Apr 27, 2022·edited Apr 27, 2022Liked by Greg Thomas
Author Q: "When was the last time you heard about a comparison between immigrants from France, Germany, or Eastern Europe and white-identified persons from the deep South, Appalachia, or the Midwest in terms of wealth, educational attainment, or rates of marriage or violent crime in our everyday discourse? Such comparisons are rarely included in reports on group disparities, even though there’s no obvious reason why they are less relevant than those commonly made between different populations of “black” Americans".
A: Thomas Sowell's
'Ethnic America' - I read it in a college economics class about 40 years ago. It was very memorable....points remembered?!...(1) ethnic groups that learned English quickly did economically better & assimilated into the culture faster (2) Ethnic groups that clustered together is ghettos like the Italians, Chinese, etc took longer to attain economic success...it's still worth a read today...
Ethnic comparison's today don't focus on European populations because they don't comprise most of today's migration...
Thanks for your response. In a sense, you prove my point, CC: the last you heard mention of such a comparison is 40 years ago! My main point, however, is the way that statistical comparisons between groups that are racialized as "black" are used to imply deficiency among native-born, multi-generation Americans of African descent in relation to recent immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa. Such comparisons are not done in a vacuum; rather, they serve to counter the overwrought claims by many progressive anti-racists who ride their horses on social media shouting: "White Supremacy is Coming, White Supremacy is Coming!"
But if we want a more accurate overall picture of how racialized groups are faring in society, then also take a look at those who are racialized as "white," of various ancestries, regions, and national origins. Otherwise, it seems to me, native-born Black Americans are just being used in an elite narrative warfare between liberal progressives and social and economic conservatives. As a radical moderate proud of my ethno-cultural heritage AND my identity as an American citizen, I chafe at such an approach to political argumentation.
First, Sowell’s ‘Ethnic America’ is just the first time I had read an ethnic studies comparisons, but over the 40 years since they’ve been myriad comparative studies on America’s ethnic makeup. We are after all an nation of immigrants.
Secondly, clearly progressives today are using any argument to exclaim, ‘White Supremacy is coming’ etc. because that is the underlying Modus Operandi of the Democrat Party, ie to slice & dice the electorate and then pander to these diverse groups. That is the very essence of the Party model- that’s where it gets it power. Listen to party rhetoric; ‘White America is afraid of a multi-culturalism, afraid if immigration etc”. When in fact, most people just want law & order. They don’t want the violence & disarray that comes with Democrat Party policies.
And finally, the most blatant racism I have observed over my long life has been amongst the black community itself. In college, I observed a group of black women looking through an Ebony magazine having a very involved and I would say prejudicial discussion about ‘skin tone’ and ‘blackness’ - some tones were better than others?! Up to that point, I had never thought of ‘tonality’. Later on in New York City, my black Carribbean babysitters often would proudly tell me how much more they had it together, ie cleaner neighborhoods, consciousness etc than Native American blacks. I did hire a Trinidadian of East Indian origin also who never mentioned race. I have never heard whites make similar comparisons. However, years ago different white ethnic groups used humor and made jokes about each other, ie Italian jokes, Polish jokes, etc - humor seemed to be a way that people coped with culture clashes and diffferences.
CC: I think your argument about the Democratic Party has some elements of the truth, but is still partial. "Some" elements of the party of the left slices and dices the electorate to pander. But your one-sided analysis implies that the party of the right, the Republicans, don't do the very same. They obviously do. That's the nature of partisan party politics, and neither side is pure in that regard.
As a radical moderate, I stay at arms-length from party politics, while keeping a close eye on the extremes of both sides. Why? the far left (social justice warriors, etc.) and the far-right (alt-right white nationalists, etc.) have much in common in terms of their illiberalism and authoritarian attitudes. Therefore someone such as myself, being near the center of the political spectrum, would be looked at with suspicion by both groups--because I see them for what they BOTH are.
And as regards your subjective experience and observations of racism "over your long life," I won't argue with how you frame it, as it's your experience. But from my experience, not only as a Black American male close to 60 years old, but as someone who has deeply studied history and culture, I'll say that your framing seems skewed toward your outer observations of intra-group dynamics.
In other words, among Black Americans as an ethnic group, there has been for a long time discussions of internalized bias based on skin color. In New Orleans in the 19th century, for instance, there was the infamous "brown paper bag" tests. If you were darker than the brown paper bag, you couldn't be a part of certain social groups. Intra-group discrimination based on internalized norms of whiteness--or proximity to the same--isn't a surprise once we understand the connection between social status and economic power and privilege.
