Why isn't anyone talking about this?: NAACP Colorado office bombed

[jab step]

Boys lying just to prove points now?

I wouldn't call it lies. He's right that most of the Asian students are first generation in these high schools. I just wouldn't say they were all poor. A lot of them had strong familial units where the parents came to the country and definitely established something to make their kids lives as comfortable as possible since a lot of them didn't grow up comfortably back in their homes. I would say on average they were middle class. 

He for sure may have been poor and broke away from a lot of things hindering him, but I'm sure he had parents with strong values who instilled education into him and would do anything for him when it came to education/putting him on top. 

If I'm wrong correct me. 

Also the Flushing I know today is a nice middle class area. Some parts of it are upper class. I don't know how long ago you graduated, but it is a nice spot overall and has been like that for quite some time. 

Compare flushing to some of the rougher spots in the city where minorities live and you'll see the stark differences. 

Oh and this is anecdotal, but I knew a lot of kids who would bs those forms for free lunch with lower salaries just so they could get free lunch 

. The numbers are definitely skewed and I wonder if they ask for proof now. Kids were living in upper class neighborhoods getting free lunch because who really wanted to pay 1.50 (or was it 2 dollars I forget) for THOSE lunches 

 

 

[Methodical Management]

Ignoring 90% of my post, responding with a "personal" distorted view of my ideas.

NT discussions 101

I'm not contradicting myself, you're "trying" to contradict my statements. There's kind of a difference between the two.
I highly doubt any of my statements are being misinterpreted, since It's not discussing theory, as a higher-level Dynamics course would.

It's pretty straight forward.

You judge people like Trayvon Martin in a way that you do not judge Jay Z. 

If Trayvon Martin "deserved it", i.e. death, then so did Jay Z.  Yet you love Jay Z... why?  Because he sells records.... even though you don't agree with the content of his songs?   You don't like the content of the songs, but you respect the success and the work ethic?  Then why not idolize a successful drug dealer, if only the success and work ethic matters?  

You seem to think I'm deliberately distorting your position, but your position itself is nothing but a shifting distortion.

I challenge anyone reading this thread to make sense of your mercurial position on Jay Z.  I don't even think your fellow members of the mutual reputation society can unravel it.  

First off, nowhere did I make any conclusory statements about black people such as "them bringing it upon themselves because they don't work hard". Secondly, I thought my question as to the racial disparity in NYC specialized highschools was pretty straightforward.  You claim that there's a false equivalence between poor Asians and poor Blacks, who live in the same neighborhood and go to the same schools.  Which is why I asked for YOUR personal opinion as to the disparity in educational "success" if you will.  

While I can't seem to find a readily available copy of the book online to read, I found the following New York Times article written by a sociology professor at Harvard about the book.

http://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/12/books/america-the-various.html

From the article:

More than a third of the book is devoted to a critique of assorted ethnic myths: the Horatio Alger theory of Jewish success, the cultural explanation of Jewish intellectualism and Catholic antiintellectualism, the cultural basis of black poverty and the ethnic explanation of the willingness of the Irish, and the refusal of Jews and Italians, to work as domestics. Some of these issues might seem to be trivial, others dated, but the recency of Mr. Steinberg's citations suggests that many persons still find them troublesome. Rejecting the traditional view that variations in occupational choices and educational performance can be explained by more or less ''superior'' attitudes, values and traditions, Mr. Steinberg proffers instead the premigratory economic experiences of the migrants and the timing of their arrival. The Jews, for example, forged ahead of other immigrants because they came from the urban sectors of Europe and had skills that were highly appropriate to the industrial needs of America at the time of their arrival.

