Race and Net Worth

[Gilberto de Piento]

Here's a relevant example of racism that directly impacts how much money a black person can earn. Researchers put typical black names and typical white names on the same resume and used it to apply to jobs. All else being equal, black names were much less likely to get called for an interview.

Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback. This would suggest either employer prejudice or employer perception that race signals lower productivity.

http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html
https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle ... sequence=1

[Jason]

I just don’t know how one can disregard the reems of documentation dealing with race and economics. William Julius Wilson has written extensively on how the loss of manufacturing jobs impacted urban African Americans. It’s both race and racism.

Africa Americans were prohibited from building wealth, Christ they were prohibited from learning how to read, for the first hundred years of this country . Poor is poor my fuckin white entitled ass.

And of course they all wanted to live isolated and marginalized in Pruit Igo and the like.

Just read the Ta-Nehisi Coates article and tell me he’s got it all wrong.

[Jason]

There is no fix, there is progress, which there has been. Usually a step forward, a few steps back. Obviously we don’t live in a slave society anymore, we have the 13th and 14th amendment and I wouldn’t have been castrated in a barn at 3:00am if Serena Williams had responded positively to my fan letters.

But in order to continue to progress, you have to understand that it’s historically rooted and that’s the lens through which it has to be addressed. Shit still needs to be torn down and ripped out.

Try getting a job with a felony conviction for possession of crack on your record When the white guy who got caught with the powdered shit is selling stocks.

[suomalainen]

@suomalainem
Again, let's assume that this is a racist country that hates its black population. The courts, police, penal codes, lending institutions, grocery stores, media, etc, etc. are all stacked to keep black people down and out. What is your advice to elevate this particular group of people?

I'm trying to get past arguing at what degree this country is unfair to its black population. So let's assume the worst and go from there. How do you fix it?

I think that's my point. If people don't agree that there's a problem, you can't begin to start talking rationally about policy solutions. And this is an extraordinarily difficult problem so there are no easy, or complete, solutions. For what it's worth, I agree that some self-pluck or bootstrapping or whatever is needed from the black community and there's not much outsiders can do to tackle that part of the issue. At the same time, as a society, we can look at the data and make needed adjustments so that we don't disproportionately affect a class of people due solely to their class (be it black or poor or both or any other dividing line). We can continue with the governmental institutions and/or laws you listed, continuing this progression: ending slavery, ending Jim Crow laws, ending segregation, ending voting rights abuses, prohibiting race-based discriminatory lending, etc. Maybe next we end race-based criminal sentencing.

[Gilberto de Piento]

Here's one suggestion: legalize marijuana. Black people are much more likely to be arrested and prosecuted for possessing and/or selling small amounts of marijuana than whites. Jamal gets caught with weed and he has the book thrown at him and goes into the system. Aiden gets caught and gets a talking to or drug court and rehab. Once someone has a record it makes it harder to get a job or housing.

[jacob]

@7
Do you feel that one has to have an above average intelligence to FOLLOW the principle of ERE? Does one have to be intelligent to realize that certain behaviors will lead to poor outcomes even if they don't necessarily understand the long game? What if there were more Jacobs out there preaching the good word and a ground swell occurred? Do you think that every person that decided to follow Jacob's principles of freedom would understand everything about it or do you feel that they would want to become part of a movement with tangible results whether they understood everything or not?

I have a more generic opinion on that. I don't think one has to be 100+ to follow the ERE principles because, after all, there's not much practical difference between ERE and the multi-skilled and self-reliant lifestyles of everybody 3-4 generations ago.

The issue is that there are too few personal/relateable examples to follow. Going on one's own, one does have to be 100+ as well as of a rather independent and thick-headed mind to break the mold and go against all the values that one's environment is continually reinforcing. If such an environment is extremely volatile (lets say, e.g. one's home proceeds from one crisis to the next), it's very hard to make the connection between action and outcome---one will easily draw the conclusion that there's no connection. In economic terms, one's planning-horizon or future discount rate becomes extremely low (hours instead of decades) and very high, respectively. I've read (unfortunately I don't have a reference) that the average INTJ future planning horizon is 33 years ... I can easily show you a bunch of other people (ISFP, say) whose horizon is on the order of half an hour.

It's one thing to be part of a movement online ... it's another to find role models IRL. We're currently at a point where IRL---and that's probably just because I associate with an overrepresented sample of people in IT (so upper-income, college educated)---people have asked me whether I've heard about that MMM-guy when prompted by my comment that "I write and run a website about financial independence amongst other things" when they ask "what I do 'for a living'". So in terms of penetration of the TE-dimension of STEM, we're currently at a point where at least a few have heard of the most famous concurrent example of smart choices.

