Criticism of Josh Gordon and race relations

[Archbob]

Fifty years isn't that long ago. There are plenty of African-Americans alive that are over the age of 50 with kids and grandkids.

I will now quote a bunch of posts from earlier in this thread that already address your points.

Those kids and Grandkids, however, were not exposed to "historical racism", they like the modern African immigrants only received "modern racism".

As your first quote says, they were "born in the ghetto", but so are other racial group and yet they seem to be crawling out of it. The older generation may have a legit excuse(although little more than some other immigrants who came from war-torn countries and had no chance at education and were busy running from imminent death), but the younger generation doesn't, they are no different from other immigrant kids that are dirt poor.

 

[warpus]

I don't believe its precisely discrimination keeping African Americans down, but rather a lack of opportunity in the ghetto. I mean, just the fact that they were born in a ghetto is one strike against the "old guard" African Americans. Then the lack of businesses there contributes to lack of opportunity which leads to African Americans in the ghetto joining gangs because those are the only options for money which continues the lack of businesses.

Seems to me like a community issue first and foremost.

If my family had moved to Canada and joined a community that did not support us the way it did - and encourage hard work and so on, it would have had a huge detrimental influence on what we ended up doing with our lives.

Racism still lives on, however. I do not discount that.

 

[Zack]

Those kids and Grandkids, however, were not exposed to "historical racism", they like the modern African immigrants only received "modern racism".

As your first quote says, they were "born in the ghetto", but so are other racial group and yet they seem to be crawling out of it. The older generation may have a legit excuse(although little more than some other immigrants who came from war-torn countries and had no chance at education and were busy running from imminent death), but the younger generation doesn't, they are no different from other immigrant kids that are dirt poor.

The mindset and situation of someone immigrating to the US is simply different than someone who has lived here for generations. You're also exaggerating how successful people are at climbing out of the ghetto - it's extremely difficult and not very common.

 

[Arwon]

Intergenerational mobility is actually pretty difficult in the United States.

 

[Archbob]

The mindset and situation of someone immigrating to the US is simply different than someone who has lived here for generations. You're also exaggerating how successful people are at climbing out of the ghetto - it's extremely difficult and not very common.

Then the solution is to change that mindset and not to blame everyone else and hoping things will be better just by doing what your doing right now.

 

[Zack]

Then the solution is to change that mindset and not to blame everyone else and hoping things will be better just by doing what your doing right now.

Hey Archbob, why aren't you upper class? Don't give me any of those "it's hard" or "very few people move up that far" excuses. If you just changed your mindset, you could be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Hey Archbob, why aren't you upper class? Don't give me any of those "it's hard" or "very few people move up that far" excuses. If you just changed your mindset, you could be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

I might be able to as well, but I find that living in a lower middle class neighborhood I encounter mostly likable people whereas in 'better' neighborhoods I encountered many more jerks, so the incentive to change my mindset is really lacking as far as I can tell.

 

[Archbob]

Hey Archbob, why aren't you upper class? Don't give me any of those "it's hard" or "very few people move up that far" excuses. If you just changed your mindset, you could be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

I find that living in middle or upper-middle is pretty good. I'm not really complaining about my state of things.

I guess if black people are satisfied with living in the ghettos and think its pretty good, your excuse would actually work. And if they are, they should be like me and stop complaining and be satisfied with where they are.

Also I'm not 50 years old yet, so I haven't had nearly as much time as they had.

 

[Zack]

I find that living in middle or upper-middle is pretty good. I'm not really complaining about my state of things.

I guess if black people are satisfied with living in the ghettos and think its pretty good, your excuse would actually work. And if they are, they should be like me and stop complaining and be satisfied with where they are.

Also I'm not 50 years old yet, so I haven't had nearly as much time as they had.

But if you did want it, it'd be easy right? Just "change your mindset" and poof, CEO?

 

[Archbob]

But if you did want it, it'd be easy right? Just "change your mindset" and poof, CEO?

If I had 50 years, I probably could move into the upper class. Heck, I might get there before another 5-10 are out.

 

[Hygro]

The issue is that stuff is embedded nearly as firmly into white, Asian, etc culture. We don't worship rappers and sports heroes as our role models and those are the primary role models in the Black Community.

