Is tolerance intolerant?

[Rev. Rye]

[bennyboy]

Well, it's a clusterfuck, isnt' it? Drug use, incarceration, single parents, low educational achievement, low test scores, bad health care, bad diet, and teachers who are likely to be poor in at least some of those same categories. There's very little light at the end of the tunnel, unless all those problems are aggressively addressed.

And yes, a big part of it is cultural. Black kids have access to jazz, blues, and a lot of the greatest music and art that currently exists. But they're listening to rap, wearing their pants at their knees, and working for street cred like it matters.

This is the essence of the problem-- that culture, statistically speaking, doesn't really ALLOW real change from within, because ignorance is passed on from broken parent to broken child, and shared among peers. Rich white people therefore feel a responsibility to inject their world view into that broken culture. But the problem is that patronizing black people won't give the sense of pride and equality, those attitude changes that will affect behaviors-- it will reinforce the expectation of handouts, and the feeling that handouts are the only way to get ahead. No good comes of that world view.

The solution is as I described in another thread-- you have to give financial incentives for success in all those categories I talked about, and enable REAL success based on positive motivation and real effort: loans programs for entrepreneurs, scholarships for students who achieve results through good work, right from preschool. Make all benefits contingent on a demonstrated willingness to work hard and live productive lives.

[notimportant1234]

For me religion is a cultural cancer. Acting on the outdated source of information called religion will probably lead you to obstruct somebody else's freedom at some point.

I could tolerate believing in a God but following a religious doctrine, from my point of view, it's imoral.

[GrandizerII]

[bennyboy]

[GrandizerII]

[bennyboy]

The whole test is culturally biased because when they first put these questions on trial, they always keep in mind how well white students (the norm) do on every question in these tests. Furthermore, it's not only about the questions or items in these items; it's also about external but relevant factors that favor some groups over others when it comes to performance on these tests.

Did you look at the questions? They are reading and math questions. Let's be blunt about this-- the reason some students do worse at these questions is they aren't as good at reading and math as other students. There's no special "black math" that is getting under-represented due to cultural bias.

The problem, as I mentioned before, is that this is not a racial screening test-- the kids applying for certain disciplines actually need those math and reading skills in order to succeed. I agree it's unfair that black kids, on average, have grown up in an environment that hasn't fostered either ability or interest in the skills they'll need to get into a good college and get a good career.

But filling up university classes with underskilled students isn't going to help them-- it's just going to increase the alarmingly low graduation rates that black students already experience.

We have to be clear about the goals, here. It seems to me that the pyschology of black people in America is damaged-- there's no expectation of a vehicle for success, few good teachers willing to help, and a sense that even if you work hard, you will not have the opportunity to succeed. The solution for this isn't handouts at the collegiate level-- it's fostering REAL successes at all ages, and providing incentives that matter from the cradle right up to the Harvard application.

[Rev. Rye]

[Amarok]

[bennyboy]