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Pistonhead
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27 Oct 2010, 1:06 am

Okay agreed, there are some very talented actors and a talk show host along with members of the cabinet in the multi-million dollar arena but we could probably add up Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp, Ellen Degeneres and all the white stars in their class and we'd probably have a shocking white to black ratio.


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AngelRho
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27 Oct 2010, 1:08 am

Pistonhead wrote:
Now the question is how do you get into a socioeconomic class? Is there some variable like possibly race that determines likelihood of acquiring social and financial status?


Well, obviously you have the soc-ec class you're born into, which you have no control over. The kids I used to work with did not have a concept of actually overcoming circumstance.

But the truth is you DO have control over these things to a large degree. I was born into a lower-middle class family. We held our own, but not affluent by any means. My wife and I struggled together to maintain a certain lifestyle, but then we were caught by circumstance ourselves and have yet to find ourselves in any kind of situation where we can really do anything about it.

In other words, sh!t happens, and thus class and lifestyle are not guarantees of the life you're born into. That doesn't mean we have to resign ourselves to circumstance, though. I'm doing what I do because it allows me to independently work on realizing a lifelong dream of mine, and so far things are going well. For all I know, you might be seeing my name in Hollywood film credits as the composer in the next year or two, or I might go back to school for a doctorate and teach college for the rest of my life.

I don't want to get into religion HERE, but I also see it as a test of faith, doing what I'm MEANT to do or at the very least reevaluating what I've been doing all along. I mentioned my brief 3-year teaching career in public schools (the latter two years I talk about, the first one I don't). Being a teacher was never my dream, just something I was technically qualified and licensed to do. But the classroom is not the place for me, and the aspie thing certainly doesn't help in that arena. So I think being ejected from education after moving to a private school for two years was the final straw for me, and I'm making good progress doing what I do now.

The main point is that the "minority" students I worked with may have been caught as victims of circumstance, but by no means do they have to STAY that way. That was a battle I faced every day that I taught them, and I count my greatest victory the ONE student who actually listened and believed me. The problem is that they aren't surrounded by enough adults who can convince them enough that they are in the prime of their academic lives while they're still kids, and going to college is just another way to see the world. I may not agree with affirmative action, but they ARE at an advantage in that they can get preferential treatment to attend pretty much any public university ANYWHERE, practically a free ride. They have a chance to get up to speed with what they don't know or what they're high school teachers couldn't/wouldn't teach them. So they have no legit excuse if they are relegated to a lifetime of poverty. If they chose to remain victims of circumstance, it is their own fault if they do. And I've already said what I feel about the role of schools and parents in this matter.

My personal experience is such that I've fallen victim to circumstance, but I've responded by making a business out of what I do while pursuing my real interests. Students often learn best by example, and the example they often see with their peers, parents, and relatives is that they give up. And I'm not going to say it's right for whites to hate them for it. But you can't really blame the rest of society for looking down on a culture that they see as going down the wrong path and blaming others for what they do to themselves. Yes, I blame my former employer for letting me go, but it does no good to dwell on it. Same goes for anyone without regard for race, ethnicity, skin color, or other circumstance.



TeaEarlGreyHot
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27 Oct 2010, 1:52 am

auntblabby wrote:
Pistonhead wrote:
Now the question is how do you get into a socioeconomic class? Is there some variable like possibly race that determines likelihood of acquiring social and financial status?


strictly the luck of the draw. you need to get the right genes, the right timing, the right place, the right family. it ALL has to gell from the get go, or else it's just zip.


I don't really agree. Statistics support the idea that the percentage of poor black folks is a lot higher than the percentage of poor white folks. Same with other minority groups.

Minorities that are born into a lower socio-economic class are less likely to go up a class than white folks are.


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auntblabby
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27 Oct 2010, 1:53 am

TeaEarlGreyHot wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
Pistonhead wrote:
Now the question is how do you get into a socioeconomic class? Is there some variable like possibly race that determines likelihood of acquiring social and financial status?


strictly the luck of the draw. you need to get the right genes, the right timing, the right place, the right family. it ALL has to gell from the get go, or else it's just zip.


I don't really agree. Statistics support the idea that the percentage of poor black folks is a lot higher than the percentage of poor white folks. Same with other minority groups.

