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The Decline of Black Progress?
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| Arbiter |
According to U.S. census data, the average black family income as a percentage of the average white family income increased from 51% to 56% from 1947 to 1964. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 marked the beginning of the modern era of civil rights, but it also marked an apparent decline in the rate at which black families closed the gap with white families. From 1964 to 1990, black families made additional progress to reach 63% of the average income of white families. However, this 7% increase over 36 years is a marked decline in the rate of relative improvement versus 6% in 17 years from 1947 to 1964.
More striking, however, is that since 1990 there has been effectively no progress at all! It is clear that there is very little, if any, progress being made in that regard. This poses several questions:
Is this indicative of some problem or flaw in our civil rights laws? Is there institutionalized discrimination still taking place on a significant scale, or does the gap remain for other reasons? In particular, how can we account for the apparent downward trend in the economic advancement of blacks, even as the prevalence of racism and discriminatory practices has ostensibly decreased?
Any thoughts? |
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| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
Any thoughts? |
Poor role models promoted by mainstream culture would be the tip of the iceberg. I'm afraid the answer to your question isn't one that can be honestly and openly discussed with out reactionary responses morelikely than not loaded with unfair and inaccurate accusations that obfuscate the enitre discussion or any legitimate point being made. But here's a question, what do you have in mind? |
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| donnybrasco |
| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
According to U.S. census data, the average black family income as a percentage of the average white family income increased from 51% to 56% from 1947 to 1964...
From 1964 to 1990, black families made additional progress to reach 63% of the average income of white families. However, this 7% increase over 36 years is a marked decline in the rate of relative improvement versus 6% in 17 years from 1947 to 1964... |
The year 1964+36years would bring us to the year 2,000...not "1990". So that's a "7% increase in 26 years", not "36 years". So the "decline" (if it truly is one) is not as dramatic as you think.
Are you sure you're reading all of this correctly? Extrapolating Census data selectively can be very mis-leading, especially when it's not correlated properly with other relative data. |
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| Zild |
| Systematic racism is very much alive and well. This ties in with the abortion thread too because you can't legislate morality. At the end of the day it end up being just words on a piece of paper. |
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| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | Originally posted by Zild
Systematic racism is very much alive and well. This ties in with the abortion thread too because you can't legislate morality. At the end of the day it end up being just words on a piece of paper. |
That's definitely one aspect of it. |
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| donnybrasco |
This is how bull information gets started on it's way to becoming "fact"!
Someone posts some out of context and even INACCURATE data...where they can't even get the percentages right despite BASIC math...and all of the sudden, it's proof once again of the GREAT "Racial Conspiracy" going on in America, and everyone jumps on board as fast as they can to show that they are sensitive to the plight of the nonexistent repressed, because they are "cool like that".
:rolleyes:
Talk about being blinded to see what you want to see.
Where is Trancer when you need him? He should be all over this mis-information in support of it...thus lending it by association the proper discredit that it deserves. |
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| colonelcrisp |
Even here in multicultural Canada, we have gone from 2008 to 1958.... Toronto District School Board has just approved "Black School" - a black focused school for inner city black high risk youth in a vain attempt to get them to get a Diploma instead of a prison sentance.
link
This will accomplish two things:
1: segregate the black students even further from the evil whitey kids
2: potentially supply them with a highschool diploma that wont be recognized by post secondary institutions as on par with a regular GED from an ontario public shcool.
Whats worse? The idea was thought up by a black education proffessor, supported mainly by the black community, and the idiots on the TDSB actually endorsed the idea. Even further, $860,000 of my tax money is going into this money pit. This whole project was concocted to combat the 40% dropout rate among black youth in toronto.... but i dont think its the "white man's" schoolin thats the problem, i think the large proponent of this is caused by parents that have a significant dis-interest in their childs education, moreover, parents that do not properly motivate their kids to A: attend school regularly, B: do well in shcool. Any parent that accepts their kids D+ average should be kicked in the head. |
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| guerra-monstru |
| Ah good thing we don't have too many blacks here. I am sure this is only a black thing in Canada and Gringoland. Supported by stupid white racists as well. Anyone that wants for schools to be segregated by color is a racist. |
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| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | Originally posted by donnybrasco
This is how bull information gets started on it's way to becoming "fact"!
