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[JGS]

Which is actually a vicious circle since them flaunting their "bling" especially the ones they create themselves make the impressionable youth buy their products. This in turn makes the "Entrepreneurs" richer and the poor kids trying to imitate them still poor by living beyond their means. It's bad when you would rather spend money on "bling" than living decently.

When you are talking about poverty, you are talking about living in isolation. Many in poverty do not understand the concept of living decently. They are preoccupied with what is. The reality is it's easier for them to get bling then it is to get a financial education.

It's not really their fault because financial institutions don't cater to them without heavy costs. When they take an interest it's not to educate, it's to take advantage of them through higher rates on loans, overdraft fees, & minimum balance requirement. It's easier to go to a payday loan place and get the sneakers you want.

Again this wouldn't have much to do with race if not for the fact that there is a disproportionate number of black people in poverty. To be fair, there was a disproportionate amount of them that were forced to start out that way. To be condemning, there is a disproportionate number of people that have no problem with them stayiing there or that would like to keep them there.

 

[grumble]

None of this is true. The US has never had even a remotely adequate social welfare network. We don't even have universal health care for god's sake. What you are promoting is myth. Billions for war. Billions for banks. Next to nothing for people. It's the American way, and it is really disturbing.

America isn't the only country with this issue. Canada has a welfare system, and it doesn't work. It's the best comparison due to similarity of culture, though there's less racism here.

 

[Barrett2]

He rightly was shit on because saying things doesn't do shit to change a culture caused by poverty. Telling poor black people to change their behavior is not a solution. At this point, it's practically a willful rejection of finding a solution.

You sound like the Atlas of white guilt. Telling black kids to work hard in school is bad?

 

[CharlieDigital]

If you bussed a bunch of poor or middle class white kids to Shaker Heights, it would be interesting to see what would happen. The article really just kind of points to instant integration not working.

Look for the statistics and data from Wake County, NC.

(I'm looking but not finding much)

There has been a recent row over how the newly elected school board is trying to end the programs there that "forced" integration first based on race, and then later, switched to a socioeconomic model.

http://www.ibiblio.org/cr/2010/01/wake-county-voters-say-yes-to-change/
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/101710/

 

[Neo C.]

I would also add that Asians, especially immigrant Asians, have a greater sense of frugality and modesty and it's a cultural thing. These values generally get passed down from generation to generation (although from seeing my cousins, it's getting weaker as each generation is more Americanized :lol). The savings rate in Asian countries like Japan and China put Americans to shame.

And they are more likely to push their kids to study just for the sake of making a lot of money.

While I'm thankful to my parents that they've given me a sense of modesty, it was quite hard to justify my study of history. I surely won't make a fortune with my degree.

 

[empty vessel]

You sound like the Atlas of white guilt. Telling black kids to work hard in school is bad?

It's as bad as doing nothing, which is what it is. I have no guilt; I just see a problem, caused by racism, that can be fixed if we dedicate ourselves to it, but don't, because of racism.

 

[SolarPowered]

I thought the thread had gone to crap when I was reading through the saved pages from last night when Quadcore jumped into the discussion.

I myself having been a part of the underclass for all of my life have come to notice that people in my predicament are more preoccupied with making their current circumstances work than working towards a better future. It wasn't uncommon for the majority of the kids in my middle school(in the middle of a poor urban district) to say that they hated or didn't even know their fathers. It also wasn't unusual for many to look up to those slinging on the streets or rapping gang bangers. One thing I've come to notice after much time in these communities(especially in the black community) is that kids are more concerned with the individual than the group(adults tend to crowd together more often). All the gang violence, thievery, and one on one hostility would seem to be a part of a culture that has been formed by both external and internal forces for the sole purpose of creating a powerful individual and not a powerful group(Japanese, Chinese, Irish, Italian, Scottish communities).

Hope I don't step on any toes with this comment. It's nice to see that this thread is back on track.

Fake edit:
It's important to know that these are just anecdotal observations and that they in no way represent all black people or poor people.

And they are more likely to push their kids to study just for the sake of making a lot of money.

While I'm thankful to my parents that they've given me a sense of modesty, it was quite hard to justify my study of history. I surely won't make a fortune with my degree.

My parents kept pushing me throughout my adolescent years to study and to improve. I ended up reading giant high school level dictionaries for fun before I even got out of elementary school, but I ended up with chronic headaches and my experiences severely stressed me out all throughout my teenage years.

I'm pretty much burned out on studying and my natural thirst for knowledge is severely diminished at this point. Parents need to remember that too much of a good thing can have a negative impact as well.