In a lucid synthesis of the literature on the black experience, Mr. Steinberg shows how Northern capitalists, Southern planters and the immigrant working class had mutually reinforcing interests in the containment of blacks as a peon class in the post-emancipation terror of the rural South. Modern rivalry between blacks and the white working class goes back to the earliest contacts between both groups; ethnicity was not the cause but the idiom for the expression ofnaked economic competition. ''The fact of class difference,'' he claims, ''is far more important than the fact of ethnic difference, and ...ethnic conflict is often only a surface manifestation of a deeper conflict of an essentially social class character.''

Yet Mr. Steinberg frequently overstates this argument. Economic factors no doubt explain a good part of Jewish success, but they cannot explain all of it. The author's own argument would suggest that groups with superior economic opportunities should have performed proportionately better in education than Jews. They have not. Something in Jewish life encourages unusual educational performance, and if one rejects genetic explanations it must be partly cultural. For blacks as well, class factors were and still are critical, but culture is also important. In the black underclass there is a massive institutional breakdown, especially in the family. It flies in the face of the facts and, ironically, reinforces headin-the-sand chauvinism to deny this tragic state of affairs, and it is recklessly glib to condemn those who express concern and alarm at the consequences of this social havoc as ''blamers of the victim.'' What Mr. Steinberg, in his extreme materialism, fails to understand is that structural and cultural explanations are not mutually exclusive. Nor does a ''class analysis'' require that culture always be viewed as causally secondary - only that it is ultimately so. Even Engels in his dotage realized this.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

While I still intend to read the book, it is merely one person's social theory which shouldn't be accepted as fact, nor should it be used as a general application to all races or ethnicities such as black, jewish, irish, etc., particularly since things today aren't exactly the same as they were in 2001, when the book was written. I understand there's been a long history of systemic oppression of blacks, from the work force, to education, and even basic civil and social equality.  I also understand that while race relations may have improved somewhat over the years, racism still does exist today, as does the residual effects of past oppression.  That being said, what are your thoughts on how to change that?  

You're really flailing to bait me into an argument in a venue where doing so is both offensive and inappropriate.  Stop.  If you want to have a private conversation about it, fine.  Read the book.  

Until then, I'm not going to engage with you.  You're criticizing something you haven't even read by proxy using a hastily run Google search.  That sort of tactic ought to be beneath anyone who values education.  

The critique you managed to conjure up does nothing to "prove" some sort of "cultural superiority."  Frankly, it's an offensive proposition.  Jewish immigrants from Russia fared differently than Jewish immigrants from Germany.  Jewish immigrants prior to the the quota era fared worse than Jewish immigrants during and after it.  To suggest that they all share some sort of "super culture" is ridiculous.  

Asian immigrants come from a wide, wide variety of different places.  It's equally offensive to pretend that there's some sort of 'pan-Asian' super-culture.  

If we were to talk about "culture," then to what are we attributing the cultural variance?  Ethnicity?  Nationality?  Neither can be used interchangeably with "race."  

The lack of specificity creates issues with many data sets, because you can't re-code to see how, say, Hmong immigrants perform - let alone Laotian immigrants broadly.  

The book I recommended at least attempts what your brief review does not - and wielding a cherry-picked twelve sentence critique is a GREAT demonstration of why it's counterproductive to try and have this discussion in shorthand.  

You will not find any universally accepted uni-causal explanations for social phenomena.  If an entirely Marxist, class base analysis is reductive and inadequate, and it is, then what of its "cultural" equivalent?  My point is that the very same means you're using to isolate culture as "the" distinguishing factor can be used to ELIMINATE culture - just by shifting the comparison to cover multiple generations of the same population.  

 

[fontaine]

Dudes were doing this on another board...
"Well Asians are doing so well! And they're poor!"

Its like a race to see how much farther down they can ridicule black Americans on some juxtaposition steez.

Like, come on, man... Do we go to cancer rallies and say "heart attacks are worse!"

Thread about bombing = let's play "Asians are doing good so black people suck" game.

 

[jab step]

Dudes were doing this on another board...
"Well Asians are doing so well! And they're poor!"

