Originally posted by: terraqueous
I apologize in advance for the thread hijack.
And there is nothing holding African Americans back from bettering their lot in life. There is nothing preventing them from working hard. There is nothing stopping them from taking out a loan, if necessary, to pay for retraining into better careers. In fact they have one leg up on the rest of us.... It's called affirmative action. The ONLY thing holding African Americans back in most cases is themselves. A VERY high percentage of African Americans are incarcerated in their lifetimes. And there is NO ONE to blame but themselves for engaging in self destructive behavior.
meatball, I used to think the way you did. Then I noticed that, quite frankly, the view that noone is held back in life is simply ludicrous. As a bank, would you loan to the poor, black male who hasn't gone beyond high school? Honestly? You talk about retraining as though the schools in most African American inner city areas provided training to begin with. And while I agree that affirmative aciton based on race is bull, I'd have to say that being destitute or lacking a functioning family while getting a few extra points on your university admissions application hardly counts as a "leg up" on the kids with the excellent private or suburban schools, private tutors, or parents pushing them to educate themselves.
People are born into some pretty horrible lives. Is the entire continent of Africa impoverished because, as you seem to believe, poor people are simply too lazy to work hard? You point out that a disproportionately high number of African Americans are incarcerated compared to other minorities. Could the fact that far more African Americans are born into the lowest incomes, worst schools and communities that least value education, and a nearly complete lack of successful adult role models have anything to do with that?
The world is indeed about incentives, and that's where you stepped into a paradox. There is a HUGE incentive not to be poor. Material comfort, respect, longer life, better lives for one's children, personal safety...all of these come with increased wealth. Do you truly believe that the poor themselves have not noticed this? And assuming that you will admit that they, seeing everyone around them who is not poor, have noticed this, do you then truly believe that their collective response is, "Meh, a job is too much work for such pointless rewards as life and happiness. I'd rather die young/smoke crack/go to jail."?
I doubt that as a user on the AnandTech forums, you were born into a drug and crime infested ghetto, from which you nobly worked your way out, easily passing all those lazy bastards around you who just wanted to stay poor. If you did, congratulations, and my apologies. I know that I certainly didn't - I was born into wealth and a level of comfort that allowed me to think that all you needed to succeed was hard work. For those of us already on top, that's true. But not everyone starts at the top. And until you've lived it, the safe bet is to give those people at the very bottom the benefit of the doubt when it comes to whether or not things like crushing poverty, rampant crime and shattered families might influence their ability to achieve.