While I'm thankful to my parents that they've given me a sense of modesty, it was quite hard to justify my study of history. I surely won't make a fortune with my degree.

My father has been ragging on my uncle for his decision to study history(because it isn't as lucrative financially!) for over a decade now. Just keep trucking man.
:lol

 

[naijaboy]

Actually my best friend is black, and he agree with my sentiment on his own race.

sorry to bring this up but i must say that the above comment is the typical defense usually said by a racist or one that displays such attitudes...."i have a black friend" smh.

some people have hit on some good reasons why this big disparty exists. It is not something that can summed uin one line, no matter how many people try. People need to realize that 50-60years ago, black people were not allowed to join the spoils of the economic booms the US enjyed after WW2, especially in the south. In fact, it is only within the last few decades that we have seen a black middle class emerge.....and it does not help matters that these young blacks had no wealth passed down and ofcourse were just starting....

People can mention that other immigrants and foreigners are doing better, and while that may be true, no one can really put how much damage was done to African Americans during slavery. A lot of foreign immigrants went through hell and some may have worked slave like conditions but nobody went through the hell that was slavery like Blacks did. That said, it should not be an excuse for blacks to remain down in the poverty line but hearing shit spewed by people like quadcore is daft. For more than half the lifetime of this country, a certain class of people were systematically enslaved and put down....50 years is not going to wash away that like magic dust...

 

[Dark Knyght]

Wait, Baby's Mama isn't a lucrative career path?! :O

"Oh, no you didn't" *rolls neck and eyes at the same time*

 

[Flo_Evans]

This kind of makes me want to calculate my net worth... Pretty sure I am over $5 but probably not by much! :lol

 

[Gallbaro]

Well, unless one is a racist, one should expect that, opportunity being equal, the distribution of the poverty (and wealth) across the population will be proportionate among the races.

Culture can't and should not be unified by the government. I believe that "hip hop" culture is certainly part of the problem.

 

[hyduK]

Yeah, because using the median is so great for this study. How about the mean?

 

[empty vessel]

This kind of makes me want to calculate my net worth... Pretty sure I am over $5 but probably not by much! :lol

I make a good living, and have done so for about 7 years, and my net worth is just now above zero. Student loans will do that. Socialized higher education is another great benefit of European welfare states that we lack here. And it makes a big difference, as the cost of higher education is a huge barrier to upward mobility. And then taking on those big loans has the perverse effect of coercing people to work in the corporate sector (instead of the public or non-profit sector) to pay the loans off. The whole game is rigged in the US. I resisted the coercion, which is why I am only now breaking even.

Culture can't and should not be unified by the government. I believe that "hip hop" culture is certainly part of the problem.

I don't think this relates in the least to what I said.

 

[grumble]

Yeah, because using the median is so great for this study. How about the mean?

Ideally they'd provide median, mean, mode, standard deviation, semideviation and trend analysis, combined with an explanatory paragraph of their interpretations. Maybe they do, actually. We're just reading a sensationalist forum topic based off of a sensationalist news article.

If there was one thing I'd like to see for this though, it's the median. Half above, half below. The mean will invariably be wonky due to income outliers.

I don't think that we're seeing the full story here. The subprime crisis hammered this demographic directly, which makes the data more interesting from an economic perspective than a racial one.

 

[JGS]

This kind of makes me want to calculate my net worth... Pretty sure I am over $5 but probably not by much! :lol

It can only depress you. I have pretty good net worth now, but soon I'm going to be building one of those ugly cheap McMansions (They're not really ugly but are very cookie cutter). The upgrades are going wipe out a chunk of cash plus my mortgage balance will be higher although the equity amount will be the same.

I really don't pay attention to net worth. It's a rich person's tool imo. This is why there is so much confusion with this study. By this study's assessment, the single black woman will improve her worth substantially just by being with a working man. However, this may not chnage the circumstances of life. Net savings is more important as I said previously.

 

[Flo_Evans]

I make a good living, and have done so for about 7 years, and my net worth is just now above zero. Student loans will do that. Socialized higher education is another great benefit of European welfare states that we lack here. And it makes a big difference, as the cost of higher education is a huge barrier to upward mobility. And then taking on those big loans has the perverse effect of coercing people to work in the corporate sector (instead of the public or non-profit sector) to pay the loans off. The whole game is rigged in the US. I resisted the coercion, which is why I am only now breaking even.

