realities having nothing to do with "black culture," but rather with the presence or absence of support systems that nurture scholastic development and self-confidence. And along the way, the more children are exposed to what life has to offer, the broader their horizons and the more intense are their ambition and goals. Black kids need that self-confidence deep down in order to prevail when the going gets tough.
Role models are also important. So the more that children can meet or see successful blacks, the more motivated they will be to emulate THEM, not the ne'er-do-wells that abound everywhere.
We seldom realize that economically-challenged white kids must run the same gauntlet to keep up with the pack, and/or lead the pack. It's just that they face no prejudice as they try, and find acceptance more readily and easily.
In the end, each of us is a product of our personal merits, what we have met along the way, and where our perseverance takes us. If we know we face greater challenges based on our appearance and the prejudice that triggers, we must prepare all the more to meet and overcome the barriers meant to discourage us. The US Army's slogan is "Be all you can be." Good advice for any of us to follow. To arrive where you want to be, do what is needed to get there. Persevere. Delay gratification until you reach your goal. Sidestep the bad and destructive; embrace the constructive. Avoid bad habits; develop good habits. As my elders taught me at age 7: "Your body is the temple in which your spirit lives. To nurture your sprit, respect its temple. Treat it right." Nourish it; don't abuse it. All things in moderation.
These are not mere aphorisms; they are tips on how best to prevail in a competitive, challenging world. In the end, YOU are responsible for you.
"Delay gratification until you reach your goal."
This is essential to the completion of any kind of training program. One of the things that enables people to delay gratification is confidence that the goal, usually in the form of a desired job, is available out there in reality after the training is completed. What happens when those jobs are not out there anymore? They aren't out there for any Americans, even though a lot of jobs were here, within the memory of many adults. This is written from the perspective of a 75 year old white person. As a young woman I thought that a successful civil rights movement would lead to black people, women and everybody else having an equal opportunity to get their slice of the famous American pie. Now the pie itself has gone away to a significant extent, and in the area of manufacturing jobs, to a great extent. How do people sustain themselves through long training programs with hope of seizing the prize when there is no prize?
You're right.
But it's not that the prize has vanished...it's that the prize is no longer where it used to be.
And if we've prepared to seize that prize -- as a for instance -- in Detroit, on the line, manufacturing gas-powered muscle cars, then we'll probably fail to find it.
What you describe is a complex problem....and a major part of it is the classic 'buggy whip dilemma'. If my family, for generations, has successfully specialized in the creation of World's Best BWhips'...and I myself spent years apprenticed to that trade...and the business collapses because buggies are replaced by whipless cars, then -- as you say -- my hope of seizing the same prize my parents and their parents successfully seized (where & how they seized it)... my hope crashes & burns.
Another part of our problem is the shortness of our own, individual time horizon. From a larger, historical perspective what we see (thinking 'big picture') is the classic ebb & flow of the market, as pushed and prodded by a rapidly changing world and evolving technologies. From that persepective the prize remains constant (skilled labor being page good wages for productivity)...and the prize winners even remain constant...its just that market supply & demand shifts.
But you're absolutely right -- on the individual's time scale, if I'm 53 years old...with 12 years left until retirement....the obsolescence of my skill set is staggering. What do I do? How do I begin any kind of training program (assuming I can find someone to invest in a 53 yr. old) that can be completed in time to fund the balance of my life? If jobs are available in Omaha and I'm in Detroit...how do I handle the cost of dislocation? What does that do to my family?
Looking forward we can emphasize job skill training over much of the crap which is being taught today. We can emphasize the permanence of certain job classes over others (we'll always need plumbers, carpenters, repairmen, masonry specialists, painters, wood rot repair people, etc.). We can help disincent the relocation of factories to cheap-labor environments. Lots of things we can do in the future. The problem for which there is no obvious solution is the impact of shifting markets on those whose lives are tied to buggywhips, et al. today.
"Creative destruction" is to be expected in a capitalist economy and has many analogs in the natural world. While individuals, especially those in particularly vulnerable situations, can be negatively impacted by sudden and wrenching change, others presently lacking good opportunities will find their futures broadened and their lives enriched. Generally, with some noteworthy exceptions, the process works to increase productivity, efficiency, and the delivery of objectively better goods and services to consumers.