And inter-group tension and social status talk among native Black Americans and West Indians has a long history. I see that for what it is, and will not buy into such inter-group narrative warfare, though I will, as in this piece, defend my ethnic kin from being targeted and used by others to make their political points to our detriment.
I'm glad that you mentioned the inter-ethnic dynamics among folks originally from Europe. It's the same kind of thing that you observed, but were surprised at, as you say you weren't aware of such dynamics among folks racialized as black.
But if it's actually true that the most blatant racism that you've observed has been among the black community, then I must say that I wonder where you're looking and whether your political position is coloring, so to speak, your perceptions. If you need some verification of existing racist attitudes among some Americans racialized as white, I urge you to check out "Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Are," by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. He found that there are an alarming number of annual searches under the expression "nigger jokes."
So the way that some people--about 7 million searches annually--deal with culture clashes and differences is by actively searching for "nigger jokes." That's not implicit bias; that's explicit racism.
Re: Political party carve outs…the Republican Party clearly has political factions within itself. But from a policy viewpoint, it views the electorate as one and tried to avoid racial ‘favorites’ & factions: ‘hyphenation’ is not its thing, as we are all ‘Americans’, the characteristics that unites us all.
The Republican Party views the electorate as one?? When? During primaries? During national elections when they appeal to their base and other supporters.
YOU may view the electorate as one--which is a beautiful, admirable stance--but the Republican Party? Unfortunately, certain political factions within the Republican Party plays on resentment and fear against certain "others" who they don't see as part of their voter base. Party politics, on both sides, play off or fear, anxiety, and resentments for political gain. Which is one reason party politics disgust me, and has me focus more on cultural intelligence and cultural growth in the United States. This is part of my work as a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Cultural Evolution.
In the UK, the report confirmed that the groups with the lowest attainment are both white --Irish Travellers and white boys from a disadvantaged background.
One part Sowell in his essay on Black Rednecks got wrong was his assertion that the English/Scottish borders culture had somehow vanished in the border region of England/Scotland (or indeed Northern Ireland), it hasn't and the low education attainment etc is indeed cause for concern for the UK government.
The Department of Education in England (this is a devolved matter) has had some recent success in improving overall literacy and numeracy levels through the use of phonetics and math hubs. The over all basic literacy rate of the UK is 99% but functional illiteracy continues to limit life chances. The UK does have severe problems with social deprivation.
To contrast the basic literacy rate of California is 77% (on par with Rwanda 73 and significantly below Barbados at 88% -- As an aside Rwanda's basic literacy rate is on the increase and California's is sliding). New Hampshire which is the top state for basic literacy stands 94%. Basic literacy and numeracy enables people (and societies) to progress. Rather than being on par with other Western countries such as Norway (100%) or Canada 99%, the US basic literacy rate appears to be decreasing.
One does not need to know the precise cause to know that there is a systematic incompetence of state funded education in the US. And the big question is why is the US so profligate with democracy's most precious resource namely its home grown human capital?
As Ellen Wilkinson, the UK politician who overhauled the UK's education system in the 1940's, a sound education affects several generations and the converse is also true.
The US Supreme Court decision of Hirabayashi v United States namely "Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality. " should hold true for basic literacy and numeracy. There should be no reason why the various state education departments should not be able to get the basic literacy rate of 15 year olds to 99% regardless of their skin tone. Other countries do.
Thank you, Michelle. Yes, yes: basic literacy should be a primary focus. I also think that helping young people learn emotional management and regulation is key. Some call this "soft skills"; I prefer Seth Godin's term: real skills to enhance civil dialogue and interpersonal relationships.
I also appreciate you making comparisons beyond simplistic racial categorization, focusing instead on where the U.S. overall is falling down in basic education. That's why on my recent appearance on The Glenn Show (with FAIR advisory board member, Glenn Loury), I mentioned that, one, among OECD nations, the United States is 28th out of 38 nations with regards to STEM education, and, two, that according to a U.S. News & World Report study, the U.S. is 26th in terms of Quality of Life.
Being the wealthiest nation in the world won't mean much if the overall quality of life is down the tubes.
We agree, Michelle: it's time for us to start getting our priorities straight.
Yes, good. It is long past the time the US public started to get its head around the failure in basic domestic education for all its citizens problem, instead of being distracted by St Ives type considerations which are the simplistic racial categories (I assume you know the old nursery rhyme which goes when I was going to St Ives, I met a man with seven wives, and every wife had seven sacks, and every sack had seven cats and every cat seven kits -- kits, cats, sacks and wives, how many were going to St Ives? The answer is of course 1 -- the speaker). If you have 100 students, and 25 do not have basic skills. It doesn't matter how you parse their make up or ancestry, at the end you still have 25 who remain in need of a basic education. It goes down to whether or not you want a gold , silver and sewage for the rest education system or one which enables all citizens to become active contributors to society's overall quality of life.
