I would say it is counterproductive to base your re-education camp argument around loaded terms like white/black-american culture.
> ;)
But you know that.
Nobody uses "white" the way you did and even if that matches your observations in the US that term was only very recently inclusive of so many origin countries on the European continent. The UK version of "white" still isn't nearly as inclusive as the American construct. It is fine to merely say American culture has predominantly European roots.
The underlying argument around re-education camps may have more merit. The primary argument is about who pays for it. You need to convince Congress and education secretaries and I don't think you're soft power argument would sway anyone.
This was one thing I was starting to really dislike about the article - as if they hadn't quite plugged the output into the input. It's rather a chicken and egg - it was obviously started by many years of oppression, but now both the culture and the lack of social mobility are cause and effect - it's a big cycle, that needs to be tackled on both fronts not individually - black culture is a huge rebellion against the norms perpetrated by the square America, the same America that has locked them out of it, and in doing so making the only dignified reaction to reject it. Of course a disillusioned youth is going to ignore an education that is perceived as teaching culturally irrelevant principles and skills.
An (sort of) example from here in the UK is that in a local comprehensive school, teachers were getting a lot of flak for having less great English results than the local Catholic Grammar school. This completely ignored the fact that the vast majority of the intake at the comprehensive were people who did not speak English at home/spoke it as a second language, whereas of course the grammar school had their pick of the white, middle class students who'd passed the entrance exam. This of course is one in a multitude of reasons why school league tables are awful, but that's a tangent for another time.
But student body is not held constant, not even ethnically. Even within the "white European" demographic bucket there's huge variation among ethnic groups - most relevantly regarding attitudes toward education itself, teachers, and relative levels of funding or social priority given to either. Treating US whites the same as European whites is wrong on a whole bunch of levels. For one thing, we're not all white. For another, the American population is drawn from specific subsets of the European population, and has experienced different patterns of population change since then (particularly evident wrt Jews with their known unique educational profile). Lastly there's the fact that even if non-whites aren't included in the sample their effects are still felt because many white students still share schools with non-whites, and not a few of those "white" students in fact have mixed heritage.
Of course, treating ethnicity - and particularly just white vs. non-white - as the only variable other than the educational system itself is itself offensive. One might also consider the effects that 300+ years of distinctly US culture and history have had on attitudes toward education, teachers, or the relative social/economic priority accorded to either. Or the effects that wealth distribution within the US or wealth differences between the US and other nations might have. The US student body is simply not the same as the Finnish one, so if Sanandaji really wanted to isolate the effect of the educational system then he'd have to adjust for more than one other variable.
Alternatively, he or you might take note of the fact that the current Finnish results are the result of change to the system while holding demographics relatively constant. What works in Finland might not work in the US for all sorts of reasons, but claiming that it won't work specifically because of ethnic makeup is both intellectually and morally dubious.
You've made effectively the same argument used against white students who went into the Deep South US in the 1960s to help the civil rights movement.
While those white students benefited from being raised in a segregationist culture - it gave them the time, money, and freedom to protest segregation - those benefits don't justify continued segregation.
The fact that non-white cultures also distort their youths' understanding of history to their own benefit isn't a valid argument for Americans to continue to do so. And it isn't a valid argument against skepticism on the part of students.
Here's one for you [0]. That's an infographic from the Smithsonian museum that attributed Enlightenment-age values, like individualism, family structure, and work ethic to "whiteness" and implied that it should be opposed. They removed it after pushback (search archive.org for more).
That's the tip of the iceberg though. There's a whole industry of wrapping this narrative into struggle session-like training while charging 7 figures to various-level budgets. You can find many examples like [1] if you search for Chris Rufo. Except adults sort of understand that it's a kickback-driven nonsense and don't take it seriously. So now they are taking the Critical Race Theory with very similar postulates into schools.
It's not about helping minorities learn from the more successful, and reach for the stars. That's purely about making kids hate what their parents did for them, rather than building on top of that.
I agree with what they’re doing, but the messaging around it is odd.
What they’re trying to do is diversify their curriculum from western-dominant culture to include other, lesser-mentioned cultures. That’s fine and honestly a refreshing take from higher education.
The messaging is inflammatory and ridiculous though. The problem is not white or colonizer culture. The problem is Western-centric education excluding other interesting literary movements around the globe.
As usual, this sounds like a reasonable move branded terribly by the woke mob (or a media outlet trying to find their next outrage piece).
I don’t find it patronizing at all — what I do find patronizing is the interpretation by the quoted author on the article.
The distinction is important because you can’t change race but you can change culture. However it isn’t easy and it has to start with the children. It is too late for the adults. And any practical solution (boarding schools for talented kids designed to extract them from their dysfunctional culture) has serious negative consequences as well. Australia tried to change the culture of the indigenous population and it ended badly. It is a very hard problem. Especially because the feedback loop of the culture is self-reinforcing. When I lived in the US I remember talking to a successful well-educated African-American that I worked with who said he was called an “Icecream” (black on the outside white on the inside) by other African-Americans! In other words, people in his community resented his success instead of celebrating it. That just blew my mind.
I intuitively like the idea of the "supposed" but atleast in the west there seems to be a way of counteracting these pressures. It seems to me that "white" children can choose from a variety of roles: nerdy, athletic, artistic etc and although there are penalties associated with each role there are rewards as well and each role is deemed valid by society. However, the article seems to suggest a homogeneous "black" identity, which leaves no room for accepted rebellion. Perhaps, some folks living in USA can confirm if my hypothesis is connected to reality.
>Where 1st gen children who keep their culture of origin do well academically (if their culture demands it) but subsequent generations absorb more of the african-american culture which shuns academia.
You can't really change a culture though. Is there any way you think it can be fixed?