Zackly right!
But if I'm that vulnerable 53 yr. old with a limited and now obsolete skill set -- it's painful as hell.
As painful, perhaps, as the massive flood which destroys the fields, kills the crops, and craters the community's economic well being. In the long run, the deposits of all that bottom silt will probably be a good thing for both the river and the fields. But no one wants to slog through all that mud to get there.
Your comment reminds me of that book, "Who Moved My Cheese?"
Good point, and one made clearly and at length by sociologist William Julius Wilson in his 1987 study "The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy."
Thanks for the reference! I'll check it out.
It's a standard in the biz. Not blacks' fault for inner city dysfunction—rather, capitalist competition forced mass employment businesses out of central cities and blacks, unable to relocate for various well-documented reasons, lost employment, so income, thence middle-class values. Thus was "ghetto culture" born.
My Dad worked in the auto industry, so we witnessed the tragic collapse of Detroit in real time. It's heartbreaking to watch now as the cores of other great cities collapse. This time it was brought on intentionally by so-called Progressive Democrats in those cities, but the shift to virtual work during the pandemic lockdowns has greatly accelerated the decline.
Detroit's my hometown as well. I know exactly what you experienced. I can barely stand visiting the place these days.
Interesting comments.
Question: Assume your recommendations are taken fully to heart by the powers that be and widely implemented across the country. Assume as well sufficient time has elapsed to fully establish the program and behavioral changes—say 25 years (more or less if you wish). What do you estimate would be the effect on the current black "achievement gap" shown during cognitive ability testing of approx. 1 standard deviation when compared to whites, approx. 1.5 s.d. compared to East Asians, and approx. 2 s.d. compared to Ashkenazi Jews?
I wonder the same thing, just from a perspective of scientific interest. This is where research is indispensable for answering questions, and obviously that is not about to happen in our current political environment.
My "question" was a bit tongue-in-cheek. It's been asked and answered many times over just about everywhere and since long ago. The research results lie dormant and undisturbed under ever deepening layers of dust, waiting in vain for those courageous enough to rediscover the ugly truths within.
What we do not know from testing is to what extent we are measuring the construct of "innate ability," an invisible something that is like the Postmodern non-reality---we can't touch it directly. We theorize that a large percentage of intellectual performance reflects this innate ability. We also know that kids who live in homes where there is more intellectual engagement and resources develop their innate ability more than other kids, and this difference appears to reflect actual brain development. So the enhanced level of ability becomes part of the child's innate package and equips the child to learn more effectively, but it was added after birth through interaction with the environment and is not heritable.
There could be another level of interaction if a kid who has the genetic background of say, Ashkenazi Jews, can utilize the environmental stimulation more effectively than kids from other genetic backgrounds, so he manages to build even more brain capabilities than kids from other genetic backgrounds who have the same quality of family environment.
The opposite effect on the brain is caused by childhood trauma, especially abusive and chaotic homelife. These kids can be less developed in abilities that are required for knowledge based careers, although they may be more developed in skills required for surviving in an abusive family. Overall, however, they are likely to show lack of development in some basic areas.
This last finding has been seized upon by the critical social justice cult to rationalize a transformation of K-12 teaching into amateur trauma therapy. The Social Emotional Learning proponents argue in the usual general vague woke way that a high percentage of children, meaning mostly children of color, trans children and the usual list, fall behind in school because of trauma. Period. While they are correct that high levels of domestic violence or other abuses at home can interfere with learning, there is not evidence that this is the main reason for disparities in achievement. It is a fact that domestic violence, substance abuse and other forms of neglect go on in upper income families as well as lower income ones. It is true, on the other hand, that there is a significantly higher rate of physical abuse of children in black homes (more households involved and more severe levels of abuse), as well as much more severe peer group violence in lower income black neighborhoods.