Immigration and the immigrant's drive to succeed to a certain extent has allowed the US to be distracted from the decades long domestic failure in providing adequate public education to its native citizens, but ultimately how long US society can rely on draining brains from other countries is an open question.
It is also about improving occupational mobility -- providing the skills which will enable citizens to move to jobs which provide a better lifestyle -- this is a slightly different emphasis than social mobility. I think this is what you are getting it as well. Occupational mobility allows for people to improve their quality of life.
One only has to look at ancient Rome and the slide into the so-called Dark Ages to see what happened when the skill sets of the native population started to decrease significantly.
I did enjoy the readout of your conversation with Lloury -- WEIRD is a great acronym. As an aside, you were the second intellectual to talk about so-called French Theory I have read this week. History Reclaimed had a good article about deconstructing French theory. https://historyreclaimed.co.uk/deconstructing-french-theory/ in case you have not seen it. History Reclaimed is a Robert Tombs/ David Abulafia project (both Cambridge professors) and an interesting resource.
Exactly. One of my biggest issues with the “woke” ideology is that it lends itself to a zero sum mentality. These are our children and the future of our country; if some are not able to fulfill their potential due to economic disadvantages and/or the circumstances of their birth, this should concern all of us. Likewise, the tools, skills and support children needed to break the cycle of generational poverty are going to look very similar, whether we are talking about children in inner city neighborhoods or children in rural Appalachia.
Re: American literacy decreasing: There are lots of stats about inner city school failures to educate, hence the rise of the charter school movement to get around dismally performing unionized schools. Also, the USA has seen millions of migrants come into the country in the past several decades. Mostly recently, it has been noted that many coming from Mexico & Central America are illiterate- which could have the effect of pulling down the USA’s literacy rate.
The answer is not necessarily more funding either as you suggest. New York City pays a record rate of $28k per student per year and I have read of similar stats in Boston and elsewhere. And their outcomes are abysmal! In recent years, only 25% of inner city students have passed state exams. It’s not the funding. There is something more profound going on - Union strangle hold of education which creates inflexibilty, tamping down innovations, dysfunctional family structures etc. It comes to a point when the state can no longer expect taxpayers to pay increasingly larger amounts with nothing to show for it.
The literacy rate apparently takes into account immigration levels. The UK in recent years has also seen huge rates of immigration from least developed nations and has still maintained at 99% rate. Norway has also had significant immigration and maintains 100%.
I do agree about the money not being well spent. The average spend per pupil in the UK is less than the US and yet the UK is considerably higher up the league table.
The UK also suffers from areas of extreme social deprivation and family dysfunction. They have put a lot into the inner cities education but know there is a significant way to go. But the fact remains a solid education is the best way to increase social mobility and ensure society progresses.
Interestingly, the Times of London had an anecdotal article about Ukrainian refugee children in France and Italy being a year ahead in maths earlier this week. According to the OCED, Ukraine is supposed to be behind, but the children are outperforming in the class room. In Ukraine apparently they used 1940s style textbooks and the discipline (including silence in the classroom) is much stricter. Apparently their language skills are great as most speak Ukraine and Russian and are therefore able to rapidly pick up French or Italian.
I do agree that there is profound systematic incompetence in the US state education system which has serious implications for US society going forward. It is in many ways why I think parents are fighting back against school boards etc in the US as the basic compact of state education has been broken by the various state education administrations. If parents felt their children were being educated in the basics, they would be more willing to overlook some of the societal engineering which French Theorists are attempting. As it is the so-called French Theory (crt, queer theory, decolonization of history etc) serves a distraction from the real problem which is the failure to educate American children properly.
re: your conclusion - 'couldn't agree more. Any given child has to get the basics down first (reading-writing-arithmetic)...the focus on extraneous and even questionable material is a damaging sideshow. Parents & taxpayers have the right to demand better. You could say it's 'American Decadence & Wealth' that has contributed to the superfluousness of today's current curriculums. Countries not as wealthy as the USA, like the Ukraine, Russia - can't afford all the foolishness; They have to get it right the first time - no remedial learning, no community 'remedial' colleges. They don't have the money to do 'do-overs'. We are an indulged society. Just think, American companies & universities now employ thousands and thousands of 'diversity counselors' just to 'monitor the halls' - we have laws on the books that do the same thing - whereas this human capital, these diversity counselors could be far more productive in actually producing something useful. 'Diversity Culture' is now an industry employing literally an army of Sociology and Ethnic Studies majors. But these jobs, don't produce anything - nothing - they are nothing but another' American indulgence'. As a nation, we will fall from our own rot, a rot from within, from the bad use of human resources and funds. And if we don't start getting serious about educating our youth and demanding more from the work place, yes, we are doomed to be a second rate nation. We are on our way.