There's this thing in economics called comparative advantage. It means that regardless of who is actually best at something, if your tradeoff between two activities is greater than the other person, it is in your rational economic interests to maximize your trade by doing the thing that costs you less so you can trade it to the other person.

Say you are growing up disadvantaged, and you have 10 units of effort you can give before you burn out and get sick, and for all 10 disciplined units of effort you can have a 5% shot at using your intelligence to write songs, and a 10% chance using your intelligence to write prescriptions and make 4 million.

You meet a kid growing up advantaged. He could be lazy and still get by, but like you, he has 10 units of effort available. But the support around him means if he goes for song writing he has a 10% shot and if he goes for prescription writing, a 65% chance of success.

The rational economic choice of the advantaged kid is to write prescriptions, and get his songs from you, the disadvantaged kid. The effort to outcome to economy calculus is such that if you're disadvantaged, the paths your community can economically support will trend towards more difficult feats of display that can be learned by the dedicated solo/less supported achiever.

It's not the black man's fault he has to tap dance better than anyone to get into hollywood.

I don't assume a black person is poor automatically. It's when/if they start that ghetto trash talk that I assume they're poor.

This is judging someone by their dialect and not the content of their character. To characterize AAVE as "ghetto trash talk" is to characterize a neutral cultural signifier as trash because it does not conform to the standard of those in power. In reinforcing a racially biased power structure, you are performing racism.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I don't assume anyone is rich automatically. It's when they start that "look at me, particularly my stuff" trash talk that I assume they are a jerk.

 

[Archbob]

Say you are growing up disadvantaged, and you have 10 units of effort you can give before you burn out and get sick, and for all 10 disciplined units of effort you can have a 5% shot at using your intelligence to write songs, and a 10% chance using your intelligence to write prescriptions and make 4 million.

You meet a kid growing up advantaged. He could be lazy and still get by, but like you, he has 10 units of effort available. But the support around him means if he goes for song writing he has a 10% shot and if he goes for prescription writing, a 65% chance of success.

The rational economic choice of the advantaged kid is to write prescriptions, and get his songs from you, the disadvantaged kid. The effort to outcome to economy calculus is such that if you're disadvantaged, the paths your community can economically support will trend towards more difficult feats of display that can be learned by the dedicated solo/less supported achiever.

It's not the black man's fault he has to tap dance better than anyone to get into hollywood.

Who cares what the advantaged kid thinks? This is about the disadvantaged kid.
A person should take the path that is most successful to him. You would still take the 10% chance opportunity over then 5% opportunity.

The 10% opportunity maybe correct but the 5% is a huge overestimate. Your chance of being a famous rapper or a sports star is probably like .01% or less.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Who cares what the advantaged kid thinks? This is about the disadvantaged kid.
A person should take the path that is most successful to him. You would still take the 10% chance opportunity over then 5% opportunity.

The 10% opportunity maybe correct but the 5% is a huge overestimate. Your chance of being a famous rapper or a sports star is probably like .01% or less.

And we have a complete failure to communicate.

Hygro explains economics like he is a grad school professor...which he might be. Let's simplify.

While the 'ten percent chance' seems better, when you stack it up against the competition it actually isn't. You have to consider not only your chances of getting good at something, but the chances that others will get better at it as well.

Let's go with a concrete example: I'm a red headed Scotsman. I decide I want to be a cook. I'm more familiar with Mexican cuisine than anything else, so to reach 'restaurant quality' in that would be easier for me than anything else. But my chances of succeeding will be greater in a different cuisine because I will never be able to compete in the 'real Mexican food' market. I should invest my efforts into reaching restaurant quality in something else.

I don't remember which US President it was who had a knack for stenography. He recognized that while he was good at it there were plenty of others who were as well. So rather than practicing as a stenographer he took the less likely path of politics, with its much lesser probability of success...because if he got good at that he had less competition for a top spot.

 

[Hygro]

Who cares what the advantaged kid thinks? This is about the disadvantaged kid.
A person should take the path that is most successful to him. You would still take the 10% chance opportunity over then 5% opportunity.

