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Race and Culture
The NYTimes reports that in Queens the median income for blacks is above the median income for whites, the only large county in the nation for which that is true. The median income for blacks in Queens, $51,836, is also well above the national median income ($46,000).
What makes the statistics especially interesting is that many of the blacks in Queens are recent immigrants from the West Indies. Malcolm Gladwell, whose own genealogy traces to the West Indies, recognizes the implication:
The implication of West Indian success is that racism does not really exist at all--at least, not in the form that we have assumed it does. The implication is that the key factor in understanding racial prejudice is not the behavior and attitudes of whites but the behavior and attitudes of blacks--not white discrimination but black culture. It implies that when the conservatives in Congress say the responsibility for ending urban poverty lies not with collective action but with the poor themselves they are right.
but ultimately he can't accept the implication and offers instead a strained interpretation. West Indian blacks are successful only because, according to Gladwell, they provide a convenient way for whites to distinguish "good" and "bad" blacks allowing themselves to pat themselves on the back for not being racist while at the same time continuing to practice racism against the majority black class.
Gladwell offers scant evidence for his hypothesis, the most interesting point being his claim that Jamaican blacks are perceived as bad citizens in Toronto where they are dominant but as good in New York where they can define themselves in opposition to American blacks. Gladwell's argument is weak, however, because West Indian blacks distinguish themselves not just in dress or accent but in just those behaviors that also increase income for whites and other successful minorities: they get married and stay married, pursue education, work hard and are entrepreneurial. Gladwell himself notes:
When the first wave of Caribbean immigrants came to New York and Boston, in the early nineteen-hundreds, other blacks dubbed them Jewmaicans, in derisive reference to the emphasis they placed on hard work and education.
The title of the post refers of course to Thomas Sowell's classic.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on October 2, 2006 at 07:20 AM in Economics, History, Political Science | Permalink
Comments
Long ago, teaching in USA, I thought that generally black students from West Indies and African countries seemed to be doing better than American black students. Coming from India with its caste system, I felt that perhaps growing up feeling that one was priviliged or underprivileged made the difference. Moreover, those who leave home for foreign shores are probably more enterprising than the average persons. On recent trips, I was told by mathematicians that black American students are doing much better now. Could it be affirmative action? New Role models? Strangely many Americans did not seem to know about George Washington Carver or Blackwell.
Posted by: gaddeswarup at Oct 2, 2006 7:49:11 AM
The straw man in this comment appears in the form of the word "only":
West Indian blacks are successful only because, according to Gladwell, they provide a convenient way for whites to distinguish "good" and "bad" blacks allowing themselves to pat themselves on the back for not being racist while at the same time continuing to practice racism against the majority black class.
If you buy the claim that West Indian immigrants in Toronto fared differently from those in New York (which I'd love to see some numbers on), then the question becomes why those in New York "get married and stay married, pursue education, work hard and are entrepreneurial" while those in Toronto allegedly do not. Is there some reason the hard-working ones all came to New York?
Posted by: Mitch at Oct 2, 2006 8:25:52 AM
I guess I can forgive it in the New York Times, but how can an economist write about this article without once mentioning either Tiebout or sorting. It seems to me that this statistic tells us nothing at all about race and culture and quite a lot about the relative suburbanization of middle class black and white families. Or at least that suburbanization is an important potentially confounding factor, one that is not dealt with at all here.
Posted by: Jesse at Oct 2, 2006 8:32:12 AM
The disconnect here is that Gladwell consistently describes actions and beliefs that appear to have contributed to various West Indies blacks' success, but then explains it as though it's just the result of discrimination in their favor (over local blacks). If I recall correctly, Thomas Sowell's research showed that second-generation West-Indies blacks also did noticeably better than American blacks, and in fact, a little better than American whites. Since they don't have accents, they must have other ways of signaling their difference in culture to prospective employers.
There are all kinds of other things going on, though. The West Indies immigrants are the subset who decided to immigrate, got here, didn't get deported or arrested, didn't fail and go back home. They are probably healthier, smarter, and more determined than the people they left back at home. Their culture is probably somewhat different from the general culture at home. Some of those differences are likely to be heritable, at least to some extent (intelligence, health, and personality are all at least somewhat heritable). So the kids, while having likely regressed toward the mean on all these areas, will still be skewed toward healthier, smarter, and more determined people.
The other thing that's interesting here is the use of a fairly subtle signal (accent) to update a stereotype. If you have had lots of bad experiences with American blacks, and some good experiences with Jamaican blacks, what should you assume about the next random member of each group you see? The fact that the accent differences changed the peoples' attitudes means that those people were not simply acting on the grounds of some kind of burned-in racism. This is a bit like objecting to your daughter marrying a black man, until you find out he's the head of the cardiology department at Harvard medical school.