This is an incisive and thought-provoking piece. I would love to share it with the other psychologists in a professional listserv I'm on, but I'm too afraid of potential backlash, despite the very cogent, rational arguments of the article. Irrational emotionalism is still too high among my (race based) social justice-driven colleagues at this moment.
YES. This is true in my field (very broadly*, anti-poverty) as well. The race-essentialism and righteous emotionalism about it all has inhibited the ability to have rational (oh wait, rationalism is just a manifestation of "white dominant culture"...) conversations about what actually works to improve outcomes for racial groups where there are disparities.
*I'm so worried about getting "cancelled" in my field for even publicly expressing doubt about the effectiveness of the dominant "equity" narrative that I can't be more specific about what my field is... That's what this has come to.
Yep, I responded to a Youtube FAIR video by a psychologist and professor of psychology about the increasing fragility with which we treat clients (e.g., the university where she taught told faculty to teach students not to use the word "maladaptive" in their clinical documentation and instead to describe "helpful vs unhelpful" behaviors, etc, because of the stigmatizing nature of "maladaptive," ahem ahem the term "euphemism treadmill" coined by Stephen Pinker). In any case, I went through the convoluted process of creating a new Youtube account under an alias b/c I dared not use my real name when I commented that I agreed with the psychologist for fear that colleagues would accuse me of upholding white supremacist ideology, etc.
Racialized discourse is inevitably superficial, dominated by and addressed to people who have little experience with the communities. “What do you think is good about Black American culture?” might be a question that stumps most white conservatives. But I suspect it would also stump most white liberals.
Thank you Greg. I ponder these issues a lot and this article helps me better frame some of my thoughts and analysis. To me, this comes down to attitude in the first instance. I am not a scientist . I tend to view attitude more about nurture than nature , and thus environmental, social and community factors are , in my opinion, critical as a child develops. I tend to believe that good ( or bad) attitude that has been instilled in a child is a powerful life force that often ( though not always) is hard to reverse given the environment etc. Finally, education can be the great equalizer because it can and has affected ( positively) attitude in countless children. Sowell et al should be read by all. Unfortunately , because their facts and conclusions do not fit the preferred narrative they are instead either ignored or worse denigrated ( especially and shamefully by many white progressives who have never even read any of Professor Sowell's many many books and articles). Thanks again.
And thank you, Michael. Sowell's work is definitely crucial. I do find, however, that he's so anti-left in his work as a public intellectual that he rarely if ever puts a critical eye on his side of the political spectrum.
No question that education is a huge part of the problem and is the arena for potential solutions. Excellent charter schools should be fully supported--period. A moribund public education system should have competition and alternatives. Economist Roland Fryer's suggested reforms for public schools are essential in this regard.
Great piece with a number of useful insights that could help us have better conversations on this topic (and others). I have a thought on why we don’t see/hear much comparison between immigrant whites and native-born ones, and why this may not be purely based on a double-standard. People often compare black Americans to immigrant blacks in response to those who say blacks in this country are oppressed and unable to achieve as much as other racial groups as a result of this oppression. This leads some to suggest that black immigrants have achieved a certain level of success that seems to run counter to that narrative. I’m not here to make that argument as I think all of it is much more complex. But I do understand why the argument is made in that context. On the other hand, you rarely hear someone claim that whites can’t get ahead in this country. So people rarely have a reason to compare white immigrants to native born whites as a way of rebutting that claim. Ultimately, I think people are mostly well intentioned when they try to make their points on this subject. Our country’s history of racism, specifically racism against black people, makes this topic filled with emotion—guilt, anger, sadness, confusion, frustration—and we desperately want answers to make those emotions hold less power over us. I imagine it won’t be quite so easy. But I agree with your overall perspective that changing our framing of these discussions is an important part of the solution. I hope we get there sooner than later.
Author Q: "When was the last time you heard about a comparison between immigrants from France, Germany, or Eastern Europe and white-identified persons from the deep South, Appalachia, or the Midwest in terms of wealth, educational attainment, or rates of marriage or violent crime in our everyday discourse? Such comparisons are rarely included in reports on group disparities, even though there’s no obvious reason why they are less relevant than those commonly made between different populations of “black” Americans".
