161–170 of 212 posts
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> There is a gene for basketball--it's called being tall and fairly muscular so then by that logic, you can argue why there are so few whites in basketball must be that they aren't as tall and muscular.
I think most basketball fans would agree with that argument.
They sure love that 13% figure. Why are so many nigerians in america so well educated [1] ? Not doubting any other assertions but my theory is that historically, STEM has not been a well reputed path to success,recognition and respect for black americans both in their communities and nationally. Segregation is only half a century ago,but even these days being STEM educated and black is associated with negative stereo…
Are these ideal Nigerians you're referring to from poor families? Or are their parents upper-middle class?
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1. Poverty, especially generational poverty, is extremely difficult to get out of. Studying in a university means you won't be able to help your family financially for 5-8 years. Which can be really difficult for many. 2. No role model. Let's say you can somehow manage those hardships. But how do you know all this effort and education loans will be worth it? There are not many role models for African Americans in STE…
So these are true for the current generation of immigrants. What about the generation of asians [0] that were from the beginning of the 19th century? They broke out of poverty, despite all the same disadvantages. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chinese_Americans#:... .
I can see the same happen in my ancestry too. The ones who migrated back in 1900s or during the wars never made it big while the educated ones who went there after 50s are doing well.
I’ve transitioned through many roles in my careers, and remained very interested in this topic, so I notice the black makeup of each company. In St Louis, a city with about 50% black population, I consulted on a few projects. These companies employed a few African Americans, as security guards, but the engineers were about 50% white and 50% Indian.
In Florida, I consulted on another project. Every black engineer had the accent of a Caribbean native or African native. Judging by the accents, there were no American born black engineers.
I keep wondering if the H1Bs have out competed the black new college graduates, or if they’re simply not being given a chance at the jobs being filled by H1Bs.
Other companies have huge Infosys, TCS consulting presence, and those new engineering roles are filled without true competition from American workers, but doled out to new H1Bs.
I continue to think that an additional yearly salary tax should be levied on any H1B. This forces the employers to be financially aligned with employing US citizens. Ideally those taxes should for for STEM scholarships for the poor, increasing the US pool of these supposedly in demand engineers.
I'd like to see how many poorer men in general. I'm a black engineer and I couldn't count how many of my classmates would have graduated if they were in my shoes. There were 4-5 weeks at different where I just ran out money and sat on bed instead of eating thinking I couldn't be hungry is I was sleep. I usually found enough money to collect to buy a bag of rice for the month. But regardless of race this is hard. Give…
Looking back though, the experiences and situations were so formative I sometimes wonder if to change them would be to dilute and erase oneself.
I'd like to see how many poorer men in general. I'm a black engineer and I couldn't count how many of my classmates would have graduated if they were in my shoes. There were 4-5 weeks at different where I just ran out money and sat on bed instead of eating thinking I couldn't be hungry is I was sleep. I usually found enough money to collect to buy a bag of rice for the month. But regardless of race this is hard. Give…
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No amount of funding towards schools can make up for a home life or general environment that's not conducive towards education. I wish we in the US looked at solutions beyond throwing money at it (or at least, in a different way) because it obviously doesn't work.
Yeah, it depends where the money is thrown. Experiments in Brazil and India suggest that the really simple, dumb solution works best: give poor people money, no strings attached. Sure, they'll waste some of it. But not all that much, maybe a third. To economists, that's very effective targeting. (If you demand perfect targeting and use of funds here, why not with private-sector investments (67%-90% loss rate) or 'nor…
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There's not really a lot of debate about what makes for good schools. Small class sizes, and well qualified(paid) teachers. It is that simple. You can try whatever alternative educational styles you want, and it will not work in a class size of 50. Nor does the federal government have to take over the education system to achieve this, it just has to guarantee equal funding for all students. Or the US can continue to…
You need teachers who are passionate and regard it as a vocation rather than just another job. Pay and qualifications don't necessarily imply this. Poor discipline in a school can demoralise a teacher. You also need to get rid of teachers who are badly underperforming. This can be very difficult, which is also demoralising. I've gleaned the above from having many family and extended family members in teaching.
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> rich districts pay more taxes and get better schools I struggle to see how this is wrong. It's not any different than rich people buying private education, though it makes it easier for non-rich folks to try and find the cheapest place in that district so they can benefit from the well-funded schools. It seems popular to think that people should have equal opportunity, independent of any other factors. But from the…
> But from the perspective of a parent, why should I be disallowed from providing my own kids every possible advantage I can afford? Because it's bad for society, and because there's a long since established moral precedent in favor of things that may make life slightly worse for any given individual but better for a large majority of everyone. It's also worth keeping in mind that there's a massive difference between…
I recall hearing from New Jersey and judges taking strict stances of equal outcome in education that found locality funding discriminatory, was that the poorer districts needed to be funded more per student to start to reach parity. Which makes some sense on some levels given knowledge and habits from parents transferring and would need more effort and funding to catch up because they are already providing more teaching just in a remotely middle-class concept.
That sort of equality is clear folly, like trying to force every kid into creches and separate them from parents. It might work with some hypothetical aliens but in practice for humans prepare for massive psychic trauma, inevitable abuse from caretakers, and frankly a well deserved outright insurrection and rebellion.
Don't get me wrong, working to raise the floor is a noble goal and makes sense just from rational selfishness alone. Throwing more money at the high end is 'dimminshed returns' but the money has already been allocated for better or worse. And well the obvious caveats of how the money is spent matters, there is no fixed true universal value per of any unit or commodity.
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Not sure about other Asians, but most South Asians that immigrated to US already had degrees and were upper-middle class (having the money to buy international plane tickets automatically qualifies you to be upper-middle class). Sure they had to live poor initially but their mentality was "this is temporary and we will improve our situation soon enough".
> Sure they had to live poor initially but their mentality was "this is temporary and we will improve our situation soon enough". so to get back to the grandparent post's question - why don't black people have this same mentality? What is it that's specific that's causing the disparity between asians and blacks?
The phenomenon is larger than race, although it may be involved in any given instance or manifestation. It is a shared cliche for successful professionals hailing from both inner city to suburbs and dying small town Midwest that they never want to return to. That 'they're ones of the ones who made it out of that (shit/hell)hole', along with a disgust at its inhabitants or melancholy resignation that they are stuck in dysfunction, along with optional lingering resentment over mistreatment by the local crab-bucket.
I'm not sure anyone has an answer for how to solve those issues. A hypothetical solution probably wouldn't be very popular even if it isn't anything morally or ethically uncomfortable just from how 'counter-intutive' it would have to be.
