[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

We would really need to dig into the data. The "box" as you say is not an algorithm with clear formulas. Different ethnic groups within the black community have significantly different outcomes. Different white communities have different outcomes, which are also clearly delineated. Why do Russian-Americans earn vastly more than Yugoslavian Americans?

Oh look, the shifting of the goalposts has begun! I'm waiting for the last vestige of the "intellectual dark web set" and the good old stand-by of a semantics argument - we have a difference of opinion of what that term means, so lets argue that instead! All of this is strangely familiar, right down to the reliance on a Quillette article. It is a classic alt-right trap, one Jordan Peterson would be proud of. I think this requires invoking one of my favorite articles from Wired, Calling Bull#### skewers the World's BS Merchants.

George Carlin proposed a taxonomy for three kinds of bothersome people: those who are (1) “####ing stupid,” (2) “full of ####,” or (3) “####ing nuts.” Then he explained how to identify each. “Full of ####” people, he said, were averse to telling the truth but weren’t necessarily unintelligent. Bull#### purveyors might be manipulative or provocative or just plain liars, but they weren’t crazy or stupid.

In 2020, Carlin’s categorization is no longer sufficient. The act of being “full of ####” and producing bull#### has since undergone a Cambrian explosion. Today’s bull#### is more diverse, with many more faces, personalities, and types of camouflage. Carlin’s world was also waist deep in political liars, but it didn’t have automated bots propagating bull#### that can spread to the minds of billions (interpreted as fact) within minutes. In the face of robo-bull####, Carlin’s algorithm looks like retro-tech. “Full of ####” people and nonpeople are now everywhere—some are both crazy and stupid—and their lies and deceit are unraveling the social order.

So let me just call this post what it is, BULL####!!!

Neither of these outcomes is clearly explained by race. The average income of a two parent black families isn't that far off of white two parent families for about 25 years now. Average incomes (mean and median) are greatly skewed by single mother families. Median incomes in the south are lower than median incomes in the northern states - and the south has a larger population of blacks, skewing in the national average.

Bull####! Data from the US Census Bureau.



So Blacks make 65% of median income. Hispanics make 81% of median income. Whites make 118% of median income. So those black families aren't that far off from whites? Almost $30K isn't "that far off." As far as economic growth in the past decade, blacks have seen their real incomes shrink by 2.1% while whites have seen theirs rise by 2.3%.

20.8% of black families live in poverty compared to 10.1 of white families.
The median household net worth of an African American family is $16,300, compared to $162,770 for white Americans.
41% of black families have retirement savings, with a value of $29,200, compared to 68% of whites, with a value of $79,500.

I could go on and on, because "the data" continues to stack up against your bull#### argument.

Hughes (in the bull#### article linked above) highlighted an interesting outcome of the disparity fallacy:

"The disparity fallacy holds that unequal outcomes between two groups must be caused primarily by discrimination, whether overt or systemic. What’s puzzling about believers in the disparity fallacy is not that they apply the belief too broadly, but that they apply it too narrowly. Any instance of whites outperforming blacks is adduced as evidence of discrimination. But when a disparity runs the other way—that is, blacks outperforming whites—discrimination is never invoked as a causal factor."

Racism exists, absolutely. However. The argument for systemic racism being the driving force behind the disparity between blacks and white is a facile argument that is simply a classic example of confusing correlation with causation.

Denial is not a river in Egypt.

The truly insidious result of the systemic racism argument is that it removes agency. It implies that outside factors are more important than intrinsic factors when it comes to success. If you convince someone that they will be the victim of oppression and racism, it will be demotivating. I believe that this is why the messages of Obama, McWhorter, Hughes, Sowell, Elder, and Loury are the most hopeful ones.

Yes, outside factors are more important that intrinsic factors. When there are systemic barriers to pretty much every agency that allows for upward mobility, all the intrinsic factors in the world mean nothing. You could have the greatest business idea in the world, but if no bank is willing to lend you money, and no investor is willing to listen to you because of the color of your skin or where you come from, the chances of the revolutionary idea seeing the light of day is almost nil. Systemic racism, now being re-branded as "unconscious bias", is real, and all the name dropping in the world is not going to change that. Your argument is not only dishonest but, in the immortal words of George Carlin, it's bull####.