Who the elected WC?http://politicalwire.com/archives/20...itical+Wire%29
During a debate over affirmative action, Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern (R) said that minorities earn less than white people because they "didn't want to work hard in school," according to KOCO-TV.
Said Kern: "We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that's tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don't want to study as hard in school? I've taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn't study hard because they said the government would take care of them."
Kern added that women earn less than men because "they tend to spend more time at home with their families." She later apologized for her remarks.
what did you expect?
Link above is bad.
http://politicalwire.com/archives/20...work_hard.html
This is one of those byzantine constructs that loops around and destroys itself.
There is a kernel of truth behind her observations....there is a culture of underachievement among black students in certain settings...urban being primary. The rule of street is often more important than the rule of school (the Anti-school peer group pressure) and it's a phenomenon that's been heralded and addressed by many in the community.
That she ties this up into some bizarre GOP talking point of welfare dependency is the teaspoon of sewage in the barrel of wine.
There's no truth in this. Minorities work just as hard as whites in any setting given the cir stances are the same. Whites in poverty do just as badly.
I'd love to see that work some of the fields my family did and then tell me that we're lazy. that.
Conditions aren't the same. The truth hurts. There's no secret poor Asians/Indians have a different cultural mentality than other minorities in relation to academia.
The anti school peer pressure is do ented. It's real and it's true.
It's not related to how hard a minority will work. It's directly related cultural and sociological factors.
And no. You are demonstrably wrong in your ascertation that whites in poverty do just as badly. They don't. Neither do Asians.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40095887...ew_york_times/
Last edited by TeyshaBlue; 04-29-2011 at 11:47 AM.
Thats all fine and good but thats a symptom not a root cause. This lawmaker isn't saying we need to fix poverty so that this goes away, she's saying that it is the fundamental reason that minorities are behind. She also gives no credence to the fact that minorities are targeted much more by laws and their enforcement (whats up crack cocaine legislation). There's no truth in what she's saying at all Teysha. There is complete misrepresentation.
Her conclusions are completely invalid.
The observations underneath are valid.
Couched specifically within the context of education, what you label as a symptom, is indeed, the root cause. Poverty is a tangent or maybe even a symbiotic symptom, but not a root cause.
I couldn't disagree more. Do African american kids that come with families with higher median incomes display those traits in education more than any other ethnic group?
you can point out reality without saying its caused by race. There's nothing biological about this.
Don't invert the problem Manny. It's not symmetrical like that. But to answer your question, yes. They do.
Terrible thing to say.
This probably sounds counter-intuitive as all . It is really. But only if you predicate your position upon poverty being the major driver for minority scholastic underachievement.
A Voyage Into The Racial Code Words Used To Attack Obama’s Americanism
http://www.politicususa.com/en/obama-race-code
==========
birtherism is racism. Blacks aren't Real Americans, so Barry's not (born)American.
ha ha darrin watches msnbc.
Thanks for the non sequitur. Again.
Umbrella statements are never worth jack, but there are, indeed, a couple underlying truths to the education in poverty observation.
It's quite well known blacks and Hispanics do considerably worse than whites and asians on IQ tests. It's not their fault, if we are to believe all people are relatively equal in mental capacity.
Yet solving the problem is impossible if they repeatedly have trouble simply passing secondary school classes and attaining higher education. Until poorer minorities are their white and Asian counterparts' equals in learning, their economic plight will continue. A vicious cycle, I know.
OK.
Two assertions have been made in this thread.
1. That the academic performance of poor blacks and poor whites is the same, given like socio-economic conditions (by Manny - and conventional wisdom).
or
2. That poor blacks do worse than their white and Asian counterparts (in the quote above).
Which is correct?
If premise #2 is correct, and Manny's assertion is not, isn't it more of a problem (racist or not), to pretend it's all the same when it isn't? Isn't that ignoring a problem that, ultimately, will prolong that problem, and keep that minority down. That, functionally, is much worse than what the politician said. Shouting this premise down every time it is postulated (however inappropriately it may have been voiced), does nothing to solve the problem, or help the people one is defending.
wasn't being specific. All assertions I made were considered to obviously be "on average." Sorry if I made it seem sweeping.
I agree economic conditions are the most important factor in education. But I am of the opinion (having lived between divorced parents in lower class incomes through more than first decade of my life) that exerting yourself in your studies and ignoring peer pressure is the key to attaining a better life, NOT blaming the cir stances and continuing the trend.
AFAIK, there are no biological differences between people of different races that would provide for a substantially diminished mental capacity and ability. If thats not true, then its obviously going to undermine a lot of my positions so I'm going to assume its true until proven otherwise.
With that being said, there are obvious cultural differences between different ethnic groups and Americans and immigrants. The main point I'm making, many of those cultural differences and their negative effects when concerning African Americans are the direct result of our governments policies (discrimination and slavery etc) and its lasting affects. Black people don't inherently work any less than any other minority. If you look at African immigrants they do exceptionally well, even if poor. But for America itself to have created an environment where blacks are poorer, are jailed much more, and have many social problems DIRECTLY as a result of racism and then turn around and try to say that African Americans are responsible for lifting themselves up by their bootstraps is a complete bull argument if I've ever heard one.
Yeah, there are social problems but the point remains that those social problems are a DIRECT result of actions undertaken by our own society.
To me thats important as , and for me, society has a burden to fix those issues. If I were talking to an individual, I would most certainly tell them that they must work hard and that it is up to them and them alone to make their lives better. As an individual, thats fair. But lawmakers never speak to individuals. Even a singular question in a public forum is more than that and you must always view their words in the context of public statements that reach far more than one person.
Ultimately the point becomes that while there are cultural differences that doesn't mean that culture is to blame.
I can ultimately understand the viewpoint Teysha is expressing considering the perspective of a teacher but I don't give lawmakers that type of leeway and never will.
"society has a burden to fix those issues"
Our society is a poor tool to use to administer aid to problems within a particular culture.
Culture is not entirely to blame. It's a factor tho...and one that is as large as the poverty factor....the symbiotic nature of the two is what's so maddening. Neither would exist without the other, but either can potentially harm a student.
The current culture is a direct result of the poverty and actions of our government Teysha. Thats the point. There's no doubt that the current culture of poor African Americans acts as a tarpit but the fact is that we caused the tarpit to form. THAT is important to acknowledge every time its brought up. When lawmakers do what was done above its so completely different that I'll never give them a grain of credit.
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