> Compare "racism and discrimination" which basically nobody knows how to tackle in anything like an effective way.
We certainly do know how, and we've done it. The message of hopelessness is the message, perhaps unwittingly, of the white supremacists, who want nothing to be done, who want racial division to appear hopeless and unavoidable.
From segregation and lynchings in the 1950s, we now have civil rights, almost universal acceptance of interracial marriage (I think the surveys ~1960 showed ~3% acceptance), African-American education and welfare has skyrocketed - but from such a low point that it still has far to go. We elected a black President. Racism in other circumstances has died - against Germans (esp. in Revolutionary times), Italians, Irish, Catholics, Jews, Mormans, etc. etc.
But now they have made it fashionable to argue against even the presence of racism, against all fact and observation - even in this very thread, where someone openly claimed race determined educational outcomes. I periodically here openly racist comments from white people I know - as a simple example, when the plan to pay for community college fell through in Congress, one white person I know said, with a laugh, 'thank god; now we won't have to pay for blacks to go to college'. And people take it up. We live in the post-truth world, where people align with whatever can be insisted upon, and many are and will pay the cost.
>> One thing that does correlate with educational outcomes, more than anything iirc, is parental wealth.
> Really?
Yes, you can find the research easily.
> If anything it may well be that once broad outcomes improve, this will help obviate much of the previously existing motive for harmful prejudice and discrimination against Blacks.
We have 400 years history of racism; attributing it to educational outcomes has no basis.
We certainly do know how, and we've done it. The message of hopelessness is the message, perhaps unwittingly, of the white supremacists, who want nothing to be done, who want racial division to appear hopeless and unavoidable.
From segregation and lynchings in the 1950s, we now have civil rights, almost universal acceptance of interracial marriage (I think the surveys ~1960 showed ~3% acceptance), African-American education and welfare has skyrocketed - but from such a low point that it still has far to go. We elected a black President. Racism in other circumstances has died - against Germans (esp. in Revolutionary times), Italians, Irish, Catholics, Jews, Mormans, etc. etc.
But now they have made it fashionable to argue against even the presence of racism, against all fact and observation - even in this very thread, where someone openly claimed race determined educational outcomes. I periodically here openly racist comments from white people I know - as a simple example, when the plan to pay for community college fell through in Congress, one white person I know said, with a laugh, 'thank god; now we won't have to pay for blacks to go to college'. And people take it up. We live in the post-truth world, where people align with whatever can be insisted upon, and many are and will pay the cost.
>> One thing that does correlate with educational outcomes, more than anything iirc, is parental wealth.
> Really?
Yes, you can find the research easily.
> If anything it may well be that once broad outcomes improve, this will help obviate much of the previously existing motive for harmful prejudice and discrimination against Blacks.
We have 400 years history of racism; attributing it to educational outcomes has no basis.