The last variable I will mention is the extent of the cultural valuation of intellectual training, achievement, and the status of knowledge based careers. Having gotten to know a fair number of Chinese Americans, Indian Americans and Israelis, I can attest that the cultures of these countries are way, way, more focused and driven to succeed in school and in their subsequent careers than the average American family. The pressure to achieve academically is so intense in some of the homes in these cultures that I think it is not healthy, based on the level of anxiety that is created about mistakes, failures, laxity of effort, etc. So, I acknowledge that my relatively moderate position on pushing kids to succeed reflects my own cultural values, but there are also objective reasons to think that maximum pressure to succeed is implicated in at least some suicides, especially in China, Japan and perhaps other countries in Eastern Asia, and probably with heightened anxieties of various kinds. The up side of all the pressure is that the above named cultures as well as some others with similar values are able to achieve extremely high scores on tests and to perform with excellence in their jobs. I personally believe that a significant part of their superior performance is due to the amount of time and the intensity of work that people from the above culture put into every project that is important to them. I certainly would not dismiss the possibility that innately superior intellectual ability relative to people with different genetic heritages is a major contributor to their success.
In social science there is actually not a way to know for certain what variables cause later outcomes when the latter are as complex as intellectual ability, academic achievement, career success and so on. To claim that research results show causation of an outcome, studies have to be carried out over years. The investigators also have to measure a lot of variables at the beginning , because they don't know in advance what could turn out to be the cause of something downstream. For obvious ethical reasons, it is also not possible to assign kids at the beginning to potentially damaging environments so as to see how that affects them later.
So, scientifically speaking, we do not know the causes of the differences in intellectual ability between groups of people from different gene pools. I personally do not have much emotional attachment to any side of the debate about what percentage of the disparities is caused by innate factors and what percentage is an outcome of environmental conditions. I do wish that people would try to do their best to succeed, but I would not favor pushing children as much as is done in the most high performing cultures. I can certainly understand Glenn Loury's positions as he expressed them, regarding the longing to see black kids give it their all and see how far they can go.
Evidently you have been through the stacks—would that many more would do the same. Great post, Sandra, with which I have little either to add or rebut. Thanks.
“What I fear is not that black Americans will fail to measure up. I fear that we’ll never know if they do, because they will not confront the struggle head on.”
I LOVE this statement. Absolutely true. And I think this can only happen when well-meaning but ultimately ignorant Woke white people STOP patronizing black Americans.
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/p/chris-rock
What evidence is there of these woke white people being well-meaning? Because I don't see it. They have control of the education system for most of my life and performance seems to have gotten worse rather than better. Those woke leftists engage in the worst kind of bigotry, the kind that goes beyond saying blacks cannot achieve and essentially says no one should expect them to. That's not accidental. The woketarians need an underclass of mascots whom they can use to advance whatever crackpot idea is being pushed. The last thing they want is for black people to understand that they're being used.
I agree with you. I was thinking of young woke people in their teens/early twenties: they *think* they’re helping. Clearly they’re not.
"All men are created equal..." All our dysfunction follows from this false premise.
In societies founded on democratic ideals—and especially ones given over to humoring female sensitivities—(Peterson's) hierarchies of competence MUST be torn down (or never allowed to be organically constructed in the first place) since they provide concrete evidence of the differing ability levels and predilections of races, ethnicities, and sexes.
Or perhaps Glenn's "black Americans" know something he doesn't...
See Chapter 2 in Charles Murray's "Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality" for the best explanation EVER of just how limiting lower IQ is in the real world. The book is freely available online in PDF format—Murray told me he's fine with people accessing it in that way as he values people reading and considering the material more than he does income from the book's sales.
You have about say, half with truancy problems. Like in The Wire.
Real problems. Hard to practice factorization when when man no.22 is pounding out mom, sister got a train run on, brother shot dead, rent tripled, no more school meals, 1000 dollar emergency finally.happened, etc. Social welfare issues that take about a generation to fix.
The other half just need a foot up they ass. Mom and Pop buy them a PS5 as a distraction device, no focus on class. So someone needs to put a foot up they ass. 10,000 times. Until they habits change.
Simple as.
No need for any philosophizing.