Its like a race to see how much farther down they can ridicule black Americans on some juxtaposition steez.

Like, come on, man... Do we go to cancer rallies and say "heart attacks are worse!"

Thread about bombing = let's play "Asians are doing good so black people suck" game.

To somewhat defend the guy, the thread digressed into something totally different so he wanted Meth's take on a related topic since Meth seems to be a knowledgeable dude and was extremely active in this thread. 

Oh and IlluminatiNYC why don't you bring up the heavy amount of Asian academies all across NYC, where Asian students are sent by there parents during the weekend to help them succeed? 

I knew so many kids in high school who were sent to these things (think Kaplan for people who don't know what I'm talking about) to help them get into the school/succeed at the school. Certain people of certain groups cant afford this privilege. Things should change so they can be afforded these privileges though. Who knows how long that will take. 

 

[mr marcus]

another one schooled by meth

 

[southernhospita]

 
Sounds like the description of almost every prejudiced white person ever 

Peep the difference between prejudice and racism

like in the movies

 

[Methodical Management]

To somewhat defend the guy, the thread digressed into something totally different so he wanted Meth's take on a related topic since Meth seems to be a knowledgeable dude and was extremely active in this thread. 

It's not like I'm unapproachable.  As many PMs as I get in a day, I try to respond to ALL of them if I can.  

Many of the people here can attest to that.  If it were just about getting my personal opinion on something, there's an easy way to do that without trying to redirect a discussion in progress.  

If the claim is that I was contributing to a tangent, I think it's clear that I was expressing frustration with the tangent and dealing with the whole "no racism because Chicago" nonsense head on.  It's evident that a frightening number of people truly believe that racism is just some sort of paranoid "excuse" and is wildly overstated.  This literal explosion testifies quite loudly to the contrary.  

 

[fontaine]

To somewhat defend the guy, the thread digressed into something totally different so he wanted Meth's take on a related topic since Meth seems to be a knowledgeable dude and was extremely active in this thread. 

Oh and IlluminatiNYC why don't you bring up the heavy amount of Asian academies all across NYC, where Asian students are sent by there parents during the weekend to help them succeed? 

I knew so many kids in high school who were sent to these things (think Kaplan for people who don't know what I'm talking about) to help them get into the school/succeed at the school. Certain people of certain groups cant afford this privilege. Things should change so they can be afforded these privileges though. Who knows how long that will take. 

the thing is, that's been his and a couple other guys' go to around here.

I-nyc seems like a smart dude... But he let it be known that he got ridiculed by black kids as a young one...

Only problem is EVERY body got ridiculed as a young dude.

 

[heliumclinton]

Ol boy trying tell y'all the Asians that went to Bronx High School of Science and Stuyvesant are as poor as African Americans who go to the same schools

Yeah right .. what a reach

 

[jab step]

Ol boy trying tell y'all the Asians that went to Bronx High School of Science and Stuyvesant are as poor as African Americans who go to the same schools

Yeah right .. what a reach

 In general I would say the kids at these schools are middle class. Definitely some upper class kids, definitely some lower class kids, overall majority of kids had stability. 

The free lunch thing will be pointed to by showing that 50% of the kids get free lunch, but trust me when I say this I know so many, and I mean so many kids who were living out in nice houses in Queens in suburban neighborhoods who were eligible for those free lunches. A lot of kids just made up numbers on those forms to get free lunch. It is really tough to spend $2 on some wack food

. Not sure if they do any sort of verification now, but when I was going there which was not too long ago (4-5 years ago) you just had to put your parents salary on a form and that's it. No checking, no proof, nothing. 

 

[mr marcus]

We get that but dude made it seem like these kids were dirt poor. I'm not familiar with the school so I fell for the lie. Just glad you set it straight and now the troll is nowhere to be seen.

 

[illuminatinyc]

You're really flailing to bait me into an argument in a venue where doing so is both offensive and inappropriate.  Stop.  If you want to have a private conversation about it, fine.  Read the book.  