I never took out student loans (never went to college), bought a house last year that in theory should be worth more now than I paid for it, and own 1/3 of a successful business.

Pretty much comes down to how much my share of the business is worth.

 

[sciplore]

Ugh this study is so depressing to me but the findings are not surprising at all. It just saddens me that I know so many black woman that are still renting homes/apartments and paying off cars at the age of 50. Bad credit and poor basic budgeting skills run rampant in the woman of my family.

I wonder if there are any black women on this forum.

Missed us in that would you date a black girl thread?

 

[Zzoram]

Yeah, because using the median is so great for this study. How about the mean?

The median IS so great for this study. The mean can be horribly skewed by especially poor or rich people. The medium lets us know that HALF of black women in the prime of their career have a net worth of $5.

Poverty is strongly tied to success for a number of reasons. This effect hurts minorities more because being white means you are more likely to come from a family that's got some money, not necessarily rich, but not in crippling debt. This is in part due to a longer family history of building up wealth that is passed down generations (directly or indirectly), since not being a minority that was descriminated against or enslaved means more generations of building wealth.

That means more than just help paying for college. It means more stability at home due to less stress from money problems (money is the #1 stress on marriage). It could mean better clothes (not necessarily designer, but nice and new), the ability to go out to social dinners, participation in extra curricular sports/music starting at a young age, all things that help raise societal opinions of you, and affect your self esteem. Self esteem will affect your confidence in school, and low confidence could make otherwise smart kids give up on school.

 

[quickwhips]

so is this stating that most women don't own house because isn't that counted for you. Then its also stating that black women have more debt then white women? I'm not good at this stuff so correct me if im wrong.

 

[Enosh]

Missed us in that would you date a black girl thread?

there was a "would you date a black girl" thread? :lol

 

[Flo_Evans]

so is this stating that most women don't own house because isn't that counted for you. Then its also stating that black women have more debt then white women? I'm not good at this stuff so correct me if im wrong.

They may 'own' a home but have zero or negative equity in it.

 

[quaere]

Another factor is asian people are "model minorities". A racist would rather give a job to an asian than a black because of the differences in stereotype and the fact that animus against asians isn't as deep in this country.

Is the animus because of history or is it because of the present behavior of segments of the black community? Some of both, I think.

In some cases the white majority may in fact be more eager to promote the success of blacks over other minorities because of the shame of past discrimination. Higher education would be a clear example of this.

 

[Lv99 Slacker]

So, I think I caught most of today's airing of Democracy Now and the chief author of the report issued by The Insight Center for Community Economic Development, Mariko Lin Chang, and Executive Director of the Women of Color Policy Network, Nicole Mason were on and pretty much everything that's been brought up here by Hitokage, thetrin, lawblob, empty vessel, and ToxicAdam was covered. More shocking however was the following interview with guest, Michelle Alexander, author of the book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”. Some of the what Michelle discusses are topics that have been kicked around here in GAF for a long time, such as the impact of the War on Drugs on black communities, with the record imprisonment rate, because of sentencing differences between crack and cocaine users; a sort of continuation of the Jim Crow laws in creating a caste system, because of consequences of being branded as a felon and what this does for a newly released, former inmate's prospects for employment, housing, public assistance (i.e., food stamps), and enrollment to a post secondary educational institution. Most disturbing was when she was asked about the connections between the fact that a lot of prisons are built in rural, white communities, even though most of the inmates aren't local and non-white, Census data collection (the inmates are counted as local residents even though their right to vote as been revoked), redistricting for local government representation and...funding. Meanwhile, the communities that these inmates have been bused from can lose funding and representation due to population change.

Anyway, I didn't watch the whole interview with Michelle Alexander and probably only tuned in for the first 30min of the show, but I recommend that everybody check it out: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/12/stream

 

[Barrett2]

^ That sounds pretty interesting, i'll put it on my iPod for later. I had never thought about the impact of counting jail / prison populations for the county in which the jail / prison is located, and how that impacts distribution of tax money.

As far as drug laws, etc., I think the most eye-opening thing I have ever seen were a few random documentaries we watched in law school about systemic dysfunction in the criminal justice system. It was some of the most disturbing, Kafka-esque stuff I have ever seen. I wish I could remember what they were called.

 

[Davidion]

This kind of makes me want to calculate my net worth... Pretty sure I am over $5 but probably not by much! :lol

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9745956

Here you go!

I was also motivated to check my own net worth because of this thread; I shouldn't be so unhappy considering how much I'm in the green. :lol

My arm hurts a bit from reaching all the way over to my own back. :lol

 

[YoungHav]

Is the animus because of history or is it because of the present behavior of segments of the black community? Some of both, I think.