Posted by: albatross at Oct 2, 2006 8:56:17 AM
"Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children...A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn." 1954 Brown vs Board of Education
I had not realized that there was ever any doubt that much of the harm done by segregation and discrimination was that it reinforced in blacks a sense inferiority and of not belonging to the larger culture, that had been created by slavery. Most of the attempts to fix things were aimed at this. What else could the attempts at school integration hope to accomplish but to bring Blacks into the majority culture? The same could be said of affirmatve action. Laws aganinst discrimination could never hope to solve the problem, but only to stop actions by whites that made it worse. Although this article provides some statistical evidence for what I thought was obvious, it does not answer the question "is there anything more public policy can do".
Posted by: joan at Oct 2, 2006 10:00:43 AM
joan: "segregation and discrimination … reinforced in blacks a sense inferiority and of not belonging to the larger culture … Most of the attempts to fix things were aimed at this. What else could the attempts at school integration hope to accomplish but to bring Blacks into the majority culture?"
Here’s a few things that school desegration accomplished:
1. showed millions of white schoolchildren that their parents’ stereotypes of blacks were wrong;
2. allowed at least some black students to enjoy the better textbooks and better facilities available in the white schools;
3. provided opportunities for black and white parents to work together in school-related groups, such as Cub Scouts and Band Booster clubs.
Forced busing of children out of their neighborhoods ruined desegregation, of course. White families immediately abandoned large cities for the suburbs.
Posted by: JohnDewey at Oct 2, 2006 10:44:11 AM
The Malcolm Gladwell article is nonsense-on-stilts: an exercise in the higher ignorance all-too-typical of literary writing on this kind of subject - finely-wrought mush.
The reference to Thomas Sowell is the answer to this kind of bilge - or Shelby Steele. While Gladwell constructs a massively intricate set of auxiliary hypothesese to keep-alive his untenable belief that it is prejudice which lies behind black American's poor performance, the truth (ie. Sowell, Steele) is quite simple, quite obvious.
Which is why Gladwell requires such a pervasive assertion of his own moral superiority and exquisite empathic sensitivity in order to try and prevent the reader noticing it.
Posted by: Bruce G Charlton at Oct 2, 2006 11:39:06 AM
JohnDewey
Having never lived anywhere that school segregation was not a product of housing segregation I was thinking of busing when I wrote that. Many if not most places responded to the push for desegregation by increasing funding for majority black schools so much of deficit in spending went away.
Posted by: joan at Oct 2, 2006 11:49:32 AM
Gladwell is mostly right: That West Indian immigrants distinguish themselves by their attitudes towards work doesnt say much: Dont all immigrants distinguish themselves by their attitudes towards work?
The key factor here is what happens in subsequent generations - and it blows the whole West Indian Culture or African Culture argument sky high (often advanced to explain the successes of African immigrants in the USA).
In subsequent generations, these outcomes drop significantly:
http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0610/investigations/problem.shtml
I think it is fairly obvious that what characterizes the successes of West Indians is not unique to West Indians but is pretty much true of every immigrant group.
Studies that track immigrant groups over generations do little to dispel the fact that racism, ostracization and marginalization are responsible for poor outcomes - even if we claim the cultural influences position - it is absurd not to realize just how much racism contributes to a self sabotaging culture (something that McWhorter alludes to in both Losing The Race and Winning The Race).
In Race and Culture - Sowell overreaches with his interpretation: How come the cultural ethic of Carribeans is doing so little to advance prosperity for said group in the United Kingdom?
Ill buy all this nonsense about Carribean and African work culture or ethic when I see these gains being sustained across generations which currently I dont.
Posted by: Chuckles at Oct 2, 2006 12:21:18 PM
Joan,
A couple of observations from my Deep South youth:
1. Around 1958 or so, my elementary school teacher collected our textbooks, telling us these used books were being sent across town to the Negro schools. We immediately received new, later edition books.
2. Prior to busing, in 1967, black students who lived closest to white schools were allowed to enter for the first time. This form of desegregation was met with little hostility. The few whites with extreme racist attitudes moved away.
3. About 1970, courts ordered busing of both black and white students across town. Race relations immediately became intense and emotional.
IMO, forced busing did more to harm race relations in the U.S. than any other government or private action.
Posted by: JohnDewey at Oct 2, 2006 12:42:35 PM
I've always wondered if poor, native blacks AND whites suffer from a lack of familial support structure. US immigration policy supports the kind of migration where a family loans money to one member, who comes to the US, works hard, becomes successful enough to apply to bring another member of the family over, and now they both work hard to become successful enough to bring another member over, repeating this pattern over and over.
It is the initial cash loan and the promise of hardworking relatives coming in the future that gives immigrants from poor countries a big push towards success. The native poor don't have this sort of underlying support structure.
Another problem may be that native poor people my have a world-view (internal paradigm?) that can only see the barriers and pitfalls that keep them trapped in a permanent underclass. Immigrants, particularly from poor countries, may view being poor in the US just the first step on the road to being rich in the US. They see the same barriers and pitfalls as nothing compared to what they've left behind.
