Race and Net Worth

[Farm_or]

@Campitor - thanks for sharing your story. That illustrates a topic that my personal experience can attest to.

People require a culture of Hope. Without hope, there's no reason for effort.

The minority group that I grew up with were native Americans. Violence, alcoholism, drug and child abuse were all too commonplace. I had friends my age who were on both sides of the struggle.

For my friends whose parents were middle class, they were frowned upon for acting white. Anything associated with success: regular meals, Levi's, Nikes, a well kept home, a functional car was associated with white. Success was associated with the ultimate evil - white.

It was the seventies before the "agent" system was so corrupted and ineffective that a new direction would take place: integration. So my child hood years were early into native Americans kids attending public schools. There were a lot of problems.

That was decades ago. Today things are much improved. You can drive through the Rez and it is clean and well kept, far higher standard for what used to be a ghetto. There's a big shiny casino in the middle of things. There's a pride in the people that is well deserved and it shows.

A culture of Hope. Redirecting white hate. Something to look forward too. The past is as ugly as you want to make it. Something to do. A pride in work. Something to love. Your people and heritage.

[suomalainen]

@farm_or Re: hope, consider this article: https://orionmagazine.org/article/beyond-hope/ which is written about environmental issues, but resonated with me more on a psychological level.

Frankly, I don’t have much hope. But I think that’s a good thing. Hope is what keeps us chained to the system, the conglomerate of people and ideas and ideals that is causing the destruction of the Earth.

To start, there is the false hope that suddenly somehow the system may inexplicably change. Or technology will save us. Or the Great Mother. Or beings from Alpha Centauri. Or Jesus Christ. Or Santa Claus. All of these false hopes lead to inaction, or at least to ineffectiveness. One reason my mother stayed with my abusive father was that there were no battered women’s shelters in the ’50s and ’60s, but another was her false hope that he would change. False hopes bind us to unlivable situations, and blind us to real possibilities.
....
If only we get a Democrat in the White House, things will be okay. If only we pass this or that piece of legislation, things will be okay. If only we defeat this or that piece of legislation, things will be okay. Nonsense. Things will not be okay. They are already not okay, and they’re getting worse. Rapidly.
...
Hope is, in fact, a curse, a bane. I say this not only because of the lovely Buddhist saying “Hope and fear chase each other’s tails,” not only because hope leads us away from the present, away from who and where we are right now and toward some imaginary future state. I say this because of what hope is.

More or less all of us yammer on more or less endlessly about hope. You wouldn’t believe — or maybe you would — how many magazine editors have asked me to write about the apocalypse, then enjoined me to leave readers with a sense of hope. But what, precisely, is hope? At a talk I gave last spring, someone asked me to define it. I turned the question back on the audience, and here’s the definition we all came up with: hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless.
...
When you give up on hope, something even better happens than it not killing you, which is that in some sense it does kill you. You die. And there’s a wonderful thing about being dead, which is that they — those in power — cannot really touch you anymore. Not through promises, not through threats, not through violence itself. Once you’re dead in this way, you can still sing, you can still dance, you can still make love, you can still fight like hell — you can still live because you are still alive, more alive in fact than ever before. You come to realize that when hope died, the you who died with the hope was not you, but was the you who depended on those who exploit you, the you who believed that those who exploit you will somehow stop on their own, the you who believed in the mythologies propagated by those who exploit you in order to facilitate that exploitation. The socially constructed you died. The civilized you died. The manufactured, fabricated, stamped, molded you died. The victim died.

And who is left when that you dies? You are left. Animal you. Naked you. Vulnerable (and invulnerable) you. Mortal you. Survivor you. The you who thinks not what the culture taught you to think but what you think. The you who feels not what the culture taught you to feel but what you feel. The you who is not who the culture taught you to be but who you are. The you who can say yes, the you who can say no. The you who is a part of the land where you live. The you who will fight (or not) to defend your family. The you who will fight (or not) to defend those you love. The you who will fight (or not) to defend the land upon which your life and the lives of those you love depends. The you whose morality is not based on what you have been taught by the culture that is killing the planet, killing you, but on your own animal feelings of love and connection to your family, your friends, your landbase — not to your family as self-identified civilized beings but as animals who require a landbase, animals who are being killed by chemicals, animals who have been formed and deformed to fit the needs of the culture.