Funnily enough, the UK had this problem about fifteen years ago.
Everyone was wringing their hands madly and talking about things like mentorship, and how the education system was inherently racist (and, unfortunately, always making implications about how white people were all racist and this was a deliberate outcome) or certain groups apparently having no fathers.
Fifteen years later, and black kids are more than twice as likely to go to university as white kids...funnily enough, if you mention race when you talk about this now...you get called a racist (it turns out, some people just really think race is the only thing that matters).
Either way, stop talking about race. It doesn't help. It is incredibly disempowering to have someone supposedly help you by constantly bringing up the fact you are different. And, shock, if you do this and things improve those children never stop banging on about race and think everything is rigged against them (in the UK, there is no black wage gap...if you mention this, you will get excoriated). Definitely, culture does matter (this just has no relation to race though) but if you create an environment of success then this can be overcome.
The US is the archtypical example of how not to do things. Six decades into civil rights, and the same people are still banging on and on about the same stuff (I will get trashed for this but in the US, this kind of grief mongering has almost become an industry in itself...you can see why it will never end, the vested interests are too powerful).
Non-whites are Americans too, and I don't see a reason to exclude them. The fact that non-white students perform so poorly as to drag down the average so much speaks of a massive systematic failure in education.
I gave you the benefit of the doubt for your earlier comment that is now clear was undeserved. So your solution for the failure of the American education system is that non-white people (whom you call "snide foreigners") should leave?
Several years back, I decided to get a masters degree in teaching. I am white. One of the required courses was how to teach students who were neither white nor from a Euro-centric culture. It was both a challenging and transformative experience, based on essay writing. I think that telling people to be “less white” is probably silly and ineffective. Asking people to write about how they will work to support non-white or culturally different co-workers would make more sense to me based on my experience.
You’re correct to state that yes black children in the UK are more likely to go to university than their white counterparts, however, this not only goes for black children but all ethic minorities. The truth is working class white children in the UK have issues British society isn’t comfortable talking about and I believe is one of the leading causes of the rise of popularism in the country.
It’s also important to note that although black children are more likely to go to university they are also 2.5 times more likely to be unemployed on comparison to their equally qualified white counterparts which indicates institutional racism. If as you suggest we avoid the topic of race solutions for issues like this will never appear.
Lastly, there is a huge black wage gap in the UK £3.2bn according to reports.
Speaking as a British black male I can say that race issues in the US and the UK aren’t as different as you make out and in a lot of ways the US is miles ahead in confronting the problem openly in contrast to the UK approach where people would rather sweep the whole issue under the carpet as you have so neatly illustrated.
No, you are to understand that white students in aggregate are the beneficiaries of privileges that in sum are equal to double schooling. A combination of (in aggregate) better educated parents, more at home supervision and guidance, more extracurricular educational enrichment, better nutrition, an environment of children improved with the previous privileges, etc.
What's the alternative? That the black children are inherently less smart? The same used to be said of Asian kids, and that achievement gap persists for Asian kids who grow up in neighborhoods of other poor uneducated Asians. Meanwhile, Shanghai and Korea have shown that these kids can learn.
Look, first off, I'm not a white man. Second, I wasn't trying to debate whether this is right or wrong, only explaining why parents are voting out democrats. However I do take offense to your implication that teaching white children concepts like white privilege in a way that instills white guilt, and molding them to accept unilaterally determined reverse discrimination, does not constitute oppression.
It's quite possible to teach about racism and discrimination and slavery without burdening white children with what amounts to a rehashed original sin, obligating them to accept reverse racism as though it is the only way to correct historic wrongs which they had no part in.
>You don't need to feel guilty, unless you are out here actively supporting racist system
This is dishonest, because it is a refrain used to guilt people into supporting progressive policies by implication that they are racist if they don't, completely sidestepping the argument over whether such policies are sound.
>If you're trying to use the social privileges that come with being a white man in America to dismantle racist structures, then you're doing great!
This is also dishonest, because it sidesteps the question of whether or not white men are actually privileged to such an extent that artificially correcting for said privilege (i.e. creating institutional racism) is justified. It also ignores the question of whether our institutions are actually racist - to a modern progressive this is a given, but the science is ultimately based on correlation and conjecture. The strongest proof that pundits have of institutional racism is inequality of outcome; however in a perfect meritocracy it is irrational to conflate equality of opportunity with equality of outcome. See Nordic countries for an example.
To summarize, my primary points are twofold: the way that antiracism is being taught to white children is potentially harmful, and the degree to which our systems are actually unequal because of racism on behalf of whites is not nearly as certain as militant activists seem to believe. Before you downvote, recognize that I am communicating the perspective held by voters that are dramatically underrepresented online. And to an increasing degree they are not white, minorities do not appreciate the implication that they will forever be saddled with the burden of past oppression unless the white man steps in and helps them.
Incidentally, I have do have a personal stake the this matter, because the same points used to justify reverse discrimination against whites can trivially be aimed at Jews, given their drastic overrepresentation among positions of power and wealth. I personally don't think people realize how dangerous it is to teach such racial awareness to children, especially in such a discriminatory manner.
Regarding #2, it's not a '"whitey is bad" mindset' to say that if your goal is to expand access to education, and you're primarily reaching people who manifestly already have access, then you're failing at your goal.
> ;)
But you know that.
Nobody uses "white" the way you did and even if that matches your observations in the US that term was only very recently inclusive of so many origin countries on the European continent. The UK version of "white" still isn't nearly as inclusive as the American construct. It is fine to merely say American culture has predominantly European roots.
The underlying argument around re-education camps may have more merit. The primary argument is about who pays for it. You need to convince Congress and education secretaries and I don't think you're soft power argument would sway anyone.
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