Posted by: Xmas at Oct 2, 2006 3:43:35 PM
Chuckles:
I'll buy all this nonsense about Carribean and African work culture or ethic when I see these gains being sustained across generations which currently I dont.
Hmm. There's a problem here, though -- they come here with a particular non-American culture. After a few generations of being Americans, why would they retain that ancestral culture? No one else does. They become, for better or worse (in this case, probably worse) Americans.
Your point only makes sense if the Carribean immigrants retain a non-American culture for multiple generations, and still suffer the same educational and economic outcomes as native Blacks, as the generations roll on. As it is, anecdotally at least, it looks like Carribeans' economic outcomes decline in tandem with their assimilation to the native culture over here. Which is exactly what you would expect, if culture were responsible for their success, and for Americans' relative failure.
Posted by: Taeyoung at Oct 2, 2006 4:09:23 PM
xmas,
That's an interesting idea. I had always assumed that Hispanic's culture led them to be so family-oriented. It never occurred to me that such orientation was born out of economic necessity.
Wasn't this economic form of family-orietation present for most ethnic groups who arrived here from Europe?
Posted by: JohnDewey at Oct 2, 2006 4:11:51 PM
Black immigrants are mostly legal immigrants and they had to jump through several hoops to get to America, so they tend to be above average in human capital. For example, in the huge National Longitudinal Study of Youth, young blacks whose parents were born overseas scored 5 points higher on the military's AFQT IQ test than African-Americans on average. Regression toward the mean suggests that their parents, the immigrants, scored even higher than that.
Over the generations, the black immigrant advantage over native blacks appears to fade out. Partly this is just regression to the mean, and partly this is cultural assimilation, typically to African-American norms.
Because American culture tends to have a corroding effect on immigrants, it's important that our immigration system select only individuals with human capital far above the American average so that their descendents won't assimilate to below the American average.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Oct 2, 2006 4:41:14 PM
Having several poor white folks in my extended family, I can note a few things that they have in common with many poor blacks:
1) Out-of-wedlock births, and these before age 20
2) Drop out of high school
3) Extended periods where they don't seek work
Item #1 is big for the poor women in my family, and items #2 & 3 are big for the poor men in my family. Yes, they may lack a certain amount of capital, and live in crappy dwellings, but it's not like they can blame their problems on racism. If they could hold down a steady job at Walmart, they'd be doing much better.
Perhaps if people looked at poor non-blacks (who are stuck in poverty, as opposed to temporarily poor such as when I was a grad student), and saw what kept them from doing well materially, people might see that the same factors are going on between the two. It's not due to racism that poor white people have high illegitimacy, after all.
Posted by: meep at Oct 2, 2006 5:09:04 PM
[...Which is exactly what you would expect, if culture were responsible for their success, and for Americans\\\' relative failure...]
Mais non - this is also explainable by a general immigrant ethic that is common to *all* immigrants. Thats the point made in the UChicago report that I posted: Immigrants generally tend to have the same characteristics - be they Asian, West Indian or African. They work hard, study hard etc. Across all immigrant groups, subsequent generations generally fail to live up to previous standards.
This means that specific cultural patrimonies such as a West Indian culture or an African culture or an Asian culture cannot explain this general phenomenon. Is the success of West Indian immigrants a function of West Indian ethic or a function of Immigrant ethic? I say it is a function of immigrant ethic: And the reason that we see disparities in subsequent generations is because they simply fall in line with Americas caste system.
The whole West Indian culture ethic smacks of Fundamental Attribution error. And Gladwell is right, for the most on this. What is special about West Indians is not that they are West Indians, it is that they are immigrants - people who are for the most part outside the caste system. Later generations have to confront the psychological effects of being raised within Americas caste system.
I think folks need to reconsider their various fetishes - be they genes or culture. I am yet to find a culture where Laziness qua Laziness is a moral virtue. Most cultures generally possess the same traditional virtues born out of tribal environments. Western Liberalism is, within the ideascape of human history, a curious anomaly.
Three questions:
1. If a specific West Indian cultural ethic is responsible - what are outcomes like for West Indian immigrants in Europe?
2. If a specific African American cultural informs poor outcomes - what are outcomes like for African American immigrants to Europe, Japan and the rest of Asia?
3. And if general immigrant pluck isnt responsible then what is? (before we start slinging around allegations about so and so culture).
Plus - immigrants to the USA have the advantage of a generally open, free market society. Unlike those to Europe. Specific cultural patrimonies cannot explain these disparities in outcome.
Posted by: Chuckles at Oct 2, 2006 5:24:48 PM
[...people might see that the same factors are going on between the two...]
Its not about being poor, its about remaining poor. Whites have an easier road out of poverty than blacks. A two legged person and a double amputee can fall into the same ditch but its easier for the two legged person to get out.