When you give up on hope — when you are dead in this way, and by so being are really alive — you make yourself no longer vulnerable to the cooption of rationality and fear that Nazis inflicted on Jews and others, that abusers like my father inflict on their victims, that the dominant culture inflicts on all of us. Or is it rather the case that these exploiters frame physical, social, and emotional circumstances such that victims perceive themselves as having no choice but to inflict this cooption on themselves?

But when you give up on hope, this exploiter/victim relationship is broken. You become like the Jews who participated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

When you give up on hope, you turn away from fear.

And when you quit relying on hope, and instead begin to protect the people, things, and places you love, you become very dangerous indeed to those in power.

In case you’re wondering, that’s a very good thing.

[Scott 2]

When individuals propose solutions for problems like this, I always wonder about their experience with the target populations. I pass through diverse areas, but my interactions are limited to the conductor on a train, a cashier at the store, etc.

I do not have perspective. I imagine the term white savior complex was coined to describe people with my background meddling in the affairs of less fortunate minorities.

My best idea is to offer kindness and support to those who are succeeding despite the disadvantages, hoping they later help solve the problem. They understand what it is like, what those they grew up with value, what steps might be effective, etc.

[Riggerjack]

(@) Riggerjack

I am truly sorry that this blog not only falls short of meeting your rigorous intellectual criteria, but fails to reference your previous and surely deeply enlightening posts on said topic, and is ultimately remiss in acknowledging that your feelings are the normative basis for a deeply complex sociological and political discussion that so obviously has failed to draw any attention from the rest of the board.

Uh. Sorry. Maybe I shouldn't post from the dentist's chair.

There's nothing wrong with the thread, how you presented it or anything else. I'll come back when I can say the same thing about my state of mind.

[7Wannabe5]

@Scott 2:

Would you also describe the white Quakers who helped build the underground railroad as suffering from "white savior complex?" It's like the difference between being a stranger, a tourist, a traveler or an ex-pat when it comes to level of involvement in different cultures. If you don't go, you won't know, but it's a bit much to regard lack of action due to admission of ignorance as virtue.

If somebody could make a valid argument that it would be counter-productive for affluent white suburbanites to directly volunteer their time, venture into neighborhoods they avoid, and engage in tutoring, coaching, counseling, mentoring, and other such activities, please proceed. In my neck of the woods, what I mostly see them doing is a) Nothing, b) talking about the problem among themselves at champagne event on the topic of Greening of Detroit.

I am happy that Jason started this thread, because lately I have been drifting into a bit of despair, due to fact that my own sister was arrested for being mentally ill while living in a low-income district, and somebody stole my garden shovel, and my white uber-uber-liberal lover's wife referred to my black lover as "the gardener", and I learned from a source that I trust that there are almost 1/3 of a million people who are members of multi-generational underclass in the realm of my project. BUT just because something is very difficult or very complex, does not mean it is not worth attempting!!!

[Scott 2]

Someone physically involved with helping the affected populations has perspective. I am thinking of someone like me insisting "the individual should do X" or"the policy should be Y". I don't know, and it's misleading at best to insist I do.

Someone fully engaged in the culture and providing help is offering value to disadvantaged individuals, at the very least. The type of work you are doing, building people up, instead of offering a handout that potentially creates dependency, seems especially worthwhile.

It is not something I foresee myself doing, for a variety of reasons. Selfish preoccupation with my own personal financial and physical security probably being top.