Someone posts some out of context and even INACCURATE data...where they can't even get the percentages right despite BASIC math...and all of the sudden, it's proof once again of the GREAT "Racial Conspiracy" going on in America, and everyone jumps on board as fast as they can to show that they are sensitive to the plight of the nonexistent repressed, because they are "cool like that".
:rolleyes:
Talk about being blinded to see what you want to see.
Where is Trancer when you need him? He should be all over this mis-information in support of it...thus lending it by association the proper discredit that it deserves. |
If you're going to be critical of the data he presented, especially with the kind of inflection in your post, you might want to consider backing up your criticism with some actual substance and contrary data. Just a thought. |
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| donnybrasco |
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
If you're going to be critical of the data he presented, especially with the kind of inflection in your post, you might want to consider backing up your criticism with some actual substance and contrary data. Just a thought. |
I already refuted some of it. Check the math for yourself.
As a result, the legitimacy of the rest of this "data" is put in doubt by such inaccurate "facts". |
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| colonelcrisp |
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
If you're going to be critical of the data he presented, especially with the kind of inflection in your post, you might want to consider backing up your criticism with some actual substance and contrary data. Just a thought. |
Most statistical data is up for debate. Numbers can be manipulated statistically to prove both sides of an argument in most cases. The problem with statistics is their inherant bias, most statistical models have such a narrow scope that they do not take into account all of the varying factors. for instance, in this case, did they use a national average salary of whites vs blacks, or did they weight it proportionally. Areas in the US with a larger population of affrican americans by percentage of total population, would have a higher probablility of having affrican americans among the higher percentiles of gross annual income. Whereas an area with a relatively low population of affrican americans would have lower probablility of being in the high percentiles.
If this stat is based on a national average, then it is severly skewed in my opinion. |
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| Arbiter |
| quote: | Originally posted by donnybrasco
The year 1964+36years would bring us to the year 2,000...not "1990". So that's a "7% increase in 26 years", not "36 years". So the "decline" (if it truly is one) is not as dramatic as you think. |
You are correct; I did not pay much attention when transcribing Judge Posner's numbers. However, it is still a decline in the rate of improvement and compared with the decline in improvement since 1990 is a rather small one anyway. Incidentally, there has been little change, or a very small decline from 1990 to 2000, so it is still 7% over 36 years regardless. ;)
| quote: | | Are you sure you're reading all of this correctly? Extrapolating Census data selectively can be very mis-leading, especially when it's not correlated properly with other relative data. |
You can cite contravening data or perform your own analysis if you prefer, but in the meantime I will take the word of a sitting Federal Judge, especially when it is corroborated by other scholarly research.
That requires a subscription, so here's some the pertinent data:
This graph shows black wages as a percentage of white wages from 1940 to 2000. These numbers confine themselves to a couple of narrow age brackets, and only count income from wages, so they are probably not as representative as Posner's numbers when it comes to overall inequality. The data for females is interesting, and doesn't track with Posner's numbers very closely. However, male figures paint an even grimmer picture, where black men lost ground to whites from 1990 to 2000.
Now, back to the more relevant issue which unless you have some evidence to the contrary is not whether black progress has slowed, but why it has, Judge Posner has offered some possible explanations:
| quote: | | It is possible that antidiscrimination laws do not benefit their intended beneficiaries, because they give the beneficiaries a sense of entitlement and victimhood, foster tokenism, increase employers' costs, cast a shadow over the real achievements of outstanding members of the "benefited" group, create an unhealthy preoccupation with racial and ethnic identity, and cause white backlash. It is also possible that the sexual revolution of the 1960s promoted the break-up of the black family--of the white too, but the whites were in a better position to adapt. To the extent that the "Great Society" programs of the 1960s and the social disorder of the same period are correlated phenomena, together constituting a lurch to the Left, the net effect on black progress may have been negative. |
The decline of the family unit strikes me as the most compelling of these explanations, for example while there certainly exists an unhealthy preoccupuation with racial and ethnic identity, this is not a phenomenon which has increased since 1964 by any means.
It's possible that single-parent families tend to have considerably less social mobility, and if that is the case, it would disproportionately affect blacks by a considerable margin(ref). I cannot find any data comparing the economic fortunes of children who grew up in single-parent households to those who did not, but it is a possibility.