The problem with people (many African American social conservatives included) who play the culture card over and over again is that they think there is something unique and unAmerican about black culture that informs poor outcomes. There isnt. Americas caste system makes it easier for some folks to move out of the general underclass and more difficult for others. Thats why underclass whites can move out to larger extents than underclass blacks.
This phenomenon is repeated at basically every stratum of society - blacks have a harder road: we see this with the penalty on black names in hiring and housing; even when all other indicators are on par or above par.
Posted by: Chuckles at Oct 2, 2006 5:39:05 PM
There are obvious exceptions to the rule that immigrant groups tend to be hard-working, such as Puerto Ricans and Dominicans.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Oct 2, 2006 6:04:28 PM
Immigrants generally tend to have the same characteristics - be they Asian, West Indian or African. They work hard, study hard etc.
I find that difficult to believe, in part because immigrants do not all have the same performance profile. As far as I can see, Indian (subcontinental) immigrants outperform not only natives, but all other immigrant groups. East Asian immigrants also outperform most other immigrant groups, as well as natives. You get first generation East Asian or Indian immigrants with scores in the top percentiles on exams, and entering the top universities and so on. You do get some of that from Hispanic or West Indian immigrants, to be sure, but not in the same numbers.
It is also not clear to me why immigrants, as a class, would have these superior characteristics. I know there's the pat explanation about how we get the most "entrepreneurial" people from other countries -- and for some countries this is probably true -- but in many cases, the salient characteristic of immigrants is that they couldn't get a job back home, so they came here instead. In other cases, they've come as refugees (e.g. many Vietnamese immigrants a generation ago, Irish and Scottish immigrants a century and a half ago, etc.). In yet others, they only came because their parents did. So I don't think there's actually been much of a systematic selection effect for "pluck," as you put it. There might be something about the experience of working in a culture not your own that helps boost your performance (not entirely implausible), but I am dubious, as I am at a loss to see what it might be.
On the other hand, I must confess to a major bias here, in that my perception is that looking at my own family, assimilation to American cultural norms has made us lazy and intolerant of sustained focus and hard work, in a way that those who did not come to America are not (yet). So I am extrapolating, in part, from my own concerns about my kin (and myself). This extrapolation may not hold true across other cultural contexts, e.g. West Indians. I don't see why it wouldn't, though.
Posted by: Taeyoung at Oct 2, 2006 6:10:02 PM
[...I find that difficult to believe, in part because immigrants do not all have the same performance profile...]
Which is precisely why I suspect that Fundamental Attribution error is at work here: Is it not possible for all immigrant groups to have the same attributes (at least in the context of which we speak) and yet have different outcomes? You are extrapolating from outcomes to attributes and I'm saying - Hey! Lets not get ahead of ourselves here: Do we know empirically that these attributes are unevenly distributed? And I say that in a society with a caste system such as the USA, groups with basically the same attributes can have vastly different outcomes: And I have pointed out one such instance: Blacks with profiles on par or above par that of whites still get penalized in hiring and housing.
[...It is also not clear to me why immigrants, as a class, would have these superior characteristics...]
That they do have these characteristics is not in doubt. Its empirical. And thats the point - regardless of whatever reason.
Generally, immigrants tend to have better outcomes; regardless of what cultural patrimony they hail from. In other words, when comparing outcomes between different black communities, regardless of patrimony, immigrant vs. non immigrant is a better predictor of outcome. The argument that there is a West Indian culture that informs outcomes vis-a-vis an African American culture doesnt stand up to scrutiny. Pray tell - where is that culture at work in the Oasis of Prosperity known as the Carribean?
[...in a way that those who did not come to America are not (yet)...]
There are lazy people everywhere in the world. Many of these high performing immigrants were probably not as hardworking in their own countries before coming here. I simply dont see culture at work independent of social structure. There is something here about supply creating its own demand and opportunity creating its own successes. Dont underestimate the power of perceived opportunity (true for many immigrants) to alter their behavior.
Anyone who has been to the West Indies knows will be skeptical of the fact that West Indians generally have a superior work ethic or cultural ethic - one can look at social indices for many West Indian countries to confirm this.
Posted by: Chuckles at Oct 2, 2006 6:54:30 PM
Many of these high performing immigrants were probably not as hardworking in their own countries before coming here.
Why would we believe this? In the case of my relations, because many of them divide their time between the US and their home country (Korea), or because they have come here only recently, e.g. to attend university or for a job, I happen to know they aren't appreciably more diligent here than they were back home. There's nothing magical about national boundaries that transforms a lazybones into a worker as soon as he crosses.
Generally, immigrants tend to have better outcomes; regardless of what cultural patrimony they hail from.
Sailer, above, points out that this is not universally true (even of West Indians, evidently), although I don't know the numbers there.