Minorities that are born into a lower socio-economic class are less likely to go up a class than white folks are.


you just reinforced my point.



b9
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27 Oct 2010, 5:06 am

in the beginning, i think that white people thought black people were dirty.
they did not understand that black people had more melanin in their skin to cope with their tropical environments of origin, and they thought that black people were just filthy and unwashed.

i remember reading somewhere that when australian aboriginals were originally sought to be indoctrinated into our world, that ladies felt that if a black person slept in a bed with nice white sheets, that they would soil them.

i remember reading that some aborigines were forced to take a bath with bleach in it, and their skin was rubbed raw by people who thought they could clean them with a good scrub.

i believe that the original basis of racism was because white people thought black people were very dirty, and that was why they were black.

---------------------------------

apparently, australian aboriginals and american indians are genetically the least intelligent races of humans. some of the books i read that i "borrowed" from the shelf of my psychiatrist had information that would be censored in the modern world.

i read that the average IQ of an american indian was 79, and an australian aboriginal was 81.

negroes were said to have n average IQ of 94.

i do not endorse or refute what i read.
-------------------------------

if colored people have an IQ that is less than white people, then maybe it is because they evolved in environments where food was abundantly available, and all they had to do was catch it.

white people may have evolved in colder climates where food was scarce, and they had to develop the tool of intelligence to trap food and cultivate it.

if the environment that one lives in provides plentiful nutrition, then there is no evolutionary need to think very hard about how to reap it.

if the environment that one lives in is sparse and barren, then it requires planning and design in order to secure enough nutrition to prevail.

---------------

anyway, i have no differentiation in my attitude toward black or brown or white people. they all seem smart to me.



iamnotaparakeet
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27 Oct 2010, 6:59 am

auntblabby wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
TeaEarlGreyHot wrote:
Another key factor is the areas in which these people come from. They are not born with the same advantages and often become stuck.


What advantages are those? I'm white and I wasn't born into wealth and neither were most people that I've ever known born into wealth nor had advantages from birth.


this shows that the meta-issue is more about socioeconomic class, and less about race per se. people in the lower class need to band together as a united front and not be so insipidly contentious.


In what manner can a united front help? A petition for equality in welfare programs perhaps? It would certainly help with my wife and me right now.



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27 Oct 2010, 8:51 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Orwell wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Orwell wrote:
Quote:
Regarding black students and poorly-run schools: The problem I experienced while teaching was that administrators were only REALLY worried about their own paychecks.

OK. You're still missing the point: these schools suck. It is not the students' fault that they live in a crappy school district, but that abysmal educational system will deny them the opportunities they need to move up out of poverty.


As long as the educational system is more concerned with meeting demographic criteria rather than educating their students this cannot change.

These are mostly public school districts we're talking about, so I have no idea what "demographic criteria" you imagine they're trying to meet. They take whoever lives in their zip code.


So many special ed students to qualify for this or that taxation benefit regardless of whether they belong there. So many of these people in this program, so many of those people in that program, etc. It's a number game for pencil pushers at a desk job.


As a parent of a special ed kid, I have no idea what you are talking about. Kids go to the districts they live in. If, through an IEP, it's decided that the student should attend a special school, this school is private and funded by the child's home district. Maybe I'm just confused about your point.



iamnotaparakeet
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27 Oct 2010, 9:00 am

number5 wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Orwell wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Orwell wrote:
Quote:
Regarding black students and poorly-run schools: The problem I experienced while teaching was that administrators were only REALLY worried about their own paychecks.

OK. You're still missing the point: these schools suck. It is not the students' fault that they live in a crappy school district, but that abysmal educational system will deny them the opportunities they need to move up out of poverty.


As long as the educational system is more concerned with meeting demographic criteria rather than educating their students this cannot change.

These are mostly public school districts we're talking about, so I have no idea what "demographic criteria" you imagine they're trying to meet. They take whoever lives in their zip code.


So many special ed students to qualify for this or that taxation benefit regardless of whether they belong there. So many of these people in this program, so many of those people in that program, etc. It's a number game for pencil pushers at a desk job.


As a parent of a special ed kid, I have no idea what you are talking about. Kids go to the districts they live in. If, through an IEP, it's decided that the student should attend a special school, this school is private and funded by the child's home district. Maybe I'm just confused about your point.