Until then, I'm not going to engage with you.  You're criticizing something you haven't even read by proxy using a hastily run Google search.  That sort of tactic ought to be beneath anyone who values education.  

The critique you managed to conjure up does nothing to "prove" some sort of "cultural superiority."  Frankly, it's an offensive proposition.  Jewish immigrants from Russia fared differently than Jewish immigrants from Germany.  Jewish immigrants prior to the the quota era fared worse than Jewish immigrants during and after it.  To suggest that they all share some sort of "super culture" is ridiculous.  

Asian immigrants come from a wide, wide variety of different places.  It's equally offensive to pretend that there's some sort of 'pan-Asian' super-culture.  

If we were to talk about "culture," then to what are we attributing the cultural variance?  Ethnicity?  Nationality?  Neither can be used interchangeably with "race."  

The lack of specificity creates issues with many data sets, because you can't re-code to see how, say, Hmong immigrants perform - let alone Laotian immigrants broadly.  

The book I recommended at least attempts what your brief review does not - and wielding a cherry-picked twelve sentence critique is a GREAT demonstration of why it's counterproductive to try and have this discussion in shorthand.  

You will not find any universally accepted uni-causal explanations for social phenomena.  If an entirely Marxist, class base analysis is reductive and inadequate, and it is, then what of its "cultural" equivalent?  My point is that the very same means you're using to isolate culture as "the" distinguishing factor can be used to ELIMINATE culture - just by shifting the comparison to cover multiple generations of the same population.  

Offensive?? You came off like you were well educated on the topic of education which is why I asked you straightforward questions to get YOUR OPINION, not the opinion of some guy who wrote a book, or to try and engage you in some type of argument.  While completely avoiding the questions I asked, you bring up this whole idea of cultural superiority, which is apparently discussed in this book, when I made no such suggestion whatsoever.  Pan-asian super culture? Really?

Is this how you would engage someone in conversation in person?  Rather than answer a question and have a discussion with the person, do you tell the person to go read a book instead?  For someone that claims to have had extensive discussions about the topic, and despite the verbose responses you've posted thus far, I find it amazing that you can't offer YOUR OPINION, which is all I asked for.

Dudes were doing this on another board...
"Well Asians are doing so well! And they're poor!"

Its like a race to see how much farther down they can ridicule black Americans on some juxtaposition steez.

Like, come on, man... Do we go to cancer rallies and say "heart attacks are worse!"

Thread about bombing = let's play "Asians are doing good so black people suck" game.

Not ONCE did I say or even suggest that Asians were better than Blacks.  Rather than simply label everyone that offers a differing opinion a SWS, racist, or whatever, if you actually read my prior posts, in this thread and the others, the point I tried to make was that despite whatever adversities or obstacles one may face in life, they're not insurmountable.  Did I say that would be easy? Of course not.  But some posters here are so adamant in the idea that racism is as bad today as it was years ago, to the extent that its virtually impossible for a black person to succeed, which is complete BS.

the thing is, that's been his and a couple other guys' go to around here.

I-nyc seems like a smart dude... But he let it be known that he got ridiculed by black kids as a young one...

Only problem is EVERY body got ridiculed as a young dude.

I didn't get ridiculed or bullied by black kids when I was young.  I said I felt more racism from blacks than any other racial or ethnic group. That didn't cause me to generalize about all blacks though.  As cliche as this may sound, one of my closest friends growing up was black.  His mom had him when she was only 18, and he came from a poor family like I did.  His grandparents, who were actually involved in the civil rights movement, lived with them.  We went to the same school and went over each other's houses.  By all accounts, I would say he had a stable home and his parents emphasized education.  He's now married with 3 beautiful children and doing well for himself down in Florida.    If I'm in any way biased, it's against people who refuse to make something of themselves, and instead use whatever adversities they face as an excuse to not bother even trying.  That has absolutely nothing to do with race.