Things have changed a lot over the past decade. In my local socioeconomic domain, my writing has gone from being seen as subversive (it actually created a minor family crisis back then when some family member started reading my blog) to being seen overall as a really good/wise idea even if a bit hardcore. I do attribute that partially to the groundswell effect and partially by how "we" turned out 10 years later---something which is now concretely manifest.

Most people, by far, only have the intelligence or rather wisdom (or in Cippola-terms) the capacity for not being helpless via copying someone else. If they have conflicting behaviors to copy from, then they have to "compare" and make choices based on intelligent-theory ... "Compiling" multiple examples and making a choice requires a focused effort. That, in my experience, is only found voluntarily in a small fraction of people. Being self-motivated to improve oneself seems rather rare. In my entire family, I see only two people who are deliberately and independently breaking the mold and not making choices in accordance with their socioeconomic locality. The rest are copying/emulating the behavioral patterns of their immediate surroundings.

[suomalainen]

I don't buy the racist white cop theory. And I think black lives matter is full of shit. I base these opinions on one piece of hard data: black people are ~13% of the population and black on black homicide is ~50% of ALL homicide according to fbi statistics. Based on that data two things are obvious 1) well duh, if there's that much crime, yes black people will end up in prison and 2) if anyone really gave a shit about black lives mattering the number 1 priority is obviously black on black violence.

I'm not sure which part of the above was "Hey let's help these people." My point was the misdirection in your post, not to call you any names. You dismiss "racist white cop theory", focusing solely on "black on black violence". (I will note that the connotation of having those two ideas following each other is that "this is the blacks' problem, let them figure it out.") My point is that you can't just waive away the "racist white cop theory" because there also exists black on black violence. Those are two separate problems - two houses on fire, to use your analogy. I'm not slapping a bucket out of your hand because you want to put the fire in one house out. I'm just saying, hey, don't ignore the other house.

[Jason]

If a people group is not allowed to assimilate I.e. segregation/geographically isolatation (Projects) but are still cognizant of the group that has ostracized them, it is par for the course that they will develop an ethos that antithetcally opposes that of their oppressor’s whether or not it is beneficial to them.

In Evicted, there was a much discussed passage where a poverty ridden woman spent her money on a lobster meal just because for one moment she wanted to feel what it was like to have money. Good luck teller my her to save for the future.

ERE presupposes the ability to read, have a job and a safe place to live. To some those are simply not part of the equation. Of course education is affected by race and poverty.

That is why the lottery is a real retirement plan to some.

[jennypenny]

I think part of the disagreement is that some of you are talking about finding solutions at the societal level and others are talking about finding solutions at the personal level. The language used and the recommendations given can be very different whether you're addressing the big problems or the personal ones. By mixing the two, we're kind of talking past each other.

At the societal level, there are definitely institutional biases that disproportionately affect minorities. Some are related to poverty and some aren't. Addressing those issues is very important to the overall health of our society. Those are hard problems though, some of which may never be solved. Does that mean minorities are all doomed?

I don't think society's issues should be used as an excuse on a personal level. <--That statement sometimes gets classified as victim blaming, but I disagree. Lots of people face challenges or get a rough start in life, not just minorities. Some have disabilities or incurable illnesses. Some grow up with a drug addict mother or a father who smacks them around. Some suffer from mental illness. ... Please know that I'm NOT making light of the struggles of minorities in this country. I'm only saying that others face challenges as well. What do we tell them all, that life's not fair and they won't be able to succeed unless 'we' solve the big issues for them? I say no. At some point, people need to learn to play the hand they are dealt.

I don't see the incongruity in believing that society treats minorities unfairly and we need to address those problems to help all of those affected, and also believing that people can solve these problems for themselves on a personal level and be successful in life regardless of their 'handicap'. I think it's important to teach people agency, and there's a fine line to walk to make sure that when discussing society's problems. you aren't exacerbating them by convincing those affected that the problems are insurmountable on a personal level.

It's no different than the ERE problem. When people give 10 reasons why they 'can't get ahead' or try ERE, we all tell them that of course they can do it. By telling them that, it doesn't mean that we disagree with their assertions (I'm in debt, health insurance is too expensive, etc). But we know commiserating on a personal level won't help them -- we know we need to tell them that it's possible to succeed anyway.