A: Thomas Sowell's
'Ethnic America' - I read it in a college economics class about 40 years ago. It was very memorable....points remembered?!...(1) ethnic groups that learned English quickly did economically better & assimilated into the culture faster (2) Ethnic groups that clustered together is ghettos like the Italians, Chinese, etc took longer to attain economic success...it's still worth a read today...
Ethnic comparison's today don't focus on European populations because they don't comprise most of today's migration...
Thanks for your response. In a sense, you prove my point, CC: the last you heard mention of such a comparison is 40 years ago! My main point, however, is the way that statistical comparisons between groups that are racialized as "black" are used to imply deficiency among native-born, multi-generation Americans of African descent in relation to recent immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa. Such comparisons are not done in a vacuum; rather, they serve to counter the overwrought claims by many progressive anti-racists who ride their horses on social media shouting: "White Supremacy is Coming, White Supremacy is Coming!"
But if we want a more accurate overall picture of how racialized groups are faring in society, then also take a look at those who are racialized as "white," of various ancestries, regions, and national origins. Otherwise, it seems to me, native-born Black Americans are just being used in an elite narrative warfare between liberal progressives and social and economic conservatives. As a radical moderate proud of my ethno-cultural heritage AND my identity as an American citizen, I chafe at such an approach to political argumentation.
First, Sowell’s ‘Ethnic America’ is just the first time I had read an ethnic studies comparisons, but over the 40 years since they’ve been myriad comparative studies on America’s ethnic makeup. We are after all an nation of immigrants.
Secondly, clearly progressives today are using any argument to exclaim, ‘White Supremacy is coming’ etc. because that is the underlying Modus Operandi of the Democrat Party, ie to slice & dice the electorate and then pander to these diverse groups. That is the very essence of the Party model- that’s where it gets it power. Listen to party rhetoric; ‘White America is afraid of a multi-culturalism, afraid if immigration etc”. When in fact, most people just want law & order. They don’t want the violence & disarray that comes with Democrat Party policies.
And finally, the most blatant racism I have observed over my long life has been amongst the black community itself. In college, I observed a group of black women looking through an Ebony magazine having a very involved and I would say prejudicial discussion about ‘skin tone’ and ‘blackness’ - some tones were better than others?! Up to that point, I had never thought of ‘tonality’. Later on in New York City, my black Carribbean babysitters often would proudly tell me how much more they had it together, ie cleaner neighborhoods, consciousness etc than Native American blacks. I did hire a Trinidadian of East Indian origin also who never mentioned race. I have never heard whites make similar comparisons. However, years ago different white ethnic groups used humor and made jokes about each other, ie Italian jokes, Polish jokes, etc - humor seemed to be a way that people coped with culture clashes and diffferences.
CC: I think your argument about the Democratic Party has some elements of the truth, but is still partial. "Some" elements of the party of the left slices and dices the electorate to pander. But your one-sided analysis implies that the party of the right, the Republicans, don't do the very same. They obviously do. That's the nature of partisan party politics, and neither side is pure in that regard.
As a radical moderate, I stay at arms-length from party politics, while keeping a close eye on the extremes of both sides. Why? the far left (social justice warriors, etc.) and the far-right (alt-right white nationalists, etc.) have much in common in terms of their illiberalism and authoritarian attitudes. Therefore someone such as myself, being near the center of the political spectrum, would be looked at with suspicion by both groups--because I see them for what they BOTH are.
I discuss this in some detail in the latest essay featured on my blog: "Political Extremists vs. The Middle Path: Why I Remain a Radical Moderate": https://www.tuneintoleadership.com/blog/political-extremes-vs-the-middle-path-why-i-remain-a-radical-moderate
And as regards your subjective experience and observations of racism "over your long life," I won't argue with how you frame it, as it's your experience. But from my experience, not only as a Black American male close to 60 years old, but as someone who has deeply studied history and culture, I'll say that your framing seems skewed toward your outer observations of intra-group dynamics.
In other words, among Black Americans as an ethnic group, there has been for a long time discussions of internalized bias based on skin color. In New Orleans in the 19th century, for instance, there was the infamous "brown paper bag" tests. If you were darker than the brown paper bag, you couldn't be a part of certain social groups. Intra-group discrimination based on internalized norms of whiteness--or proximity to the same--isn't a surprise once we understand the connection between social status and economic power and privilege.
