I guess US Black parents are dumb and can't get the job done, right?
I'd encourage you to step back and digest the correlations that these studies illustrate. Why would a reasonable person assume that Black parents are "dumb and can't get the job done?" Not only are there counfounding and probably unknown factors that influence these correlations, no causal relationship has been established or intimated.
A slight gap between groups in a study, unless statistically significant (meaning that one can say that differences observed between groups are large enough to conclude that the differences are real and not a fluke), is just that: a slight gap. Only in very few situations do slight differences really matter in outcomes (interest accrual on huge amounts of money, determining track and field event winners).
Even if this slight difference is significant, it is more important (indeed, crucial if one seeks the "truth" i.e. causality) to throw out knee jerk reactions to data that we don't like, that seem embarassing, or are politically/socially problematic and keep asking because there OBVIOUSLY is a better reason for the difference. Even if there isn't, energy is best focused on finding and solving the right problem.
There are many intelligent people here who are the products of Black parents and/or parents of African descent - one or both. This is not about calling anyone dumb. As you can see in the picture, I have a pretty big stake in understanding why it is likely that my child will start to fall behind when she turns 3 in January. If she doesn't, and excels, as MANY Black children do, it's one more example of success that we can learn something from.
A slight gap between groups in a study, unless statistically significant (meaning that one can say that differences observed between groups are large enough to conclude that the differences are real and not a fluke), is just that: a slight gap. Only in very few situations do slight differences really matter in outcomes (interest accrual on huge amounts of money, determining track and field event winners).
Even if this slight difference is significant, it is more important (indeed, crucial if one seeks the "truth" i.e. causality) to throw out knee jerk reactions to data that we don't like, that seem embarassing, or are politically/socially problematic and keep asking because there OBVIOUSLY is a better reason for the difference. Even if there isn't, energy is best focused on finding and solving the right problem.
Thank you. I could not have said it better. The Black/White test score gap is irrelevant to any one family because it appears only when you crunch the numbers for many subjects. Nevertheless it is a statistical anomaly that is replicable and real, and so it deserves attention. Ignoring it is brainless but harmless. Crying "bigotry" at those who study it (especially the many African-American scholars working at traditional Black Universities) is brainless and harmful.
To me, the most interesting studies now underway seek common threads among families that violate the anomaly--Black families with high-achieving kids. What, if anything, do they have in common? Initial studies show no correlation with family wealth (expected) and only slight correlation with educational level of the parents (unexpected). The oddest finding is that there is a stronger correlation with the educational level of the grandparents. It is as if grandparents have more influence during the 6-18-month window of neurological development than parents do. Strange.
Getting back to the topic at hand, there is no question that allowing only Black teachers to teach Black kids merely exacerbates the problem which actually starts in early childhood (6-18 months). Also, it has been conclusively shown, with no wiggle-room, that it is utterly unrelated to actual African genetic ancestry. (Personally, I think that this is what infuriates people like Sankofa--they want to believe that Africans are genetically different from everyone else.)
Still, all such studies are in their infancy. U.S. society desperately needs to understand the problem in order to begin finding answers. And the only way to understand the problem is to study it. To accuse scholars of bigotry merely because they choose to address the nation's social pathology in a serious scientific way is worse than ignorant--it is suicidal.
To me, the most interesting studies now underway seek common threads among families that violate the anomaly--Black families with high-achieving kids. What, if anything, do they have in common? Initial studies show no correlation with family wealth (expected) and only slight correlation with educational level of the parents (unexpected). The oddest finding is that there is a stronger correlation with the educational level of the grandparents. It is as if grandparents have more influence during the 6-18-month window of neurological development than parents do. Strange.
How interesting! Frank do you mind creating a new topic to discuss some of these findings? Could you post links to some of the studies?
I do wonder if the grandparent effect was observed because so many Black children are raised by grandparents? Looking at my own family, my parents spend a lot of time interacting with my daughter. Aside from the incessant spoiling going on, they do spend a lot of time talking to her about the world around her. They also seem to have infinite patience in doing so, something I can remember my parents not having with me.
How interesting! Frank do you mind creating a new topic to discuss some of these findings? Could you post links to some of the studies?
Lets us repair to http://www.backintyme.com/odr/viewtopic.php?p=15258#15258 to continue this discussion. The post that I am sending us to is in the sticky thread: Technical and Scholarly Discussions --> History of the U.S. Color Line -->The Black/White Test Score Gap.
Capitalism is the culprit. Even though since slavery there have been certain elements that discouraged 'acting white' when one looks at the early to mid part of 'Hip hop culture' I could safely say it was the opposite of what is dominating hip hop culture.
As a geezer pushing 70, who is also a professional performer/musician, my take on art differs from my take on cultural isolation. In my view, there is nothing inherently antisocial about any art. (There is art that I find disgusting, but that is something else again.) Rap (or what we used to call "talkin' blues" when I was in college, or what we called "samba falado" in Brazil, etc.) is simply another innovative musical form that can be used to present any imagery at all.