The 10% opportunity maybe correct but the 5% is a huge overestimate. Your chance of being a famous rapper or a sports star is probably like .01% or less.

Being able to spend 10 units of effort if 10 units is your capacity is an extreme undertaking. Almost no one can focus all their attention on one thing. The percentages were for illustrative purposes. Left out from the percent is that the two don't provide the same financial outcome. 5% for 1 million is better than 10% for 400 grand. Let's keep on subject.

You can't make correct broad social judgments if you haven't studied what comprises the big picture. It matters "what the advantage kid thinks" because someone's footing the bill. Both have optimal economic choices as dictated by the combination of their circumstances. They live in a shared economy so inherently one affects the other. The person with the means to pay gets first choice in deciding who does what. In this case, the advantaged kid gets first choice and chooses to be a doctor. It's a good bet. This means in order to get money you don't already have, you need to trade something the person with money wants. The effort to payout ratio becomes better for the disadvantaged kid to pursue songwriting.

In time, as success brings a certain channel of support and expertise, those areas become comparatively even more efficient. This is a reinforcing cycle. Now there are mentors, people-who-were-there, role-models who had similar circumstances.

And if the system allows enough folk to get out of the poverty and provide clear channels for escape, the benefits of wealth will lead to more channels of economic success. Then, the myriad successful black people in law/medicine/academia/science/politics/finance/entrepreneurship/culturally-european-art/etc. become realistic, relevant role models.


edit: cross-post with Tim, glad you covered the competition bit, too.

 

[Archbob]

Being a rapper is not a 5% or 10% chance, its one in a hundred thousand, if not less. With those odds, your example really doesn't make sense.

Society needs more doctors and engineers, it doesn't need more rappers. We have too many kids who think they can rap well.

And there are far more black engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc than there are famous black rappers.

The amount of people who become successful rappers/artists are extremely tiny, but its these type of people that the culture glorifies. It does not glorify the far larger amount of successful black professionals.

 

[Hygro]

Holy missing the point Batman.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Holy missing the point Batman.

I'm assuming you aren't really surprised.

 

[Hygro]

I'm assuming you aren't really surprised.

I let an inkling of hope drive my willingness to spend the 35 or so minutes it took me to write the followup.

Btw, regarding "one in a million chance" that someone trying to make it in the rap game would succeed. There are 1360 hip hop artists notable enough to be wikipedia worthy. Yes I just counted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hip_hop_musicians

That would mean that 1.360 billion people have attempted such a feat.

I doubt more than 1 in 50 boys and fewer for girls in an inner city high school is trying to become a rapper or producer. The number of black kids at the age to try to become successful like that (high school through 20s) is very roughly 20% of the black population which very generously means that there would be under 100,000 black kids trying to make it in the rap game today. As people get weeded out for either lack of opportunity, talent, interest, or otherwise, a lot of them will have made the right contacts to still make money in the industry doing work for labels, studios, etc. This means your chance of making money trying the rap game is actually pretty decent. Suddenly that 5% for the person who can sustain being all-in seems like to low a number.

But it doesn't matter, the number wasn't the point. Comparative advantage was the point.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I let an inkling of hope drive my willingness to spend the 35 or so minutes it took me to write the followup.

Btw, regarding "one in a million chance" that someone trying to make it in the rap game would succeed. There are 1360 hip hop artists notable enough to be wikipedia worthy. Yes I just counted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hip_hop_musicians

That would mean that 1.360 billion people have attempted such a feat.

I doubt more than 1 in 50 boys and fewer for girls in an inner city high school is trying to become a rapper or producer. The number of black kids at the age to try to become successful like that (high school through 20s) is very roughly 20% of the black population which very generously means that there would be under 100,000 black kids trying to make it in the rap game today. As people get weeded out for either lack of opportunity, talent, interest, or otherwise, a lot of them will have made the right contacts to still make money in the industry doing work for labels, studios, etc. This means your chance of making money trying the rap game is actually pretty decent. Suddenly that 5% for the person who can sustain being all-in seems like to low a number.

But it doesn't matter, the number wasn't the point. Comparative advantage was the point.

Haven't you heard? The entire population of Africa are trying to break into the rap business...it's a 'black thing'. [/SarcasticPortrayalOfRacist]