Ogie Oglethorpe wrote:
What if I told you race played a role, but the larger picture was more based upon household starting point? I mean figures such as if it's a 2 parent household (not to say single parents can't do it), parent education level, etc. I would say if you break down the statistics via those measures you get the full picture.
Take children in a black household with 2 educated parents and that child will likely have a better outcome than the white child with divorced parents who have a GED.
I'm not going to discount that race doesn't play a role, as it certainly does. I'm just saying that simplifying it down to race is ignoring other factors at hand. We can certainly agree that race will play a role in things such as school discipline as we certainly know our schools are not evenhanded there, neither is our justice system. We know that a white child and black child in trouble for the same exact thing won't be punished equivalently in most cases and yes that is a problem.
Parent education level. I totally agree, the level of education your parents have reached has a tremendous impact on the level of education that children of those parents will attain, the level of net worth of those children, their physical health, etc. Education level of parents is one of the best indicators of the education level that the children of those parents will attain.
You realize that up until about 50 year ago all higher education was essentially closed off to black people. You realize this right? I honestly don't think you do.
You realize that up until about 50 years ago any semblance of any K-16 education for any person of color in the south was essentially non-existent. You realize this right? I honestly don't think you do.
You realize that up until about, call it 15 years ago (and it still might be going on now) essentially every major metropolitan city had some form or another of "school bussing" programs because of how disproportionately educational resources were bring spent on children of differing ethnicity. You realize this right? I honestly don't think you do.
I can do a post contrasting the environment in the United States over the past 200+ years as it pertains to fostering two parent households as a stable and steadying influence when comparing black families and white families. I'm hoping that you can figure that one out for yourself though. I mean the years from 1776 through 1865 should be a layup even for someone lacking the knowledge that you clearly do.