The problem is that Black youngsters will not pay you to sing about education, hard work, stable loving relationships, and successfully raising a family. But they will pay you millions of dollars to sing about killing police officers, brutalizing women, selling drugs, and avoiding commitment.
I agree that captialism is to blame. It is like the save-the-whales thing. It is easy to show any one company that if they reduce their harvest so that the pods can reproduce, they will make far more renewable profit in the long run. Companies who adopt such moderation go belly up within months because their stockholders abandon them, cash in, and switch to companies that rape the planet for short-term gain. Shareholders (including people with savings accounts) want to maximimze return on investment here and now. That is the nature of capitalism. Far-seeing executives who forgo immediate profit for long-term gain are quickly fired (if their directors want to retain shareholders) or are laid off when their company goes bankrupt (if their directors were socially responsible.) Either way, unrestricted capitalism destroys its own society as well as the planetary life-support system.
But blaming capitalism is a chicken-egg thing. We are pretty well stuck with it. Nations that have abandoned captialism and adopted socialism have gone broke and their people starve (or are conquered by capitalist-bought military technology). Rappers today who do not sing about killing police officers, brutalizing women, etc., do not get rich. If I (or my savings bank) owned shares of stock in a rapper, I would expect them to do the same or I would take my money away where it could earn higher return.
The chicken is the capitalism system which is utterly ruthless and has no thought for tomorrow. The egg is a society that pays money to hear self-destruction presented favorably. It is a two-phase vicious cycle that could theoretically be broken at either phase. Eliminate the capitalist system that feeds such pathology. Or cure the pathology that drives the capitalist system into feeding it.
We cannot eliminate the capitalist system.
This is true,
This stuff is even getting into video games there are a few Mafioso ones, the Godfather, some black & mexican thug games and more recently the make of Al Pacino's Scarface.
Where's your proof of these facts? Misogyny, violence, and anti-law rhetoric runt through all levels of Western culture.
Existence and prevalence in popular media glorifying the acts are very different.
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For instance, Desperate Housewives portrays women in a hateful manner.
Hateful, but in control. Not just objects for male sexuality, and even more, not as whores.
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Rock videos are famous for their objectification of women writhing way while washing cars.
And yet again, they are not refered to as whores. We are not just talkin of objectification, but takin it to another level.
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Popular films have always had anti-law themes, like Ocean's 11 and of course TV's the Sopranos beams glorification of sociopathic murders, theives, and pimps.
Sure, but look at the variety of themes produced and the prevalence of certain themes in the various populations.
Hip hop magazines like Vibe, The Source, and XXL celebrate the ghetto cracker. In the July issue of Vibe, we find celebration of the strip-club lifestyle of rappers the Ying Yang Twins, affirmation of fighting to display toughness, and a picture of rapper Pitbul holding his toddler son while standing in front of two naked women painted red, not to mention a repugnant set of advertisements that would make all of our grandmothers gasp.
While I agree with most of what you are saying, I just had to make a sidebar correction:
I have met Pitbull personally, and he is a Boricua, but hardly Black. He is a product of the Latino Hip-Hop culture, and in that culture that glorfies much of the same things Afro-American Hip Hop culture does, Whites and Blacks are all equally involved. You know us Latinos, la raza cosmica.
Hip hop magazines like Vibe, The Source, and XXL celebrate the ghetto cracker. In the July issue of Vibe, we find celebration of the strip-club lifestyle of rappers the Ying Yang Twins, affirmation of fighting to display toughness, and a picture of rapper Pitbul holding his toddler son while standing in front of two naked women painted red, not to mention a repugnant set of advertisements that would make all of our grandmothers gasp.
While I agree with most of what you are saying, I just had to make a sidebar correction:
I have met Pitbull personally, and he is a Boricua, but hardly Black. He is a product of the Latino Hip-Hop culture, and in that culture that glorfies much of the same things Afro-American Hip Hop culture does, Whites and Blacks are all equally involved. You know us Latinos, la raza cosmica.
Hip hop magazines like Vibe, The Source, and XXL celebrate the ghetto cracker. In the July issue of Vibe, we find celebration of the strip-club lifestyle of rappers the Ying Yang Twins, affirmation of fighting to display toughness, and a picture of rapper Pitbul holding his toddler son while standing in front of two naked women painted red, not to mention a repugnant set of advertisements that would make all of our grandmothers gasp.
While I agree with most of what you are saying, I just had to make a sidebar correction:
I have met Pitbull personally, and he is a Boricua, but hardly Black. He is a product of the Latino Hip-Hop culture, and in that culture that glorfies much of the same things Afro-American Hip Hop culture does, Whites and Blacks are all equally involved. You know us Latinos, la raza cosmica.
I thought Pitbull was Cuban, especially since I heard on the radio one day that he lashed out at fellow rapper Mos Def for wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt. Hmm...maybe it's because he lives in Miami.
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