Which is precisely why I suspect that Fundamental Attribution error is at work here: Is it not possible for all immigrant groups to have the same attributes (at least in the context of which we speak) and yet have different outcomes? You are extrapolating from outcomes to attributes and I'm saying - Hey! Lets not get ahead of ourselves here: Do we know empirically that these attributes are unevenly distributed?
I think there's a congruent problem in your own approach, in which you're taking empirically divergent outcomes and constructing a theory under which divergent outcomes are attributable to an identical attribute set. I think the natural assumption, when you see divergent outcomes, is to assume that there is some underlying difference. Certainly it's possible for all immigrant groups to have the same attributes (on this axis), and have different outcomes. What's not clear to me is why we would think this is the most natural conclusion to draw.
Empirically, of course, we don't know that these attributes are unevenly distributed. Because we don't actually know what they are -- we know them only by their effects. Your hypothesis is that they're evenly distributed, yet somehow manifest unevenly (perhaps via your theory about American racial hierarchies). Why would we leap to this conclusion? We know different individuals have different attitudes towards work, towards education, and towards family, and in our personal experience, we can see these different attitudes result in differing outcomes. We know different cultures, broadly defined, have different attitudes towards work, education, and family -- that what is viewed as the "norm" in these different cultures is different. And we are still to believe that these differences mean nothing?
If I've got your idea about American caste right, I think there's even an obvious counterexample. Consider Indian immigrants. Indian immigrants are (generally) rather dark skinned. In the traditional American racial hierarchy, in which skin colour links up to status, we would imagine that therefore, if immigrant outcomes were modulated by racial hierarchy amongst the natives, Indian immigrants would experience outcomes approximating African-American outcomes, as they Americanise, somewhat as West Indian Blacks do. After all, both Indians and West Indians were, in many cases, under the rule of the British Empire, and both populations were called "Blacks" by the British. But, at least as far as we can see at the present, this is not what happens.
Posted by: Taeyoung at Oct 2, 2006 7:26:51 PM
South Korean immigrants are almost in a class by themselves for work ethic. First, South Koreans in South Korea work more hours than any other industrialized people in the world. Second, South Korean immigrants often come from the upper middle class, yet, unlike Indians this isn't a selective immigration of English-speakers with an obvious route to a good paying job in America. Instead, they frequently have to step down to a less prestigious job in America.
For example, a Korean fellow who worked for me told me his father had moved the family to America in 1976, and it was a big hardship for them that the Korean government only let them take $50,000 (in 1976 dollars) with them. His father was a pharmacist in South Korea, but being middle aged, couldn't learn English well enough to become a pharmacist here. So, he bought a dry-cleaners and ended up owning five of them.
Similarly, I read about a professor of German literature at a South Korean university who moved his family to America. He was fluent in German, but couldn't learn English. So, he went to Germany for a year and studied at the Porsche factory. He then became the Porsche mechanic to the stars in Beverly Hills and made a ton of money.
This pattern is almost unique to South Koreans. In contrast, very few Mexican immigrants are from the top ranks of Mexican society. If you were born affluent in Mexico, you find that life is sweet there, and stay.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Oct 2, 2006 8:14:20 PM
Another thing to keep in mind is that there are big differences among English-speaking West Indians in education and income levels, with Barbadians being at the top of the heap and Jamaicans at the bottom. Barbadian blacks explain this by saying that, being farthest east, Barbados slave owners had the pick of the litter from the slave ships, and bought only slaves from tribes known for cooperativeness. They then sent the people from the hard case tribes on to Jamaica and the US.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Oct 2, 2006 8:17:59 PM
[...Why would we believe this?...]
Well, we look at their countries and indices derived therefrom.
[...There's nothing magical about national boundaries that transforms a lazybones into a worker as soon as he crosses...]
Perceiving economic opportunity does just that.
[...Sailer, above, points out that this is not universally true (even of West Indians, evidently), although I don't know the numbers there...]
The key word is: generally. With regards to outcomes - but if the point is that Peurto Ricans and Dominicans dont work harder than Native Born African Americans (which is what I claimed earlier, i.e. that immigrants work hard and thus I assume the reference refers to) - I'd like to see some data on that.
On the contrary side:
http://journals.dartmouth.edu/webobjbin/WebObjects/Journals.woa/2/xmlpage/2/article/104
I see from a cursory review that not only do Dominicans share the work ethic that is common to immigrants (regular hours, informal jobs etc) - they arent very well off as a result of this. Section II, closing paragraphs. There simply is no evidence that Dominicans dont work hard. Rather, this buttresses my claim that simply boasting a cultural ethic of work doesnt do enough to explain outcomes. How immigrants are integrated as immigrants into the social structure is important here: Even among Dominicans, black dominicans show poorer outcomes. I see no evidence to suggest that Dominicans dont work hard.
[...I think the natural assumption, when you see divergent outcomes, is to assume that there is some underlying difference...]
