From: kiddleddee --- In [email protected], "Bob Giramma" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I have told you quite a lot about the cultures in which the children in this scenario are raised. They attend school and socialize with other children dominated by particular cultural groups. __________________________________________________________
Now you are adding information to your scenario which was not included in your original post. ________________________ BOB: I don't see what you think I added. I am mentioning that the children socialize with other children in the neighborhood, but that should be obvious. Need I mention that the children eat, breath, and sleep, too? > If you research demographic studies of educational success by race and ethnicity, you will see I am merely stating fact. I have three children, and I look into such matters when choosing where to live. The statistical results aren't even close. A statement of fact cannot be racist. If you intend to put that objectionable label on me, then at least show statistical evidence I am wrong. __________________________________________________________ I contend that it is not a statement of fact that any prediction can be made that any particular individual child will be more or less successful than any other particular individual child based solely on the race/ethnicity of his neighbors, which is the only criteria for making such a prediction you included in your original post. BOB: It is not about race or ethnicity, but the culture of communities with those demographic characteristics. I could change the cultural scenario without changing race by substituting a suburban black African immigrant community in place of the black urban Detroit one. It's not about skin color, but about the values followed by a particular cultural group. And considering that the War on Drugs has virtually destroyed the futures of more than half of (particularly) urban African-American men, there is no meaningful way to make any comparison at all. Statements about individuals which are based on racial/ethnic stereotypes - even when some statistical "evidence" can be spun to "back up" the stereotype - is, in fact, racism. BOB: I agree that the War on Drugs has been very harmful to urban communities of not only blacks, but other residents of poor communities. I am staunchly opposed to any and all government regulations on drugs, be they recreational or medicinal. ________________________ > It is certainly possible that a particular child raised in a black community in urban Detroit will be more successful than a particular child raised in a Jewish suburb of Boston. But if you check the data, you will see that is a highly anomalous outcome. So you need to remove the word "often" from your claim. __________________________________________________________ If their chosen field is entertainment - including the field of entertainment production now that African-Americans have been able to break through many of the barriers to entry which kept them out of the production offices in the past - "often" is entirely appropriate. As has been pointed out, statistically African-Americans are way more likely to be successful in the fields of athletics than folks who were raised in a Jewish neighborhood. There are also numerous "underground", counter-economics fields of activity in which African-Americans are probably more likely to be successful than folks who had been raised in a Jewish neighborhood. BOB: Fine, but I'm looking at overall statistics, not niche areas. And note that my own cultural group, Italian-Americans, is an underachieving group. . [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