 

[Based Jesus]

We get that but dude made it seem like these kids were dirt poor. I'm not familiar with the school so I fell for the lie. Just glad you set it straight and now the troll is nowhere to be seen.

Yeah dirt poor kids of any ethnicity are not the norm in these schools.

 

[illuminatinyc]

We get that but dude made it seem like these kids were dirt poor. I'm not familiar with the school so I fell for the lie. Just glad you set it straight and now the troll is nowhere to be seen.

You're so quick to call me a liar despite the fact I posted up articles to support MY personal experiences in the NYC school system.  But I guess because Jab Step's experience or observations were different, I must be lying.  gotcha!

 

[mr marcus]

We get that but dude made it seem like these kids were dirt poor. I'm not familiar with the school so I fell for the lie. Just glad you set it straight and now the troll is nowhere to be seen.

Yeah dirt poor kids of any ethnicity are not the norm in these schools.

Word? Had no idea

 

[illuminatinyc]

In 2004, 7-year-old Ting Shi arrived in New York from China, speaking almost no English. For two years, he shared a bedroom in a Chinatown apartment with his grandparents — a cook and a factory worker — and a young cousin, while his parents put in 12-hour days at a small laundromat they had purchased on the Upper East Side.

Ting mastered English and eventually set his sights on getting into Stuyvesant High School, the crown jewel of New York City’s eight “specialized high schools.”

When he was in sixth grade, he took the subway downtown from his parents’ small apartment to the bustling high school to pick up prep books for its eighth-grade entrance exam. He prepared for the test over the next two years, working through the prep books and taking classes at one of the city’s free tutoring programs. His acceptance into Stuyvesant prompted a day of celebration at the laundromat — an immigrant family’s dream beginning to come true.

Ting, now a 17-year-old senior starting at NYU in the fall, says of his parents, who never went to college: “They came here for the next generation.”

new Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose son, Dante, attends Brooklyn Tech, has called for changing the admissions criteria. The mayor argues that relying solely on the test creates a “rich-get-richer” dynamic that benefits the wealthy, who can afford expensive test preparation.

As Ting’s story illustrates, however, the reality is just the opposite. It’s not affluent whites, but rather the city’s burgeoning population of Asian-American immigrants — a group that, despite its successes, remains disproportionately poor and working-class — whose children have aced the exam in overwhelming numbers.

Asians in New York are overwhelmingly first- and second-generation; some three-quarters of the students at Stuyvesant are immigrants or the children of immigrants.

They’re hardly affluent, notwithstanding de Blasio’s implication that families who get their kids into the specialized schools are “rich.”

True, Asians nationally have the highest median income of any racial group, including whites — and in New York City, their median household income ranks second to that of whites and well ahead of blacks and Hispanics.

But Asians also have the highest poverty rate of any racial group in New York, with 29 percent living below the poverty level, compared with 26 percent of Hispanics, 23 percent of blacks and 14 percent of whites. Poor Asians lag far behind whites and are barely ahead of blacks and Latinos. Thus, the income spectrum among Asians in New York ranges from a surprisingly large number in poverty, through a hardworking lower middle class, and on to a more affluent upper middle class.

Half the students at the specialized high schools qualify for free or subsidized school lunches, including 47 percent at Stuyvesant and 48 percent at Bronx Science — figures that have increased correspondingly with Asians’ rising numbers at these schools. Based upon these figures, Stuyvesant and Bronx Science (as well as four of the other six specialized schools) are eligible for federal Title I funding, given to schools with large numbers of low-income students.

Think about that: Two public high schools that, along with half their students, are officially classified as poor by the federal government rival the most exclusive prep schools in the world.