Maybe so - but a difference in attributes? Hardly - not when there is a rich and definitive history of structural discrimination with continued evidence in the present. I can point out several instances where studies show that equal attributes (so far as can be determined) lead to different outcomes. Do you have any evidence at all for your position that underlying attributes are divergent? I mean, apart from anecdote.
[...We know different cultures, broadly defined, have different attitudes towards work, education, and family -- that what is viewed as the "norm" in these different cultures is different. And we are still to believe that these differences mean nothing?...]
And where is the evidence for this? You just claimed that we dont know empirically that these attributes are unevenly distributed - yet here you are claiming that what is viewed as normative across cultures is different. Fine. Lets see some evidence.
Besides, note that I never claimed that these attributes are evenly distributed - I have simply claimed that I dont know that they are unevenly distributed - and that I do not believe that this hypothetical uneven distribution is responsible for differences in outcome: There simply is no evidence to purport otherwise.
[...After all, both Indians and West Indians were, in many cases, under the rule of the British Empire, and both populations were called "Blacks" by the British. But, at least as far as we can see at the present, this is not what happens...]
Not really. Again, a cursory survey of the British Empire in Africa shows preference given to even dark skinned Indians - as Caucasians. Indeed, such a cursory survey, shows preference given to certain dark skinned African groups over other dark skinned African groups because of purportedly Hamitic features.
Indeed, within the United States itself, preference has historically been given to light skinned blacks.
So your argument here doesnt really fly. There is no ground on which to assume that Indian immigrants would approximate African American outcomes - I mean, come on, do Indian immigrants in East Africa approximate East African outcomes? Did Indian immigrants under apartheid South Africa approximate African outcomes? Yet none of that disproves the very real and present caste system operating in those domains.
The bottom line is: If anyone has got empirical data which shows that cultural patrimony as opposed to immigrant status/caste structure is a better predictor of outcomes, I'd like to see it. And I'd like to see just which values are drastically different: Do Jamaicans work more than Dominicans who work less than African Americans? What are the differences in family structure between West Indians and African Americans? And what are the salient differences between Jamaicans / Haitians etc that make them perform better than Dominicans? Its all very easy to spout off on culture this and culture that and not have any evidence to stand on.
Like I have pointed out before, there is data for situations where equal attributes lead to different outcomes. Lets see the data for unequal distribution of attributes leading to disparate outcomes.
Posted by: Chuckles at Oct 2, 2006 8:18:46 PM
Besides, note that I never claimed that these attributes are evenly distributed - I have simply claimed that I dont know that they are unevenly distributed - and that I do not believe that this hypothetical uneven distribution is responsible for differences in outcome: There simply is no evidence to purport otherwise.
You don't have to believe it -- it's just a hypothesis that comports with the data, in the same measure that your hypothesis comports with the data (which is that there's simply not enough evidence to purport anything yet).
As far as norms go, I don't know about cross-border studies, but within the US, Laurence Steinberg has done research on what grades parents will accept from their children (i.e. at what point do you get in trouble for your bad grades), and compared different American populations in that respect. And he found about what you'd expect -- if you're Asian, your parents will punish you for anything less than an A, and Asian students respond to incentives like anyone else, and peer group interactions reinforce those incentives, etc. etc. His research is (I think) used in Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom's book on the racial education gap. It's social science, so I'm not going to say that it's "proof," to a scientific standard. But it is, at the least, strongly suggestive that differing norms with respect to education contribute significantly to the education gap between different racial populations in the US. Whether that extends to immigrants, I don't know, but it seems commonsensical that norms would affect educational outcomes.
Regarding cross-border comparisons of norms, this devolves into anecdote, of course, but I think anyone who's lived in more than one country has experienced the existence of meaningfully different norms about education, work, and everything else. It's difficult to quantise these things sufficiently to study them. You can say: "Koreans work longer hours than Americans, on average." But then you can turn around and claim that they work longer hours because their employers expect longer hours, so that it's structural, not a matter of cultural norms. On the other hand, when they come over here, they're used to working long hours, so putting in the extra effort for extra reward isn't hard for them (they are used to it) so they do it. So in some sense whether it's cultural or structural may not matter. But it does make it more difficult to study -- as you note, some countries have an incentive structure not particularly conducive to hard work. E.g. they may be socialist or something.
Of course, the problem with these differing norms is also that we don't know what actually accounts for economic success. E.g. a heavy focus on studying is all well and good, but success doesn't come solely from good grades, and beyond a certain level (the entry level), it's possible that other factors come to dominate. But what are they? Hard work? Creativity? I don't know.
Posted by: Taeyoung at Oct 2, 2006 8:57:41 PM
[...which is that theres simply not enough evidence to purport anything yet...]