I'm not saying that there aren't students who fit into this program, however it is just like a mental hospital with regard to admittance - regardless of voluntary admission or not, once in they try to hold you in a death grip so as to leach all the money possible upon account of having you in their programs.



number5
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27 Oct 2010, 9:20 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
number5 wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Orwell wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Orwell wrote:
Quote:
Regarding black students and poorly-run schools: The problem I experienced while teaching was that administrators were only REALLY worried about their own paychecks.

OK. You're still missing the point: these schools suck. It is not the students' fault that they live in a crappy school district, but that abysmal educational system will deny them the opportunities they need to move up out of poverty.


As long as the educational system is more concerned with meeting demographic criteria rather than educating their students this cannot change.

These are mostly public school districts we're talking about, so I have no idea what "demographic criteria" you imagine they're trying to meet. They take whoever lives in their zip code.


So many special ed students to qualify for this or that taxation benefit regardless of whether they belong there. So many of these people in this program, so many of those people in that program, etc. It's a number game for pencil pushers at a desk job.


As a parent of a special ed kid, I have no idea what you are talking about. Kids go to the districts they live in. If, through an IEP, it's decided that the student should attend a special school, this school is private and funded by the child's home district. Maybe I'm just confused about your point.


I'm not saying that there aren't students who fit into this program, however it is just like a mental hospital with regard to admittance - regardless of voluntary admission or not, once in they try to hold you in a death grip so as to leach all the money possible upon account of having you in their programs.


OK, now I see what you are talking about, but it doesn't really work this way anymore. Schools are not getting any additional funding these days for special ed kids. If anything, the opposite problem of schools denying services to kids with special needs via declassification is occuring. Budgets are tight accross the board and there is no money to leach out. Every last cent received for special ed is spent on special ed, and then some. Heck, my special ed kid doesn't even get a bus.



iamnotaparakeet
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27 Oct 2010, 9:24 am

number5 wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
number5 wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Orwell wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Orwell wrote:
Quote:
Regarding black students and poorly-run schools: The problem I experienced while teaching was that administrators were only REALLY worried about their own paychecks.

OK. You're still missing the point: these schools suck. It is not the students' fault that they live in a crappy school district, but that abysmal educational system will deny them the opportunities they need to move up out of poverty.


As long as the educational system is more concerned with meeting demographic criteria rather than educating their students this cannot change.

These are mostly public school districts we're talking about, so I have no idea what "demographic criteria" you imagine they're trying to meet. They take whoever lives in their zip code.


So many special ed students to qualify for this or that taxation benefit regardless of whether they belong there. So many of these people in this program, so many of those people in that program, etc. It's a number game for pencil pushers at a desk job.


As a parent of a special ed kid, I have no idea what you are talking about. Kids go to the districts they live in. If, through an IEP, it's decided that the student should attend a special school, this school is private and funded by the child's home district. Maybe I'm just confused about your point.


I'm not saying that there aren't students who fit into this program, however it is just like a mental hospital with regard to admittance - regardless of voluntary admission or not, once in they try to hold you in a death grip so as to leach all the money possible upon account of having you in their programs.


OK, now I see what you are talking about, but it doesn't really work this way anymore. Schools are not getting any additional funding these days for special ed kids. If anything, the opposite problem of schools denying services to kids with special needs via declassification is occuring. Budgets are tight accross the board and there is no money to leach out. Every last cent received for special ed is spent on special ed, and then some. Heck, my special ed kid doesn't even get a bus.


Ah, perhaps I'm a decade out of date with the shenanigans.



AngelRho
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27 Oct 2010, 11:58 am

TeaEarlGreyHot wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
Pistonhead wrote:
Now the question is how do you get into a socioeconomic class? Is there some variable like possibly race that determines likelihood of acquiring social and financial status?


strictly the luck of the draw. you need to get the right genes, the right timing, the right place, the right family. it ALL has to gell from the get go, or else it's just zip.


I don't really agree. Statistics support the idea that the percentage of poor black folks is a lot higher than the percentage of poor white folks. Same with other minority groups.

Minorities that are born into a lower socio-economic class are less likely to go up a class than white folks are.


So true. I've written TOO MUCH about my opinions on minorities already. So why do YOU think that is?

To summarize everything I've said, I think it's because of the messages they are getting within their own culture. What I've generally observed is that those, even born to young, single parents, tend to perform better and achieve more and actually TRY to reach goals IF their mothers and grandmothers send the message throughout their lives that they actually CAN do those things. Would you agree that more blacks would be "high achievers" and escape class boundaries if more of them were getting this message as children? Or is it something else?