[7Wannabe5]

@Scott 2:

Gotcha. Sorry if I came off defensive. I am generally pretty fully engaged in acting/spending my life energy in alignment with my own self-aware self-interest too. I just "shop different" than most of my peers. IMO, being racist/classist is very much like being a person who would never shop at a thrift store or read a book that wasn't a current best seller or eat an unfamiliar fruit. Within Dullsville city limits is not where I want to live. MMV.

[BRUTE]

So let's just stop talking about history because a few are tired of the topic. Thank you for dropping by and letting us know of your ennui. God knows how compelling Brute and his video games are.

or, instead of talking, how about doing something?

brute actually thinks racism is a problem and would love to solve it and have blacks enjoy the miracles of capitalism. but it seems that humans enjoy the talking phase a lot, and never graduate to the doing phase.

[suomalainen]

I think people do do things. But everyone chooses what they want to do. You can speak up / defend if you see racist speech or behavior. You can vote / be involved in politics for legislative solutions. You can become involved in non-governmental organizations whose missions align with your thoughts - touching education, job training, charity, etc.

There’s only so much doing on the interwebs where bloviating is the doing.

[nestbuilder]

or, instead of talking, how about doing something?

brute actually thinks racism is a problem and would love to solve it and have blacks enjoy the miracles of capitalism. but it seems that humans enjoy the talking phase a lot, and never graduate to the doing phase.

There are similar fault lines in this thread as developed in the sexual misconduct one. A strong desire to come up with solutions/fixes and the observation that this subject seems to bring up no small amount annoyance of some of the participants. There is a ready frustration about tiresome "talk" on the subject. I am not sure where this comes from but it may be worth exploring to better understand some of the barriers to real progress.

I would argue that in the United States we have not even come to consensus on the undeniable original sins oofur country: slavery/Jim Crow and the genocide of Native Americans. How can we move forward to deal with "race and net worth" when we do not have consensus on the historical context? We are a long way from agreeing on a historical truth(just listen to any debate about Confederate statues or better yet, visit a southern plantation or Charleston or xxx and try to find any reference to slaves or the slave trade.) Likewise, bike the back roads and witness the number of roadside historical signs referencing "hostile Indians" throughout the West that are still kept up and on display or farms that are celebrating 3rd generation status that were magically all founded in 1880s. We have some glaring blind spots and you just can't fix something and move forward if you don't first come to truth about and reconcile for the past. We are in many ways more comfortable talking about the sins of others - for example, the Holocaust - than we are in facing our own.

I live close to the Canadian border so between travel and radio, am exposed to a relatively large amount of news and culture from the land of pickle chips. Obviously the difference between our two current leaders could not be more stark, but it is actually the continued national dialogue around truth and reconciliation for their nation's sins of the past that boldly stands out. While the U.S. may dialogue and debate about the present, we do not seem to have the stomach to deal with the past.

Two recent examples from Canada that spoke volumes:

apology to indigenous residential school survivors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NESUCfZksg

apology to lgbtq2(notice the "2" in reference to "two-spirited," an indigenous concept):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRp7C-cMyo0

In medicine the first rule for minimizing litigation is to acknowledge and apologize for a mistake. That really is what most people want and need to move forward. Heck, I won't let my 5 year-old nephew continue to play after behaving badly until he has acknowledged and apologized to his little sister or whoever.

I will say a change I have noticed in my community the past few years is that many public events now open with an acknowledgement of the peoples whose ancestral lands we are currently in and that those indigenous peoples, many who live on a reservation across the bay, now take the lead in many community actions/gatherings/marches. They are very small, but significant steps to making the truth a part of the community conscience.

[Jason]

So let's just stop talking about history because a few are tired of the topic. Thank you for dropping by and letting us know of your ennui. God knows how compelling Brute and his video games are.

or, instead of talking, how about doing something?

brute actually thinks racism is a problem and would love to solve it and have blacks enjoy the miracles of capitalism. but it seems that humans enjoy the talking phase a lot, and never graduate to the doing phase.