Which again, goes back to my first post - in which I noted that Gladwell was *mostly* right - i.e. his refutation of the notion that West Indians were somehow good blacks, with a culture conducive to uncommon success. Tyler argued against this thus:
>>because West Indian blacks distinguish themselves not just in dress or accent but in just those behaviors that also increase income for whites and other successful minorities:>>
And I say No; that the success of West Indians might have nothing to do with West Indian culture a la Sowell - and everything to do with the institution of immigration and those who partake of it. And I argue that the reason subsequent generations fail to live up to par has nothing to do with assimilating to African American culture - but everything to do with falling into lockstep with the American caste system. You take your pick depending on your spin the data - but I have studies to support my position.
1. The Asian expectation study you cite says very very little. It does not show for instance, the academic excellence qua academic excellence is valued more highly than Asians, without taking into consideration different ways of expressing this value:
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/hfrp/projects/fine/resources/digest/race.html
Black parents encourage their wards to take science classes more so than white parents:
http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2004/03/03162004a.html
Consistent high expectations from black parents, even in the face of low teacher expectations:
clpr.berkeley.edu/documents/HernandezDimmler%20abstract%20edited.doc
I could go on and on. I find little evidence for differing norms and values: The much touted Acting White myth has been consistently refuted (e.g Darity and Tyson) and shown to be inadequate: To the extent that it is symptomatic of African Americans - it is symptomatic of the American caste system which has historically penalized the education of Blacks. Though McWhoter (Winning The Race and Losing The Race) as well as Sowell (Black Rednecks and White Liberals) continue to espouse this acting white oppositional culture myth - recent work by Roland Fryer, for instance, finds that this phenomenon is absent among black schools for instance - and dismiss the oppositional culture model. There is little evidence for differing norms or values - there is much evidence against it.
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/papers/fryer_torelli.pdf
2. [...lived in more than one country has experienced the existence of meaningfully different norms about education, work, and everything else...]
Not I. I find that regardless of means of expression, most cultures value success and material prosperity and will pursue whatever paths seem open to achieving these ends. I have not experienced meaningfully different norms about education qua education. Western education? Well, some Muslims detest that - but they still show a value for some kind of education by building all those Koranic schools. Work? Well Europeans dont seem to work a lot. But this doesnt mean that a disdain for work qua work is normatively present in Europe.
By the way - If anyone thinks that there is all that much of a difference between Caribbeans and African Americans - a la getting married, staying married and pursuing education - and that this explains outcomes purely as a function of cultural heritage:
Keith Otterbin:
Caribbean Family Organization: A Comparative Analysis.
American Anthropologist, Volume 67, No. 1.
The Determinants of Female Headship in Jamaica: Results from a Structural Model
Sudhanshu Handa
Family Patterns in the English-Speaking Caribbean
Benjamin Schlesinger
Journal of Marriage and the Family
All basically asserting the same female-headed, matrifocal culture that many claim is typical of African Americans. So where is this special West Indian culture? I fail to see it. Focus must be placed on the process of immigration and the characteristics of immigrants themselves, rather than on nebulous concepts like West Indian culture.
See also:
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2000/02.24/i_waters.html
Someone thinks its not about assimilating into lazy American culture, but about becoming stymied by racism...
The bottom line is that I am satisfied that theres a lot of evidence supporting my position and not a whole lot supporting the West Indian Culture is Different position.
Posted by: Chuckles at Oct 2, 2006 9:56:36 PM
It's important to remember that most West Indian islands, having once been Spanish or French, typically don't have the exact same One-Drop-of-Blood definition of who is black as America does. So, like Latin American countries, they tend to have mulatto middle classes that are somewhat distinct from the masses. Many West Indian immigrants to North America come from the mulatto middle class, but are then counted as black here. Colin Powell is a famous example.
For instance, Malcolm Gladwell's Jamaican mother was part black, but also Scottish and Jewish. His father is white. Gladwell himself has recently grown an Afro in the hopes, I would imagine, of looking more dangerous to girls and interviewers. He claims that after he grew the 'Fro, he started getting Hassled by The Man, but to my eye it just makes him look like a cross between Napoleon Dynamite and Richard Simmons.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Oct 2, 2006 10:09:37 PM
To be frank, me being a black student in America, I feel like people think blacks in America are animals that only think about themselves. WIth queens having one of the most high medical income, they think that can kind of prove it. wheather its the people here or the people from different countries. Everyone seems to have this idea that we as americans got it easy and are living in the land of milk and honey just sitting around getting fat. As a black college student i always feel like i have something to prove. To show everyone that we as American Black people are not only strong and well rounded but aren't these lazy people everyone is making us out to be.
Posted by: Jerod at Oct 3, 2006 12:06:00 PM
JohnDewey,
My theory comes from observation. I don't know if it plays out as a general rule.
I've observed that the recent wave of Brazilian immigration follows this pattern. Indian immigration certainly follows this pattern. It comes down to the rules for Green Card applications. A person needs to be sponsored for a visa and then a green card. The first few immigrants that come over, get visas and green cards through their employers. Then the rest come over with family visas and green card sponsorships. The process is long, arduous and expensive.