And inter-group tension and social status talk among native Black Americans and West Indians has a long history. I see that for what it is, and will not buy into such inter-group narrative warfare, though I will, as in this piece, defend my ethnic kin from being targeted and used by others to make their political points to our detriment.
I'm glad that you mentioned the inter-ethnic dynamics among folks originally from Europe. It's the same kind of thing that you observed, but were surprised at, as you say you weren't aware of such dynamics among folks racialized as black.
But if it's actually true that the most blatant racism that you've observed has been among the black community, then I must say that I wonder where you're looking and whether your political position is coloring, so to speak, your perceptions. If you need some verification of existing racist attitudes among some Americans racialized as white, I urge you to check out "Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Are," by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. He found that there are an alarming number of annual searches under the expression "nigger jokes."
So the way that some people--about 7 million searches annually--deal with culture clashes and differences is by actively searching for "nigger jokes." That's not implicit bias; that's explicit racism.
Re: Political party carve outs…the Republican Party clearly has political factions within itself. But from a policy viewpoint, it views the electorate as one and tried to avoid racial ‘favorites’ & factions: ‘hyphenation’ is not its thing, as we are all ‘Americans’, the characteristics that unites us all.
The Republican Party views the electorate as one?? When? During primaries? During national elections when they appeal to their base and other supporters.
YOU may view the electorate as one--which is a beautiful, admirable stance--but the Republican Party? Unfortunately, certain political factions within the Republican Party plays on resentment and fear against certain "others" who they don't see as part of their voter base. Party politics, on both sides, play off or fear, anxiety, and resentments for political gain. Which is one reason party politics disgust me, and has me focus more on cultural intelligence and cultural growth in the United States. This is part of my work as a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Cultural Evolution.
Name one piece of legislation or policy where the Republican party has created a carve out for a particular ethnic group.
An interesting piece.
One of the more interesting things to come out of last year's UK Commission on Race and Equality was the comparison between the UK's racial attainment gap in education and the US's. The US's is 8 times wider than the UK's (-0.89 v -0.1). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-report-of-the-commission-on-race-and-ethnic-disparities/education-and-training
In the UK, the report confirmed that the groups with the lowest attainment are both white --Irish Travellers and white boys from a disadvantaged background.
One part Sowell in his essay on Black Rednecks got wrong was his assertion that the English/Scottish borders culture had somehow vanished in the border region of England/Scotland (or indeed Northern Ireland), it hasn't and the low education attainment etc is indeed cause for concern for the UK government.
The Department of Education in England (this is a devolved matter) has had some recent success in improving overall literacy and numeracy levels through the use of phonetics and math hubs. The over all basic literacy rate of the UK is 99% but functional illiteracy continues to limit life chances. The UK does have severe problems with social deprivation.
To contrast the basic literacy rate of California is 77% (on par with Rwanda 73 and significantly below Barbados at 88% -- As an aside Rwanda's basic literacy rate is on the increase and California's is sliding). New Hampshire which is the top state for basic literacy stands 94%. Basic literacy and numeracy enables people (and societies) to progress. Rather than being on par with other Western countries such as Norway (100%) or Canada 99%, the US basic literacy rate appears to be decreasing.
One does not need to know the precise cause to know that there is a systematic incompetence of state funded education in the US. And the big question is why is the US so profligate with democracy's most precious resource namely its home grown human capital?
As Ellen Wilkinson, the UK politician who overhauled the UK's education system in the 1940's, a sound education affects several generations and the converse is also true.
The US Supreme Court decision of Hirabayashi v United States namely "Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality. " should hold true for basic literacy and numeracy. There should be no reason why the various state education departments should not be able to get the basic literacy rate of 15 year olds to 99% regardless of their skin tone. Other countries do.
Thank you, Michelle. Yes, yes: basic literacy should be a primary focus. I also think that helping young people learn emotional management and regulation is key. Some call this "soft skills"; I prefer Seth Godin's term: real skills to enhance civil dialogue and interpersonal relationships.
I also appreciate you making comparisons beyond simplistic racial categorization, focusing instead on where the U.S. overall is falling down in basic education. That's why on my recent appearance on The Glenn Show (with FAIR advisory board member, Glenn Loury), I mentioned that, one, among OECD nations, the United States is 28th out of 38 nations with regards to STEM education, and, two, that according to a U.S. News & World Report study, the U.S. is 26th in terms of Quality of Life.
Being the wealthiest nation in the world won't mean much if the overall quality of life is down the tubes.
We agree, Michelle: it's time for us to start getting our priorities straight.