I believe this could be the greatest singular example of self-refuting posts in the annals of self-refuting posts.

[rref]

.

[Campitor]

@nestbuilder

Waiting for an apology, or reparations, or a completely level playing field is a fools game. Much, much better to teach people how to succeed NOW without relying on the help or apology of others....

+1k

As a minority I can't praise FFJ's latest post enough. The mindset of personal effort and accountability has helped me generate wealth building income. And its not a rare occurrence. Earlier I spoke about my mom not being a high school graduate. When she came to the US, she spoke ZERO english, and worked as a parking booth attendant. She got her GED and took a training program offered by her employer (a major Insurance Company that provided parking for it employees and the general public). She moved up the ladder and became a manager in the company's account auditing department, purchased a multi-unit rental property, and is now retired living very comfortably. She would be nowhere if she waited on someone to bail her out. And she did all this while raising 3 sons. All 3 of us are working in tech industry and live very well - we are all frugal and learned the power of saving and sacrifice and maximum personal effort.

What some of my other similar minded minority friends have accomplished:

• Owns multiple properties that rents units to college students.
• Designs MRI machines.
• Manager of an AI project.
• IS Security specialist
• HVAC manager for a major school district. He also owns rental property.
• Psychiatrist
• Homicide Detective
• Nurse
• Database Administrator
• Master Plumber
• Master Electrician
• Manager of a major tech company server team.

I can keep going with the lists but I'm sure I've made my point. What all these people had in common was the mindset that they were the masters of their own destiny; effort and sacrifices had to be made to accomplish anything. And they all started out with ZERO money and English was their 2nd language. From my own personal experience, if you live in a major city with a strong economy, there is no way that the "whites" are keeping you down.

And I find it very weird that we condemn people for painting cultures with a wide brush but somehow that logic doesn't apply to those of White European descent. Racism is racism regardless the source. If you claim white people are a problem, you're being racist - no different that stating black people are a problem. Neither of the aforementioned statements are true. Ignorant people are the problem regardless of race or color and ignorance is very curable if the person is willing to grow.

[jacob]

@ffj - The strategy I've pursued for changing the world with ERE
particular when it came to the target demographics of the book was to make a choice between the "lieutenants" and the "soldiers". I figured that I was better suited for the former (it's also a Wheaton issue). If I focused on the lieutenants and managed to convince some important ones, then they, in turn, would/could go on and spread the word far farther than I could on my own. So, I've focused more on developing role-models for individuals than I have on attracting individuals at the ground level. So far, that strategy has worked very well. I've focused on providing the intellectual ammo for others to use rather than fighting each case on my own.

That suggests another strategy. Instead of reducing the width of the moat ... create role models and promote those role models so they inspire others to jump the moat.

@Augustus - Yeah... but on the flipside, there is also a minority of people who derive their self-worth almost exclusively through group-identity. Maybe, they're "proud to be American" or maybe they're just "proud to be someone's parents" neither of which relates to their personal achievements but nevertheless matters greatly to them---because maybe they have nothing else to be proud off . Similarly, there will be people who blame their lack-thereof [pride, etc.] almost exclusive through group-identity as well. I surmise this as an unfixable human property that's too common to ignore.

Now, I don't think that's a useful individual strategy, because there are better ways (via agency, see Campitor's post), but I do recognize that it's a thing and that it happens; and that, therefore, it's a strong collective/group strategy. People on this forum tend to enjoy a surplus of agency ... but in reality, agency is a rare commodity... so best assume that agency is in short supply. There are a lot of "social problems" that can be solved "if only I was dictator", but the fact of the matter is that most problems remain unsolved because whoever has the problem don't acknowledge it as a problem in the first place. It's an unknown-unknown for them.

