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Rich, Black, Flunking

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Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#41

Post by cturner »

tezza wrote: post #19

I would like comment on the economic and social aspects[1] of this article. .. * I) Underacheivement as a group Defense Mechanism :: Some social-groups actively encourage what I call "Perennial-Underacheivement". This is in my opinion based on a group defense mechanism[2]. This defense mechanism is to ensure the weak and sick and those unable to care for themselves are not left behind. They value support for the less…

Your comments about low achievement for group defense/satisfaction are also seen in Elton Mayo's Hawthorne Studies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elton_Mayo) in a contact that's not related to race.

As a Jew you're about as far away from "Underacheivement as a group Defense Mechanism" as it's possible to get. The history of the world is filled with stories of people who have lost their way, their identity and become bland (not least the ten tribes of the north, if you buy into that). Despite all the stuff going against them, people who know that they're Jewish (even when they don't have a particularly strong connection to the group) manage to pull themselves out of difficult situations and rise to become very successful in whatever challenges they set themselves.

    Immigrants by definition cannot belong to the group-care mindset.
That's not universally true. There's a subculture in the UK (and probably other places) of Han Chinese gaining access as illegal immigrants with intent to directly benefit their family back home. Sometimes one half of a married couple will do it so they can secure education for their child. See _Chinese Whispers: The True Story Behind Britain's Hidden Army of Labour (Paperback)_, Pai, 2008.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#42

Post by Retric »

kingkongrevenge wrote: post #38
Retric wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People that are 1/4th black and identify themselves as black, have the same issue on standardized tests as people that are 3/4+% black. If DNA was the cause you would expect a non uniform distribution.

The typical black American is 85%+ genetically "African". A tiny slice of people misreporting race wouldn't impact things much. And I don't follow your premise that inherent differences wouldn't be quantitatively consistent. That's how it is with all the other measurable differences between races.

People that are 3/4 "European" and 1/4 "African" and people that are 1/4 "European" and 3/4 "African" score the same on standardized tests. But, they don't have the same skin color / shade.

If there was a genetic based IQ difference you would expect the same shift as you see in skin color. But, that's not what happens, thus it's probably not a genetic trait.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#43

Post by thinkcomp »

I grew up in Shaker Heights (SHHS '01) and happened to visit Shaker Heights High School for the first time on the afternoon in 1997 that The Shakerite released its article comparing SAT scores across races. It was pretty nuts.

I tend to agree with the conclusion that it's an attitude issue on the part of most (but not all) African-American parents more than any kind of funding or other issue. As I wrote about in my book, the cafeteria self-segregated and so did the classes for the most part. No one told us to--it just happened that way.

That being said, the notion that everyone in Shaker Heights is "rich," whether Black, White, Asian, or otherwise, is extremely misleading. It's a middle-class suburb. There are lower-income sections and $8 million mansions. Hardly anyone is rich though, and if they are, their kids are going to private schools like University School, Hathaway Brown or Hawken.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#44

Post by hughprime »

Soon after he left Ohio and returned to California, a black parent from Shaker Heights went on TV and called him an "academic Clarence Thomas."

Perhaps part of these kids' problem is that they have parents who think that being compared to Clarence Thomas is an insult.

Such theorists often cite the 1994 publication of The Bell Curve, which argued that blacks are intellectually inferior to whites, as evidence that negative stereotyping of African Americans still exists.

I don't think any of the critics, nor the author of this article, have actually read The Bell Curve.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#45

Post by jbm »

thras wrote: post #20

Biological explanations, while non-PC, do a rather good job of explaining the available evidence.

Please, by all means, elucidate your "non-PC" ideas, with relevant, broad-based (not cherry-picked) evidence.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#46

Post by davidw »

ilyak wrote: post #39
dpatru wrote: post #12

Reminds me of a passage from Philip Greenspun's article, How to Become as Rich as Bill Gates, http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/ : When I arrived at MIT as a first-year graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science, I asked a professor for help with a research problem. He said "The reason that you've having trouble is that you don't know anything and you're not working very hard." A friend of mine was…

WTF: I do not certainly see any value in torturing oneself. If you're working too hard and bragging about it, good chance that you aren't performing terribly well and, certainly, rather inefficiently

Especially if you're doing things like operating on people:-/ No restoring from backups, or rolling back to the latest working version if you fuck up.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#47

Post by yardie »

randallsquared wrote: post #18
yardie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you don't have kids. Whether you do or don't like school is immaterial. The fact is, schools take up a majority of your kids' time until they graduate and get a life of their own. By default, you should be interested in what your kid is learning. No one is asking you to sit in class 8 hours a day, but at least get to know what it is they are learning. If my kid takes an interest in music, I'm there, wrestling?…

"I hope you don't have kids" is, as far as I can see, very nearly the worst thing you can say to someone, if you mean it seriously. So far, everyone dies, but at least there's a chance that part of them will live on through their children; saying you'd prefer that they never have any legacy is even worse than flatly wishing they'd die.

It was meant in the sense that if he/she is a parent at the moment than he is a poor one. I would never tell someone not to have kids, it would be hypocritical on my part.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#48

Post by jbm »

thras wrote: post #26
radu_floricica wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen precious little research on biological explanations. I'm betting all my money on culture. I'm in eastern Europe, and I feel parts of black culture familiar. And to be honest, I don't like it. We have here too a subculture in which people display gold chains and like songs about money and enemies, and pretty much to everybody's surprise it's socially determined, not ethnically.

You've seen precious little research? I assume you've actually looked? Read things like The Bell Curve, etc.?

I can't say with certainty now, but when I was a genetics student in a fairly decent University, I remember we laughed at "The Bell Curve". It wasn't considered classic scientific reading.

There are a million places to start if you want to find a critique, but you can start with Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man".

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#49

Post by cousin_it »

TheElder wrote: post #40
cousin_it wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So no chance for my kids because IQ is genetic? And no chance for US blacks? Also, does your theory explain the high average IQ in e.g. South Korea?

That theory isn't my own. High IQ among East Asians is fascinating. The fact that they can migrate to the US, and perform as well or better than others, even if they are in the lower socioeconomic tier, tends to make me think that genetics does play a large part in IQ. I do not believe that it is the sole factor though. This is my take on it. If your child has a really low IQ, then it will be a hard life for your chi…

If your child has an average or higher IQ, then IQ stops being a factor and attitude, values, and work ethic play a bigger role.

No. If you're willing to believe IQ is genetic, you must also believe IQ is is a stronger factor than work ethic - otherwise Jews would've been selected for work ethic instead. It certainly sounds like an easier variable for evolution to optimize.

Not sure if you got my point about Koreans. If they have genetically above-average IQ, what selective pressures contributed to it? That's one possible way to test your explanation of Jewish intelligence.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#50

Post by Ben65 »

It would be interesting to know how well the black students did in fields of study that are typically (on average) normally higher for blacks. Such as music, dancing, and sports. There is a difference in races, why do we assume the difference is bad, and that's only on average, there are always exceptions. So maybe it is the attitudes of the students and the parents, but what would change those attitudes? That's the next question to pursue, I think anyway.
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