The poor students get into such schools through hard work and sacrifice — both their own and that of their parents. The students typically attend local tutoring programs, which proliferate in Asian neighborhoods, starting the summer after sixth grade and for several days a week, including weekends, during the school year prior to the test. The costs are burdensome for poor and working families, but it’s a matter of priorities.

http://nypost.com/2014/07/19/why-nycs-push-to-change-school-admissions-will-punish-poor-asians/

Yup..keep calling me a liar.

 

[heliumclinton]

One person that already states he went to extra tutoring and other stuff with other Asian kids. Although it made their pockets tight they were still able to pay for it, in other people's cases they don't even have pockets to make tight

How many African American parents own businesses on the Upper West Side?

I don't even get the point you're trying to make

 

[mr marcus]

Using free lunch as a "poor" indicator is a reach...knew plenty of kids living decent getting free lunch. That's the easiest trick in the book. Article seems like your typical conservative ********

 

[Master Zik]

Meth told you why he wasn't going to derail the thread. Gave you a book to check out though. Your response is to get mad about it ignoring what he's told you. Faux outrage at that.

Clown status achieved.

Similar to LionBlood you steady try hijacking threads to make it about yourself or some completely unrelated topic in another thread. Go make ya own thread bruh.

 

[Methodical Management]

Nobody is perfect, he grew up in the projects.

So did Mike Brown. You seem to think he deserved whatever he had coming to him. 

Eric Garner's crime was selling cigarettes.  Jay Z admittedly stabbed another man and is quite open about dealing drugs. 

If Mike Brown "made it" would you celebrate his success?  We'll never know.  If Jay Z had been shot dead for "looking threatening" long before he became famous you wouldn't celebrate his life - and, if your recent behavior offers any indication, you'd probably have mocked his death.  

Had you said "nobody is perfect, he grew up in the projects" after the Mike Brown shooting, this would be a different story.  You didn't.  Ask yourself why. 

Offensive?? You came off like you were well educated on the topic of education which is why I asked you straightforward questions to get YOUR OPINION, not the opinion of some guy who wrote a book, or to try and engage you in some type of argument.  While completely avoiding the questions I asked, you bring up this whole idea of cultural superiority, which is apparently discussed in this book, when I made no such suggestion whatsoever.  Pan-asian super culture? Really?

It is offensive because this is a thread about the bombing of an NAACP office and you're clearly trying to get across this idea that the Mayor of New York has no business forcing Black students into great schools when they don't work as hard as Asian students.  It's offensive.  

Were this a different thread, I'd go into greater depth with you.  Were this a PRIVATE MESSAGE, I'd go into greater depth with you.  I'm not interested in diverting this thread further to indulge your hobby horse.  

The "culture" argument is an offensive argument, because it boils down to "Black people don't value education, that's why they don't ____________."  The opposite, "model minority values education, that's why they're so AWESOME" is in some ways equally offensive - and I've already talked quite a bit about why that is.  

It is offensive to suggest that a diverse population all shares the same cultural values, and then, to go even further, to suggest that these values - and nothing else - account for, say, better standardized test scores.  And again, you can't say "Asian students" and then "culture" without implying that there's a COMMON culture there - and that is offensive.  It's like treating Africa as a country with a singular culture.  

In truth, we're talking about DIFFERENT groups, different outcomes, and different cultures - so what are the actual commonalities there?  Again, the book gets into some of that in greater depth than I'd care to delve into in a topic about the NAACP bombing.  

Listen, the bottom line here is that ALL children deserve the best quality of education that we as a society can afford.  I believe in that, and that's why, among other things, I've written such substantive checks over the years to build schools and libraries in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kenya, and Bangladesh, support scholarships via the UNCF and American Indian College Fund, as well as Harlem Children's Zone and Maya Angelou Schools.  It's something I'm passionate about enough to work and sacrifice for. 

I really dislike the very proposition that we have "good schools" that are like Noah's ark, designed to deliver selected "worthy" children from poverty, and that we must then bicker among each other about who's "worthy" of that.  All children are.  ALL. 

Cultural explanations of poverty begin with narcissism.  "I made it, I'm better.  You didn't, therefore you don't deserve it.... I did... because I'm better."  We don't apply that type of social Darwinism to the playground.  "You're bullied because you're weak.  If weren't weak, the other children wouldn't pick on you.  They're just better suited to survive in the world than you are, sweetheart.  Maybe you should think about working harder at being less terrible or something."  

There's a reason why such arguments almost always seems to be formulated in subjective, anecdotal ways.  "I had two parents and...." "MY mother always...."  "But those OTHER kids mothers...."  That's not social science.  It's gossip.  

 

[delete1234]

Wow meth is ethering this dude

Dudes Jay z fans but hate black ppl

 

[KingParappa]

 If I'm in any way biased, it's against people who refuse to make something of themselves, and instead use whatever adversities they face as an excuse to not bother even trying.  That has absolutely nothing to do with race.

The funny thing is, how can you do this? How you look at a someone and go "You just didn't work hard enough..." Was you with them shooting in the gym? You probably wasn't so for you to make a judgment like that about a person let alone a race is terrible.

I'm glad you're doing well for yourself but don't judge the next man if you don't know his plight.

 

[tay1]

What's the name of the book Meth dropped in here?

 

[deleted]

What's the name of the book Meth dropped in here?

The Ethnic Myth: Race, Ethnicity, and Class in America by Stephen Steinberg

 

[EddieDoyers]

It is offensive because this is a thread about the bombing of an NAACP office and you're clearly trying to get across this idea that the Mayor of New York has no business forcing Black students into great schools when they don't work as hard as Asian students.  It's offensive.  
 
Were this a different thread, I'd go into greater depth with you.  Were this a PRIVATE MESSAGE, I'd go into greater depth with you.  I'm not interested in diverting this thread further to indulge your hobby horse.  
 
 
The "culture" argument is an offensive argument, because it boils down to "Black people don't value education, that's why they don't ____________."  The opposite, "model minority values education, that's why they're so AWESOME" is in some ways equally offensive - and I've already talked quite a bit about why that is.  
 
It is offensive to suggest that a diverse population all shares the same cultural values, and then, to go even further, to suggest that these values - and nothing else - account for, say, better standardized test scores.  And again, you can't say "Asian students" and then "culture" without implying that there's a COMMON culture there - and that is offensive.  It's like treating Africa as a country with a singular culture.  
 
In truth, we're talking about DIFFERENT groups, different outcomes, and different cultures - so what are the actual commonalities there?  Again, the book gets into some of that in greater depth than I'd care to delve into in a topic about the NAACP bombing.  
 
 
Listen, the bottom line here is that ALL children deserve the best quality of education that we as a society can afford.  I believe in that, and that's why, among other things, I've written such substantive checks over the years to build schools and libraries in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kenya, and Bangladesh, support scholarships via the UNCF and American Indian College Fund, as well as Harlem Children's Zone and Maya Angelou Schools.  It's something I'm passionate about enough to work and sacrifice for. 
 
 
 
I really dislike the very proposition that we have "good schools" that are like Noah's ark, designed to deliver selected "worthy" children from poverty, and that we must then bicker among each other about who's "worthy" of that.  All children are.  ALL. 
 
Cultural explanations of poverty begin with narcissism.  "I made it, I'm better.  You didn't, therefore you don't deserve it.... I did... because I'm better."  We don't apply that type of social Darwinism to the playground.  "You're bullied because you're weak.  If weren't weak, the other children wouldn't pick on you.  They're just better suited to survive in the world than you are, sweetheart.  Maybe you should think about working harder at being less terrible or something."  
 
There's a reason why such arguments almost always seems to be formulated in subjective, anecdotal ways.  "I had two parents and...." "MY mother always...."  "But those OTHER kids mothers...."  That's not social science.  It's gossip.  

View media item 1343178No one should be disenfranchised from getting the right education