The US is completely obsessed with race. It's utterly bizarre to me. I often ask people what race has to do with anything, but they never seem to provide me with a convincing answer...
Well, for a long time, the US meant white (and 90% protestants). All the founding stories and elites are based on them (from the Founding Fathers and the pilgrims to the image of America in culture, Hollywood etc). Heck, there was a fuss that Kennedy was catholic -- and that was in the late 50s. So, it was those English, German, nordic, etc people at the core.
Blacks, of course, had their start as slaves and servants of those whites, and were until the mid-60s discriminated openly against, with full legal coverage for that.
So a large part of the white population has inherited notions that this is their proper place, where others are judging them by the second and third order effects of their old status up to the segregation (e.g. seeing that they're still many uneducated, poor, living in bad areas, over-represented in prison etc. Those whites assume that just because slavery ended -- and they conveniently forget 100+ more years of discrimination-- those blacks should just raise and ascend to middle/rich class, like many immigrants did. After all those immigrants started dirt poor too -- yeah, but those immigrants didn't live in a hostile society forever, they were more easily assimilated, intermarried etc into the white story, and given more chances, especially after WWII).
Because even other whites, like Italians, Jews, Irish, Greeks, and so on, were openly discriminated against for a large part of the 20th century. After they got slowly accepted into white society (and again, not totally), they also adopted their stance towards other races (not totally), as a requirement to be admitted in "polite company".
Asians too, were at the bottom. Japanese Americans, in the early 20th century, were considered barely better than blacks were, working in the worst menial jobs.
So that's what race has to do with anything. You came into the US as a member of a race, found solace and support with your own, and usually hatred or obstacles put your way from the dominant races. And as you were accepted into the mainstream society, you learned to hate those other races they hated too.
Thanks! I don't disagree with anything you said. I guess that, in my mind, it just seems that we'll never move forward as a society until we stop sorting people into boxes, especially boxes defined by arbitrary things like skin color. That is not the only variable. Why don't we focus on all the causes of disenfranchisement? There's clearly a macro-scale correlation between racial background/history and one's opportunities in society, but at the micro-scale the picture is so much more complex than that. A hyperfocus on race oversimplifies the problem, contributes to division, and hinders progress toward real solutions. I think we owe it to future generations to raise them with a broader understanding of these matters.
Maybe I'm overreacting here. If so, my apologies -- perhaps it's because of the sociopolitical milieu where I live. Anyway, I mean no offense to anyone. Like many others, I'm just trying to work through these issues as honestly as I can -- because dishonesty doesn't help anyone.
The boxes aren't determined by color, they are by ancestral continent of origin where groups had been somewhat separated genetically for tens of thousands of years.
I do think that there are people who actively try to divide the country on racial lines because it personally benefits them. Most notably, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. David Duke gets media attention every time there is a national election because for some reason his opinion means something. I think there is currently a hysteria about a racism epidemic in the US that doesn't really hold true.
A lot of what was said in parent comments is true and I agree with. Though I don't think it really reflects today. At least not where I'm from. Perhaps there is more of that on the East coast, but I think as you go to the midwest and west coast you get less of that kind of division. There are definitely racists, but there are a lot more who live with a "live and let live", or attempt to adopt a "colorblind" (which is now racist apparently), worldview.
I think most whites in the US feel like they are the scapegoats for some other groups misfortunes. When no one alive had much to do with past injustices. Can you really blame past injustices for decisions of people today? In 1965 the out of wedlock birth rate was 25% and now it is almost 75%. Single parent homes come with a host of problems and much higher rates of crime, drug abuse, and lack of education.
So the likes of Jesse Jackson and Sharpton look at things like police shooting statistics (which is misleading in how they characterize them) and act like that is the biggest problem facing black people in the US. People feel enraged by what is perceived to be "unjust" police violence, sometimes rightly. Jackson and Sharpton raise their own profiles, and essentially run a "don't get called racist" money laundering operation through foundations they run.
The real problems don't get addressed and those who attempt to are called "racists" or "uncle toms" and the cycle continues. It is disgusting and sad.
Asians are the opposite of blacks here - they have higher household income than whites, and are getting negative affirmative action in school entry because they have higher grades than whites.
Asians having outperformed white Americans should be seen as a credit to white people's lack of discrimination IMO.
Different groups have different distributions of abilities and will have different average outcomes. You can leave it as a free for all or you can try and make it fairer or more inclusive etc by introducing quotas.
Prestigious universities are not just after maximising top marks, they also go after connections to power, old money, seeking future alumni donations etc.
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