Yes, good. It is long past the time the US public started to get its head around the failure in basic domestic education for all its citizens problem, instead of being distracted by St Ives type considerations which are the simplistic racial categories (I assume you know the old nursery rhyme which goes when I was going to St Ives, I met a man with seven wives, and every wife had seven sacks, and every sack had seven cats and every cat seven kits -- kits, cats, sacks and wives, how many were going to St Ives? The answer is of course 1 -- the speaker). If you have 100 students, and 25 do not have basic skills. It doesn't matter how you parse their make up or ancestry, at the end you still have 25 who remain in need of a basic education. It goes down to whether or not you want a gold , silver and sewage for the rest education system or one which enables all citizens to become active contributors to society's overall quality of life.
Immigration and the immigrant's drive to succeed to a certain extent has allowed the US to be distracted from the decades long domestic failure in providing adequate public education to its native citizens, but ultimately how long US society can rely on draining brains from other countries is an open question.
It is also about improving occupational mobility -- providing the skills which will enable citizens to move to jobs which provide a better lifestyle -- this is a slightly different emphasis than social mobility. I think this is what you are getting it as well. Occupational mobility allows for people to improve their quality of life.
One only has to look at ancient Rome and the slide into the so-called Dark Ages to see what happened when the skill sets of the native population started to decrease significantly.
I did enjoy the readout of your conversation with Lloury -- WEIRD is a great acronym. As an aside, you were the second intellectual to talk about so-called French Theory I have read this week. History Reclaimed had a good article about deconstructing French theory. https://historyreclaimed.co.uk/deconstructing-french-theory/ in case you have not seen it. History Reclaimed is a Robert Tombs/ David Abulafia project (both Cambridge professors) and an interesting resource.
Exactly. One of my biggest issues with the “woke” ideology is that it lends itself to a zero sum mentality. These are our children and the future of our country; if some are not able to fulfill their potential due to economic disadvantages and/or the circumstances of their birth, this should concern all of us. Likewise, the tools, skills and support children needed to break the cycle of generational poverty are going to look very similar, whether we are talking about children in inner city neighborhoods or children in rural Appalachia.
Re: American literacy decreasing: There are lots of stats about inner city school failures to educate, hence the rise of the charter school movement to get around dismally performing unionized schools. Also, the USA has seen millions of migrants come into the country in the past several decades. Mostly recently, it has been noted that many coming from Mexico & Central America are illiterate- which could have the effect of pulling down the USA’s literacy rate.
The answer is not necessarily more funding either as you suggest. New York City pays a record rate of $28k per student per year and I have read of similar stats in Boston and elsewhere. And their outcomes are abysmal! In recent years, only 25% of inner city students have passed state exams. It’s not the funding. There is something more profound going on - Union strangle hold of education which creates inflexibilty, tamping down innovations, dysfunctional family structures etc. It comes to a point when the state can no longer expect taxpayers to pay increasingly larger amounts with nothing to show for it.
The literacy rate apparently takes into account immigration levels. The UK in recent years has also seen huge rates of immigration from least developed nations and has still maintained at 99% rate. Norway has also had significant immigration and maintains 100%.
I do agree about the money not being well spent. The average spend per pupil in the UK is less than the US and yet the UK is considerably higher up the league table.
The UK also suffers from areas of extreme social deprivation and family dysfunction. They have put a lot into the inner cities education but know there is a significant way to go. But the fact remains a solid education is the best way to increase social mobility and ensure society progresses.
Interestingly, the Times of London had an anecdotal article about Ukrainian refugee children in France and Italy being a year ahead in maths earlier this week. According to the OCED, Ukraine is supposed to be behind, but the children are outperforming in the class room. In Ukraine apparently they used 1940s style textbooks and the discipline (including silence in the classroom) is much stricter. Apparently their language skills are great as most speak Ukraine and Russian and are therefore able to rapidly pick up French or Italian.
I do agree that there is profound systematic incompetence in the US state education system which has serious implications for US society going forward. It is in many ways why I think parents are fighting back against school boards etc in the US as the basic compact of state education has been broken by the various state education administrations. If parents felt their children were being educated in the basics, they would be more willing to overlook some of the societal engineering which French Theorists are attempting. As it is the so-called French Theory (crt, queer theory, decolonization of history etc) serves a distraction from the real problem which is the failure to educate American children properly.