In some cases the white majority may in fact be more eager to promote the success of blacks over other minorities because of the shame of past discrimination. Higher education would be a clear example of this.

I think most of the animus is historical and it has snowballed into the latter. But seriously, why should the behavior of a segment of black people be representative of black people in general (in some people's minds)? I don't like the fact that the "one bad apple spoils the bunch" mentality, seems to only apply to black people in this country.

:lol during the election a Chinese man asked my girlfriend "why white people vote for black people?"... its shit like that man. The man was an immigrant and didn't speak much English. Now granted he may have had a bad experience with black people and if not, I'm sure he's heard a bad stereotype or two about blacks... but how/why the hell is any of that imputed to Obama, simply because he is also black? Black people are not zerglings, we are individuals also like anyone else. Rather than attribute bad behavior to class, some folks would rather just blame race and then act bewildered when they meet "one of the good ones".

 

[avatar299]

I make a good living, and have done so for about 7 years, and my net worth is just now above zero. Student loans will do that. Socialized higher education is another great benefit of European welfare states that we lack here. And it makes a big difference, as the cost of higher education is a huge barrier to upward mobility. And then taking on those big loans has the perverse effect of coercing people to work in the corporate sector (instead of the public or non-profit sector) to pay the loans off. The whole game is rigged in the US. I resisted the coercion, which is why I am only now breaking even.



I don't think this relates in the least to what I said.

I wonder if the young unemployed Europeans would agree with that

 

[Zzoram]

America isn't the only country with this issue. Canada has a welfare system, and it doesn't work. It's the best comparison due to similarity of culture, though there's less racism here.

Doesn't it?

Social support systems aren't going to make everyone rich, but it gives poor people a chance to move up in life by reducing some of the handicaps they start with by being born poor.

It increases the likelihood of hard working, smart people moving up and dumb, lazy people moving down.

 

[thebestjess]

im an idiot for dating QuadCore, arent i?

 

[Leunam]

well he is pretty dum

Did he tell you about this thread? :lol

 

[Seth C]

Hell, $5 is more than my current net worth and I'm a college educated 30 year-old white man.

 

[Kinitari]

im an idiot for dating QuadCore, arent i?

:lol This thread must be an embarrassing read.

 

[thebestjess]

:lol This thread must be an embarrassing read.

understatement of the year.

but i admit, i LOLed @ the "my best friend is black" comment.

 

[thebestjess]

well he is pretty dum

Did he tell you about this thread? :lol

awhile back. bookmarked it for a later time where i was bored enough to check it out. WOW.

 

[SolarPowered]

^ That sounds pretty interesting, i'll put it on my iPod for later. I had never thought about the impact of counting jail / prison populations for the county in which the jail / prison is located, and how that impacts distribution of tax money.

As far as drug laws, etc., I think the most eye-opening thing I have ever seen were a few random documentaries we watched in law school about systemic dysfunction in the criminal justice system. It was some of the most disturbing, Kafka-esque stuff I have ever seen. I wish I could remember what they were called.

It's no different than the 3/5th's scenario in the US a few hundred years back. It's a clear ploy by whoever is in charge to use the numbers of a systematically oppressed or manipulated population for their own political or financial gain.

It's been practiced all throughout history...that said, I have to check that podcast out.

 

[ronito]

im an idiot for dating QuadCore, arent i?

that and bumping this thread. Yes.

 

[empty vessel]

im an idiot for dating QuadCore, arent i?

For dating or for having dated? If it's any consolation (and it's not much anyway and you shouldn't take solace in it), depending on where you live, it isn't necessarily all that easy to find people with different opinions. They just typically don't have the opportunity to put those opinions on display in everyday conversation. That's what internet message boards are for!

that and bumping this thread. Yes.

Nah. It's closure of a sort. And kind of funny.

 

[vazel]

Haha I remember a factoid in Time magazine that black women make more than white women. I knew that couldn't be right. Or it shows how bullshit studies like this are when they conflict so wildly.

 

[thebestjess]

For dating or for having dated? If it's any consolation (and it's not much anyway and you shouldn't take solace in it), depending on where you live, it isn't necessarily all that easy to find people with different opinions. They just typically don't have the opportunity to put those opinions on display in everyday conversation. That's what internet message boards are for!



Nah. It's closure of a sort. And kind of funny.

for currently dating (year and a half just about.)

we live in tennessee. big surprise right?