Other cultural factors may affect the financial success of blacks; it is not a given that even with equal opportunity each ethnic group will achieve equal success due to possible differences in behavior patterns conducive to success or failure, or other cultural factors.
Of course, as Posner notes, "it is nowhere written that all ethnic groups shall have the same average income," and to the extent that this inequality remains because of the willing choices of blacks themselvs, the inequality need not be regarded as an inequity. The problem is that we cannot ascertain this extent with any certitude.
Shaolin_Z raised the issue of role models. This could certainly be one of the cultural phenomena which works against black progress. He also raised the fact that it is a very sensitive issue likely to be "loaded with unfair and inaccurate accusations that obfuscate the enitre discussion or any legitimate point being made." On that count, I agree as well.
Perhaps it also bears consideration that the stifling of open and honest discourse in favor of vain attempts to ignore the issue or pretend it doesn't exist (like donny) or to consider only a few possible factors which do not offend (as is fairly typical of the left,) may actually be contributing to the problem as well. Such a closed-minded approach does not appear to be very conducive of actually solving problems of inequality or inequity.
Zild believes that systematic racism is alive and well. I do believe that racism has declined, but I agree that we have not begun to approach eliminating it. What we have done is to by in large drive it into "hiding." This is not particularly a good thing, in part because it makes the problem of racism much more difficult to measure and address, and in part because it is an example of the sort of ideological repression that I believe to be at odds with the principles of an open society.
The "underground" racism rears its head from time to time in one scandal or another, for example the bizarre incident in which someone in the Harris County District Attorney's office used "Canadian" as a racial slur against blacks, but the truth is that the most problematic racists are also those who most closely guard their prejudice. With racists pretending to support racial equality, it becomes impossible to determine with any certitude the prevalence of racism. Furthermore, false or spurious accusations of racism have risen considerably, which has at least four significant negative effects:
1. It serves to stifle open and honest discussion of racial inequality.
2. It causes those of us who do not buy into the hysteria to view all claims of racism through a skeptical lens.
3. It reinforces the inordinate preoccupation with racial or ethnic identity which underlies racism and other forms of prejudice.
4. It makes genuine racism appear less evil by associating it with acts or beliefs which are relatively innocuous.
There has also been a significant re-framing of what constitutes racism. In the past, racism was essentially the idea that races were inherently unequal in their worth; that is, that some were inherently superior to others. More recently, however, it seems to extend to any form of prejudice or generalization with regards to race. It is certainly possible to generalize about a racial group without believing it to be inherently superior or inferior, or to pre-judge individuals with regards to some particular thing based on race without holding the belief in a superior race. It is even possible to hate an ethnic group without believing that it is inferior.
Multiculturalism may contribute negatively as well. While ironically devised as a way to celebrate our differences, it is truly a quixotic idea which rather serves more to emphasize that difference and suggest a shared "group identity" -- precisely what racists believe, only they believe the groups are unequal. Indeed, to on the one hand strive to eliminate racism, and on the other to uphold multiculturalism, as the left seems to attempt to do, strikes me as absurd. It is rather like trying to dampen oneself before running through a fire -- except this particular fool used gasoline! It seems that a better way to proceed would be to attempt to de-emphasize racial or ethnic identity at every turn. Our goal should not be to form a society where black culture, white culture, hispanic culture, et cetera co-exist in equality. It should be to create one, non-homogenous but also non-fragmentary culture where people work together with little or no regard for their varying ethnicities. In short, the best way to eliminate racism is to eliminate the very idea of people identifying themselves and others in terms of race. Now, that of course is not easy by any stretch of the imagination, and even in the best case scenario will probably take a large number of generations. But the troubling thing to me is that we seem to be moving in the opposite direction with multiculturalism. That is, it seems as though we are trying to reaffirm the idea of dividing ourselves into discrete groups. If that is not creating an environment in which racism might thrive, I don't know what is.
In short, there appear to be a large number of possible explanations for the observed data. Unfortunately, it seems there are few willing to discuss the matter openly (and fewer still who are in a position to actively investigate and address these problems.) If sensitivity to racial issues prevented us from eliminating racial inequity, that would be a cruel irony... |
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