TeaEarlGreyHot
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27 Oct 2010, 12:19 pm

AngelRho wrote:
TeaEarlGreyHot wrote:

I don't really agree. Statistics support the idea that the percentage of poor black folks is a lot higher than the percentage of poor white folks. Same with other minority groups.

Minorities that are born into a lower socio-economic class are less likely to go up a class than white folks are.


So true. I've written TOO MUCH about my opinions on minorities already. So why do YOU think that is?

To summarize everything I've said, I think it's because of the messages they are getting within their own culture. What I've generally observed is that those, even born to young, single parents, tend to perform better and achieve more and actually TRY to reach goals IF their mothers and grandmothers send the message throughout their lives that they actually CAN do those things. Would you agree that more blacks would be "high achievers" and escape class boundaries if more of them were getting this message as children? Or is it something else?


That's definitely a huge factor. It's not the only factor, though.


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27 Oct 2010, 1:03 pm

b9 wrote:
apparently, australian aboriginals and american indians are genetically the least intelligent races of humans. some of the books i read that i "borrowed" from the shelf of my psychiatrist had information that would be censored in the modern world.

i read that the average IQ of an american indian was 79, and an australian aboriginal was 81.

negroes were said to have n average IQ of 94.

i do not endorse or refute what i read.

well, a lot of the IQ testing was historically very culturally biased, so it stops being a fair test of anything at all across different cultures. some of this has improved with more culturally-sensitive tests, but there is still a problem.

case in point - when i taught students on a first nations reserve (indian reservation) from 2003 to 2007, the majority of my students had never ridden on an elevator. they lived an hour's drive on a gravel road from the closest village, so the chances of them experiencing anything urban was quite remote.

the standradized tests of the day asked a math question about elevators. since these students had no experience with multifloor buildings, they had no frame of reference for the question. the students who did a lot of reading or watched a lot of popular media could reason it out, but the majority could not.

wealthier, educated, urban and suburban families with educated parents have certain advantages that are passed down to the children. a family that places a higher value on art, culture and literature (for example) will help their children to become more well-rounded and better-educated, and these students will perform better in school. the well-rounded students will also have more background knowledge to perform better on IQ tests.

yes, both white and minority families may be poor or uneducated, but if the rates of education of black (or native) parents is quite low compared to white families, then the children will often have the same disadvantages passed down. this situation is changing and it will continue to improve with intervention, but it is important to understand that the disadvantages of minorities are not caused by internal deficiencies but by external social factors.


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27 Oct 2010, 3:04 pm

[quote="b9"

apparently, australian aboriginals and american indians are genetically the least intelligent races of humans. some of the books i read that i "borrowed" from the shelf of my psychiatrist had information that would be censored in the modern world.

[/quote]

Really? Consider what the Cherokee accomplished. When their tribal mode was threatened by the whites they quickly adapted property ownership and the tribal chief invented an alphabet suitable for the Cherokee language.

Look at what the Aztecs and the Maya had before the Spaniards came. They developed positional notation for arithmetic hundreds of years before that came to Europe. The Aztec and the Maya used base 20 arithmetic. Apparently they also counted their toes. The astronomy of the Aztecs at the time the Cortez come to the New World was better than that of Europe.

ruveyn



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27 Oct 2010, 4:49 pm

ruveyn wrote:
The astronomy of the Aztecs at the time the Cortez come to the New World was better than that of Europe.

ruveyn


Actually, that would also be the Mayans.



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27 Oct 2010, 6:35 pm

Quote:
ruveyn wrote:
[quote="b9"

apparently, australian aboriginals and american indians are genetically the least intelligent races of humans. some of the books i read that i "borrowed" from the shelf of my psychiatrist had information that would be censored in the modern world.



Really? Consider what the Cherokee accomplished. When their tribal mode was threatened by the whites they quickly adapted property ownership and the tribal chief invented an alphabet suitable for the Cherokee language.

Look at what the Aztecs and the Maya had before the Spaniards came. They developed positional notation for arithmetic hundreds of years before that came to Europe. The Aztec and the Maya used base 20 arithmetic. Apparently they also counted their toes. The astronomy of the Aztecs at the time the Cortez come to the New World was better than that of Europe.

ruveyn
[/quote]

One of those books he borrowed may have been The Bell Curve. I think that was their line. It all just goes to show the follishness of IQ tests.
Quote: