Posted on 03/25/2006 7:42:00 PM PST by mathprof
SEVERAL recent studies have garnered wide attention for reconfirming the tragic disconnection of millions of black youths from the American mainstream. But they also highlighted another crisis: the failure of social scientists to adequately explain the problem, and their inability to come up with any effective strategy to deal with it.[snip]
Nor have studies explained why, if someone cannot get a job, he turns to crime and drug abuse. One does not imply the other. Joblessness is rampant in Latin America and India, but the mass of the populations does not turn to crime.
And why do so many young unemployed black men have children — several of them — which they have no resources or intention to support? And why, finally, do they murder each other at nine times the rate of white youths?
What's most interesting about the recent spate of studies is that analysts seem at last to be recognizing what has long been obvious to anyone who takes culture seriously: socioeconomic factors are of limited explanatory power.[snip]
What has happened, I think, is that the economic boom years of the 90's and one of the most successful policy initiatives in memory — welfare reform — have made it impossible to ignore the effects of culture. The Clinton administration achieved exactly what policy analysts had long said would pull black men out of their torpor: the economy grew at a rapid pace, providing millions of new jobs at all levels. Yet the jobless black youths simply did not turn up to take them. Instead, the opportunity was seized in large part by immigrants — including many blacks — mainly from Latin America and the Caribbean.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Surprising, considering his day job:
"Orlando Patterson, a professor of sociology at Harvard.....
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
For these young men, it was almost like a drug, hanging out on the street after school, shopping and dressing sharply, sexual conquests, party drugs, hip-hop music and culture, the fact that almost all the superstar athletes and a great many of the nation's best entertainers were black.
Not only was living this subculture immensely fulfilling, the boys said, it also brought them a great deal of respect from white youths. This also explains the otherwise puzzling finding by social psychologists that young black men and women tend to have the highest levels of self-esteem of all ethnic groups, and that their self-image is independent of how badly they were doing in school.
It is not just urban either. Living in a state that doesn't have urban areas I have seen the ghetto culture overtaking the rural poor. The same woes of illiteracy, joblessness, sexual irresponsibility and crime have followed.
Trailer parks are the new ghettos.
Patterson is black, but he is from Jamaica, and he received a rigorous education in the late 50's and early 60's before the universites went nuts. He observed firsthand the differential success of West Indian blacks and American-born blacks in America, which "racism" fails to explain.
The Democrat party, the universities and education industry, Hollywood, the music industry, etc.
Which are built on one's personal belief system, and not society's laws.
You would be suprised at the animosity and resentment between Jamaican immigrants, who are fairly industrious, and American Blacks. A few years ago, I treated a Jamaican who was attacked by American Blacks who resented his prosperity. He wasn't robbed.
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