I don't know if it would follow for earlier European immigration, since the immigration rules were less stringent back then.
Posted by: Xmas at Oct 3, 2006 12:17:09 PM
xmas,
I was thinking that European immigration also followed this pattern you expressed in your comment:
"comes to the US, works hard, becomes successful enough to apply to bring another member of the family over, and now they both work hard to become successful enough to bring another member over, repeating this pattern over and over."
If "successful enough" includes establishing a jobs/housing network as well as acquiring funds, then I'm fairly certain 20th century Europeans followed that pattern.
Posted by: JohnDewey at Oct 3, 2006 12:35:52 PM
It is grossly inaccurate to say that european immigration is in anyway similar to immigration from south america and the carribean. In fact its inaccurate to say that in the late 18th and early 19th Century that immigration was the same for Eastern and Western Europeans. Immigration has always been a policy formed of the intent to exclude racial and cultural undesirables. In particular in that same periods the quotas for people from Anglo-Saxon Europe were higher than those for Eastern Europeans and Immigration from Japan was banned. The procedures for admission to the US from western europe has always been easier than any other place.
Posted by: Alvin MCNair at Oct 3, 2006 10:52:47 PM
Chuckles:
I think your argument is broadly that the success of first-generation West Indies immigrants doesn't disprove the hypothesis that blacks face a significant level of discrimination. I think this is completely right--immigrants aren't the same as the population they're drawn from in most of the relevant variables.
More broadly, the existence of successful blacks doesn't disprove the existence of significant discrimination. It proves that moving up is possible, and I think it makes it silly to talk about a "caste system," but it's entirely consistent to have middle-class and wealthy blacks and also to have pervasive discrimination. Indeed, there were successful blacks long before there were antidiscrimination laws, and in places where discrimination was often written into law or contracts, and very often practiced.
Now, that doesn't answer the question of how much of an impact discrimination has on blacks, in terms of explaining their worse average outcomes. That question is complicated, because it seems to me that there are different levels of penalty for walking around with a black skin at different levels of life--being black probably helps you get into both prison and Harvard, for example. One thing that makes it easy, I think, for middle-class whites to miss a lot of discrimination is that middle-class blacks don't appear to be being clobbered by it. Maybe that's because discrimination or structural problems related to bad poverty programs or whatever don't land much on middle-class blacks. Maybe it's because getting to be middle-class is a filter, and people who are too heavily hit by discrimination and structural stuff just don't become and remain middle-class.
Also because there are differences that don't seem plausibly linked to discrimination, though they may be structural: higher crime rates and illegitimacy rates are a couple of obvious ones.
The problem with explaining these two, at least, in terms of a black version of cracker culture is that both rates are way, way higher now than they were 50 years ago, when cracker culture, slavery, and discrimination were all much closer. Similar things apply to genetic explanations--I haven't done the math to check, but is there any way the gene frequencies among American blacks have changed that radically in the last 50 years?
It's quite possible that black culture interacts badly with poverty programs, as I think Sowell would argue. Or that blacks are just a visible group of people who are heavily in poverty, and so are disproportionately affected by badly-designed poverty programs; Charles Murray assumed this in _Losing Ground_, years ago.
Posted by: albatross at Oct 4, 2006 9:05:34 AM
This is pure observation bias. Gladwell hasn't seen (or cared about) the boatloads of Haitian refugees that swarm into Florida, and who occupy the same part of the ecosystem that illegal mexican (and central american immigrants) occupy. The disparity in treatment by immigration when compared to illegal cuban immigrants is obvious to any observer.
I remember while living in south Florida, that one of the federal courts (the one in WPB comes to mind) ruled that Haitians cannot be covered by set-asides or preferences for "African Americans" because "African American" is a political category and not a racial one.
Posted by: Tangurena at Oct 4, 2006 9:31:54 AM
[...I think it makes it silly to talk about a caste system...]
No, it does not. Economic mobility doesnt not invalidate the reality of caste: Does the economic mobility of Burakumin invalidate the fact that they are - to all purposes - members of a stigmatized caste in Japan?
There is a school of thought about I.Q that depends on this concept of a caste like minority.
Posted by: Chuckles at Oct 4, 2006 2:41:17 PM
I couldn’t agree more that the reason for the higher median incomes among blacks from West Indies is due to their work ethic, education, marital status and less occurring divorce rate and having children out of wedlock, and their entrepreneurial spirit. These characteristics can be found in many individuals who have an above average income. I am also a firm believer that it is up to the individuals to make their lives more fulfilling and blaming others will get them nowhere. Granted, some are born into better situations than others, but plenty of people have climbed their way out of poverty and made their lives a success. While outsiders can help, it is mostly the poor who have to take matters into their own hands if they want to see any changes.
Posted by: RW at Oct 4, 2006 7:04:11 PM