[Riggerjack]

I disagree with your premise wholeheartedly and will not be coerced into presenting an argument based on your terms.

If you think there is no correlation between race and poverty you do not understand the basic fundamental history of this country and I can’t change that .

Maybe you should read more of what I have written, or just go back to any of the threads that have already gone through this and tell us what you have to add. The Atlantic article has even come up here.

I am not outraged by the outrageous poverty. Or the systematic oppression. Niether am I denying either. I'm just familiar with them, and the way the fixes went wrong, and the ways the fixes were "sabotaged" by the folks who ran them.

So, if you want to talk about solutions, we might cover new ground, but these break down when real solutions are talked about, usually because the driving force of these conversations is confirmation of the same solutions that have already failed.

[Jason]

You cannot understand the history of this country if you do not recognize that one specific people group has been legally, culturally, socially, politically, geographically, and economically oppressed and marginalized. Euphemistically it’s called the great American paradox. More accurately it’s called the great American sin.

That’s materially different from being raised in abject or poor personal conditions and pulling up your bootstraps.

[suomalainen]

@augustus and @jp Agreed that we're talking past each other. I think @augustus is conflating two things into 1 problem. I'm not suggesting the one problem is 100 deaths, 99 of which are citizens killing citizens and 1 of which is a cop killing a citizen. Citizens killing citizens is a problem.
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A separate problem is institutional racism.

Both deserve attention and frankly I have no solutions for murder (let's not anyone make this a gun control topic; start another one if you wish), but I DO have solutions for institutional racism.

[Riggerjack]

You cannot understand the history of this country if you do not recognize that one specific people group has been legally, culturally, socially, politically, geographically, and economically oppressed and marginalized. Euphemistically it’s called the great American paradox. More accurately it’s called the great American sin.

Ok, so the thread was supposed to establish your credentials as the truly empathetic white man. The good guy, looking to build a coalition for change and good.

Now, assuming you have done this, and you are the embodiment of righteousness, and we all agree, you are a cool, concerned guy... What would you like to do with all this groundswell of support and Goodwill?

Because public displays of flagellation passed off as gestures of support are common enough to be boring.

[jennypenny]

@Jason -- I'm not sure who that's directed at. Of course I understand, women have been part of that group in some sense. So have other minorities. If you're in NJ, you've see how Indians and some Middle Eastern groups have suffered.

That said, it's true that blacks have suffered more than other groups. I still think it's important to address the individuals differently than we address the issues. And I do think it's important to try to tease out the poverty-specific issues.

[Gilberto de Piento]

Here's another concrete idea: require schools to teach a reasonable amount of financial literacy in say grades 3, 8, and 12. There are a lot of people who are never exposed to this information and don't have a way to get it since they don't have the internet and have no examples of what to do.

Similarly, teach people what their rights are as renters. Evicted has a number of stories about landlords misleading or taking advantage of tenants who have no way to get accurate information.

Finally, have the govt provide a voucher for storage of belongings for some reasonable amount of time when a person in poverty is evicted. In the book when someone is evicted their things either are stored by a moving company or put on the curb. If they choose the curb then others steal their things while they try to find a way to transport and store them. If they go with storage they accrue a transport and storage fee and typically lose their things when they don't pay these fees. Now they have no belongings and a bad debt along with their eviction.

@rigger It really says something about your worldview that you believe that anyone who wants to bring attention to the plight of the poor actually is trying to make themselves look good.

[jennypenny]

@GdP -- The biggest problem is awareness. There are so many services that go unused because people aren't aware of them. This is a sampling of what's provided at a local soup kitchen, and often if a service isn't provided the client is referred to a group that can help them. http://www.trentonsoupkitchen.org/other-services.php

One of you coders should design an app that offers solutions and resources related to poverty. Almost everyone has a cell phones. Providers of services would love to have a centralized app like that because many are church-based and so state offices can't always suggest or refer them.

[Jason]

(@) 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.

Above all else, I am deeply sorry for bringing up a problematic issue for which I do not have a solution and therefore should not have brought up in the first place.

[Jason]

Furthermore I am sorry that you have falsely identified me as being genuinely interested in a topic Outside of my political or social self identity.

I will assuredly curtail my intellectual curiosity in order not to Threaten your judgmental and reductionist tendencies.

[jennypenny]

please play nice

[jacob]

Yeah ... I'm inclined to lock this thread down over xmas just in case ....