re: your conclusion - 'couldn't agree more. Any given child has to get the basics down first (reading-writing-arithmetic)...the focus on extraneous and even questionable material is a damaging sideshow. Parents & taxpayers have the right to demand better. You could say it's 'American Decadence & Wealth' that has contributed to the superfluousness of today's current curriculums. Countries not as wealthy as the USA, like the Ukraine, Russia - can't afford all the foolishness; They have to get it right the first time - no remedial learning, no community 'remedial' colleges. They don't have the money to do 'do-overs'. We are an indulged society. Just think, American companies & universities now employ thousands and thousands of 'diversity counselors' just to 'monitor the halls' - we have laws on the books that do the same thing - whereas this human capital, these diversity counselors could be far more productive in actually producing something useful. 'Diversity Culture' is now an industry employing literally an army of Sociology and Ethnic Studies majors. But these jobs, don't produce anything - nothing - they are nothing but another' American indulgence'. As a nation, we will fall from our own rot, a rot from within, from the bad use of human resources and funds. And if we don't start getting serious about educating our youth and demanding more from the work place, yes, we are doomed to be a second rate nation. We are on our way.
This is an incisive and thought-provoking piece. I would love to share it with the other psychologists in a professional listserv I'm on, but I'm too afraid of potential backlash, despite the very cogent, rational arguments of the article. Irrational emotionalism is still too high among my (race based) social justice-driven colleagues at this moment.
YES. This is true in my field (very broadly*, anti-poverty) as well. The race-essentialism and righteous emotionalism about it all has inhibited the ability to have rational (oh wait, rationalism is just a manifestation of "white dominant culture"...) conversations about what actually works to improve outcomes for racial groups where there are disparities.
*I'm so worried about getting "cancelled" in my field for even publicly expressing doubt about the effectiveness of the dominant "equity" narrative that I can't be more specific about what my field is... That's what this has come to.
Yep, I responded to a Youtube FAIR video by a psychologist and professor of psychology about the increasing fragility with which we treat clients (e.g., the university where she taught told faculty to teach students not to use the word "maladaptive" in their clinical documentation and instead to describe "helpful vs unhelpful" behaviors, etc, because of the stigmatizing nature of "maladaptive," ahem ahem the term "euphemism treadmill" coined by Stephen Pinker). In any case, I went through the convoluted process of creating a new Youtube account under an alias b/c I dared not use my real name when I commented that I agreed with the psychologist for fear that colleagues would accuse me of upholding white supremacist ideology, etc.
Racialized discourse is inevitably superficial, dominated by and addressed to people who have little experience with the communities. “What do you think is good about Black American culture?” might be a question that stumps most white conservatives. But I suspect it would also stump most white liberals.
Thank you Greg. I ponder these issues a lot and this article helps me better frame some of my thoughts and analysis. To me, this comes down to attitude in the first instance. I am not a scientist . I tend to view attitude more about nurture than nature , and thus environmental, social and community factors are , in my opinion, critical as a child develops. I tend to believe that good ( or bad) attitude that has been instilled in a child is a powerful life force that often ( though not always) is hard to reverse given the environment etc. Finally, education can be the great equalizer because it can and has affected ( positively) attitude in countless children. Sowell et al should be read by all. Unfortunately , because their facts and conclusions do not fit the preferred narrative they are instead either ignored or worse denigrated ( especially and shamefully by many white progressives who have never even read any of Professor Sowell's many many books and articles). Thanks again.
And thank you, Michael. Sowell's work is definitely crucial. I do find, however, that he's so anti-left in his work as a public intellectual that he rarely if ever puts a critical eye on his side of the political spectrum.
No question that education is a huge part of the problem and is the arena for potential solutions. Excellent charter schools should be fully supported--period. A moribund public education system should have competition and alternatives. Economist Roland Fryer's suggested reforms for public schools are essential in this regard.
Great piece with a number of useful insights that could help us have better conversations on this topic (and others). I have a thought on why we don’t see/hear much comparison between immigrant whites and native-born ones, and why this may not be purely based on a double-standard. People often compare black Americans to immigrant blacks in response to those who say blacks in this country are oppressed and unable to achieve as much as other racial groups as a result of this oppression. This leads some to suggest that black immigrants have achieved a certain level of success that seems to run counter to that narrative. I’m not here to make that argument as I think all of it is much more complex. But I do understand why the argument is made in that context. On the other hand, you rarely hear someone claim that whites can’t get ahead in this country. So people rarely have a reason to compare white immigrants to native born whites as a way of rebutting that claim. Ultimately, I think people are mostly well intentioned when they try to make their points on this subject. Our country’s history of racism, specifically racism against black people, makes this topic filled with emotion—guilt, anger, sadness, confusion, frustration—and we desperately want answers to make those emotions hold less power over us. I imagine it won’t be quite so easy. But I agree with your overall perspective that changing our framing of these discussions is an important part of the solution. I hope we get there sooner than later.