The effects of living in a poor neighborhood • Hacker News Board

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#121

Post by mjevans » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 4:36 PM UTC

Arainach wrote: post #90

ausjke wrote: post #76

Why blacks are not doing well? Because they were from Africa, but new immigrants from Africa came to US earn a pretty decent life quickly than those have been here centuries ago. Because they're minority, but other minorities such as the Jews and Asians are working hard and earning a decent life here. Because of less chance to get education, but you have affirmative action that you can get into decent college at a hu…

Opportunity doesn't cure everything. If you take two people who both have the opportunity to earn the same income, that doesn't equate to the same standard of living. In particular, blacks (and other minorities) have dramatically lower levels of savings. This has real world consequences - if you have family members with savings, you have opportunities to take risks and fail. You have family members that can loan you…

The ability to fail, safely. The ability to take positive risks can restore hope that those risks will pay off.

That might be an ingredient to successfully breaking the negative aspects the culture of poverty. Anyone who is big on BIG as a solution is probably seeing it from this angle.

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#122

Post by marchenko » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 4:39 PM UTC

dragandj wrote: post #94

kentrado wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't usually write responses and I don't have much time to write you a detailed explanation of history. But are you aware that there are living black people who still remember segregation and Jim Crow? It wasn't that long ago. The idea that just because recently you decided to treat niggers like human beings, they should instantly have the same level as people who were never treated as subhuman in this US of A, is…

I think that his argument was that other minorities do much better, despite also being hugely disadvantaged. Not to mention immigrants, who often go to USA with noting else than a bag of clotes and a desire to work hard and get a better life, and they do pretty well as a group.

other minority groups may do well in part precisely because they are not black - they are not subject to the same prejudices and stereotypes. Minorities are not fungible entities, especially not in the US, where the primary social distinction is better characterized as "black v. nonblack", rather than he more common "black v white", which obscures a lot of very subtle social stratification. Additionally, recent immigrants do not suffer from a lot of the entrenched negative network effects hindering the black community. Being free of your underperforming network of kin in a society that labels you as 'other' rather than 'danger' is actually advantageous.

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#123

Post by Camillo » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 5:37 PM UTC

Timothee wrote: post #80

lacker wrote: post #55

Hmm, wait a moment. 59% of white kids moved up. 43% of white kids moved down. Even accounting for rounding, there's no way to get those numbers. It's even worse in other places: 25% of black kids had parents who grew up in the bottom two levels and moved up at least one. 78% of black kids had parents who grew up in the top three levels and moved down at least one. Those two groups should sum to less than 100%, certai…

That infographic and the text that goes with it could be made much clearer but your interpretation is not how it should be read. (as far as I can tell) For one thing, as ASpring mentioned, the text about white kids were shortened, with the implication that the same sentence structure as for the black kids should be used. I'm assuming it was done to make the drawing easier to read (i.e. less text) but it certainly add…

His interpretation is how it should be read in English. It may be not how it should have been written.

> 78% of black kids had parents who grew up in the top three levels and moved down at least one.

Let B = all black kids; BT = black kids who had parents who grew up in the top three levels; BD = black kids who(se parents) moved down at least one level

The only way that sentence can be interpreted in English is:

|BT ∩ BD| / |B| = 78%

If what they wanted to say was:

|BT ∩ BD| / |BT| = 78%

Then the way to say that in English would have been:

> Of the black kids whose parents grew up in the top three levels, 78% moved down at least one.

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#124

Post by WillPostForFood » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

lkiernan wrote: post #110

WillPostForFood wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you attempt to incite with such inflammatory language, do you consider how a black person might feel reading it? It isn't necessary to make your point.

Because he said the N-word? Come on. Words have power and these words are strong. And they should be, because the response is directed at complete ignorance. This kind of reaction feels quite closed-minded, working on racism-as-a-checklist.

A day without a needless racial slur is better than a day with. Maybe the comment was ignorant, but using a racial slur to try to undermine it is even more ignorant and needless. It is a misappropriation of power of the word, it wasn't necessary, and is an incredibly disproportionate response.