I should also add that it's possibly to screw over a culture for generations. The continuity of Cipolla-stupid behavior is both persistent and pernicious (see the Greek economy). You can apply this observation to the black community as well as the generic American consumer. In both cases, there's been a concerted and widespread effort (see Bernays) to fuck people over and ensure they stay fucked over. At least it should be acknowledged that this is the still case. Even if the current generation didn't create the situation because all this was 100-200 years ago, it's still benefiting or suffering from it because the cultural values have a half-life of a few generations. I do see how the people being asked to "make the apology" are often dead or not the appropriate or guilty ones. So there's that...

[Peanut]

I want to address out-of-wedlock births, since this is seen as the starting point for lost youths. Years ago I discussed the topic of teenage pregnancy with a friend of mine who taught in south-central LA. Her school was majority Latino, but I'm sure the social context applies to other minority and also white *impoverished* communities (to rescue the issue of class).

What she told me then was that nearly all of a group of bright Latina girls she was counseling and preparing for college ended up getting pregnant. When they came to her for advice, she told them all the same thing: get an abortion. None of them did. Why not? And why or how did they get pregnant in the first place? There are many answers to these two key questions, and some of them would be: they had inadequate sex education; they slept with guys who didn't want to wear condoms; they didn't insist on protection; as Catholics (and Americans!) they felt abortion was immoral, and so forth. But what my friend observed was that they were desperate for something to love and for someone to love them. Many were following their mothers's life scripts in the end. The power of precedent, right?

[And I have read that teenage pregnancy rates have improved (I.e. decreased), but I tend to think this whole scenario just plays out a couple years later now.]

Gang membership is another problem often termed a vicious cycle, right? I don't know what the core emotional need is that fuels that cycle, but belonging to someone or something is probably a big part of it. How to address that has to be part of any ideas about ameliorating these problems in these communities.

And I'll just add something else: I saw a sign in Atlanta several years ago that was pro-life sponsored. What the billboard implied was that African-American babies were at risk of becoming an "endangered species." That's not a direct quote but that was the gist. So it was fear-mongering that the pro-choice or pro-abortion movement was really about reducing the African-American population. If you're part of a minority group that has been historically oppressed (for starters) I'm guessing that kind of propaganda could be really effective.

Why are big families seemingly more common in these minority communities when having multiple children in poverty only seems to make it less likely than any one can reach their full (economic anyway) potential? There are social, historical, and religious reasons that need to be understood and reckoned with if one wants to see change in the net worth of individual households.

[nestbuilder]

Ignorant people are the problem regardless of race or color and ignorance is very curable if the person is willing to grow.
[/quote]

I am not clear how acknowledgement and apology by the government negates personal effort or accountability. Hard work can pay off and does for many people from all walks, I never said it couldn't. I also would never suggest anyone sit back and wait for acknowledgement and apology for past wrongs before they try to move forward. Geesh. Nobody would get anywhere, including me, if that was the case.

My point is that if we want to have an informed debate about the present, we would benefit from having consensus about the past. Ignorance is much harder with historical perspective. When a society integrates that more complete historical perspective into their dialogue and it is the truth they build their arguments on, then real progress can be made. That is all.

It does not mean anyone needs to be sorry for the sins of their ancestors, they just need to be honest about them. Likewise, I love my country but the U.S. government has done some unconscionable things and needs to take responsibility for them. Many of our families have benefited directly or indirectly over the generations by at minimum not being the target of systemic oppression. Just acknowledge it. I don't see what the big deal is.

[CS]

And I find it very weird that we condemn people for painting cultures with a wide brush but somehow that logic doesn't apply to those of White European descent. Racism is racism regardless the source. If you claim white people are a problem, you're being racist - no different that stating black people are a problem. Neither of the aforementioned statements are true. Ignorant people are the problem regardless of race or color and ignorance is very curable if the person is willing to grow.

+1 After being kicked out of an online group for stating similar, it's nice to hear someone else state it.

[Campitor]

It does not mean anyone needs to be sorry for the sins of their ancestors, they just need to be honest about them. Likewise, I love my country but the U.S. government has done some unconscionable things and needs to take responsibility for them. Many of our families have benefited directly or indirectly over the generations by at minimum not being the target of systemic oppression. Just acknowledge it. I don't see what the big deal is.

People have acknowledged it. The problem relates to wanting people to pay for what was acknowledged when they had zero involvement with it. White people owned slaves - it was horrible and despicable. The price for it was paid partially with the 600k+ causalities of soldiers during the civil war (north and south). I acknowledge that this is probably a fraction of how many slaves died but this is exactly my point. People dredge up history so they can use it as a score card to play "who suffered more" or "who can we blame" for today's issues. History is important - it's a road map to what might happen or how bad and good things can come about. But it shouldn't be used as a bludgeon against present generations who had zero participation in what occurred or the decisions made - if this was the case we should just blow up half the human population because everyone has blood on their hands if we point to historical sins.

At best we all have roughly 80 years of life - should any of it be wasted on playing the blame game on historical injustices? Wouldn't it be better spent taking personal actions to ensure a better future for yourself and the next generation? If whites said "I'm sorry" and gave each African American 377k would that solve black issues forever? 14 trillion (upper reparation estimate) divided by 37 million (US black population) = approximately 377k; 188k per African American would be the lower range of reparation paid. Could the US afford to pay 14 trillion or 7 trillion in reparations? I don't think so. So reparations is a pipe dream. And history in this context only serves to embitter and fuel the racial divide.

[7Wannabe5]

there is also a minority of people who derive their self-worth almost exclusively through group-identity. Maybe, they're "proud to be American" or maybe they're just "proud to be someone's parents" neither of which relates to their personal achievements but nevertheless matters greatly to them---because maybe they have nothing else to be proud off

Now this is where I draw the line when it comes to Libertarian theory. Nobody, no matter how inherently high-functioning, popped out of the womb ready to roll. There are people who just "be" a parent, but there is also a good deal of "do" involved. Even given that there are currently too many humans on the planet, unless one is to take the profoundly anti-social stance that NO more humans should be born and raised, somebody has to do the work of caring for the young, not to mention the elderly, the ill, and the mentally incapacitated. And it seems to me that somebody should have at least as much cause to be proud of coaxing a bright 5 year old who has already been acculturated against education into taking an interest in reading, as somebody who performed the much less complex task of programming a robot Doing the work of caring for your own young children is both easier and more difficult than caring for other people's children, but it's still hard work. That's why when two old women, like me and Campitor's mom find themselves riding on a train together, they will sometimes reminisce about babies who cried for three nights straight with colic, or teenage sons who jumped off the back of a truck while drunk; just like old men will talk about the last war.

Obviously, considering adult members of a different skin tone or culture to be like babies who need assistance is condescension-form-racism, but the fact that racism is idiotic means that it is a realm in which there is hope for great success in helping children if this is their only barrier. OTOH, I can't work with severely cognitively impaired children without just wanting to cry, but I still think Riggerjack and BRUTE would chip in a quarter to pay me to help a little girl with severe disabilities spend a fun afternoon in a sandbox, rather than being dumped in an institution, even though this little girl didnt come into existence through their choices regarding use of their own penises.

[Sclass]

This is clearly a lot more complex an issue than the shallow article. The averages shown in the article are about as misleading as showing the average income or net worth in the USA is $x. One number to describe this dataset, really?

What about the figure that half of all Americans cannot come up with $400 in a pinch? I think a lot of them are white. The ability to build wealth may not be a race issue alone.

There is undoubtedly racism out there. I’ve seen too much to stomach over my lifetime. Yes I stood by and ignored it because I decided I’d lose if I stepped up to defend people. Sadly it is real.

How it ultimately affects a generation is about as complicated as accumulating a net worth that can be used to FI at 3% SWR. You guys make it sound like building wealth is some kind of God given ability that everyone should have.

Most of the people around me cannot do it regardless of color.