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#125

Post by BurningFrog » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 6:20 PM UTC

bo1024 wrote: post #106

ausjke wrote: post #76

Why blacks are not doing well? Because they were from Africa, but new immigrants from Africa came to US earn a pretty decent life quickly than those have been here centuries ago. Because they're minority, but other minorities such as the Jews and Asians are working hard and earning a decent life here. Because of less chance to get education, but you have affirmative action that you can get into decent college at a hu…

Yes: you are missing the history of the United States. This was most of the point of the article: Black people disproportionately live in poverty (not to mention the history of discrimination in this country), and the effects of living in poverty are extremely harmful. Your post seems to be missing the history of human slavery in the United States, the subsequent history of discrimination, and the conditions it creat…

> Your comment about "the black community needs to address" black culture, while perhaps well-intentioned, is the sort of argument historically commonly used by powerful whites to justify a "not my problem" philosophy toward black poverty and living conditions that create a negative culture.

This is a terrible argument. Statements are not automatically false because awful people agree with them. If Hitler thinks 2+2=4, decent people are not forced to choose 3 or 5.

It seems to me that only black people can change black culture. Who else would do it? How?

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#126

Post by choosername » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 6:22 PM UTC

archeopterix wrote: post #98

Terribledactyl wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These numbers could be skewed from unequal number of children per parent in these different groups. Successful parents might have many more or fewer children.

But children are integers.

At least I'd hope for their integrity.

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#127

Post by BurningFrog » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 6:24 PM UTC

marchenko wrote: post #122

dragandj wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that his argument was that other minorities do much better, despite also being hugely disadvantaged. Not to mention immigrants, who often go to USA with noting else than a bag of clotes and a desire to work hard and get a better life, and they do pretty well as a group.

other minority groups may do well in part precisely because they are not black - they are not subject to the same prejudices and stereotypes. Minorities are not fungible entities, especially not in the US, where the primary social distinction is better characterized as "black v. nonblack", rather than he more common "black v white", which obscures a lot of very subtle social stratification. Additionally, recent immig…

The interesting point is that immigrated blacks - Africans and Caribbeans - do about as well as other immigrant groups.

This is very damaging to the skin color discrimination theory of poverty, especially since these groups are considerably darker on average than native born US blacks.

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#128

Post by choosername » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 6:33 PM UTC

facepalm wrote: post #97

themartorana wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge disclaimer. This is how it was explained to me by my Indian host while I was working in India. I remarked to someone basically the same thing - not only was it incredible that slums - corrugated-cardboard-house slums - sat right next to the 5 star hotel my company put me up in, but they were relatively safe . One night we were walking through a slum because an Indian gentleman wanted to expound on my remark, and…

I find that Hindu bit fascinating because it is presumably what allows so many people to coexist on so little space. However, it is also a very convenient belief for the people who are better off. Kind of like the meritocracy on speed.

I don't see the difference to capatalism (disclaimer: hardly looked). The believe that anything can be achieved when doing well enough is rather fundamental, because it's tautological. The modesty to currently accept the situation as limited by factors out of control is just a factor that can be controled.

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#129

Post by smilingtom » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 6:42 PM UTC

brogrammer90 wrote: post #22

dudul wrote: post #2

"Another popular left-wing idea is a universal basic income" UBI is not only supported by left-wingers.

As someone who actually owns rentals in poor black neighborhoods, UBI is the most retarded ivory tower idea I've seen gain traction. All the black families on my street have section 8 vouchers, so they basically have no debt service. What do they do with all this free time? Deal drugs, look for marks to mug, break into vacant apartments, wake up at 2 pm, etc. Drive through my street around noon and count the number o…

This is basically exactly what I would expect someone who has gotten rich from exploiting poor people to say. We need fewer people like you in the world.

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#130

Post by kaonashi » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 6:42 PM UTC

ausjke wrote: post #118

ausjke wrote: post #76

Why blacks are not doing well? Because they were from Africa, but new immigrants from Africa came to US earn a pretty decent life quickly than those have been here centuries ago. Because they're minority, but other minorities such as the Jews and Asians are working hard and earning a decent life here. Because of less chance to get education, but you have affirmative action that you can get into decent college at a hu…

Yes slavery and unfairly treated in the past combined are hurting blacks very much, but we can't go back and change history. My point is that new immigrants came here with nothing can earn a decent life with hard working , put education first etc, why local blacks can not reboot themselves gradually over these years? I am just thinking without a grass root level from within to change the culture, it will be very diff…

> I have been thinking about adopting a black kid myself, to give him/her the best education possible and the culture I believe in, I may do that sometime.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.