Whoopi Goldberg: Holocaust Wasn't About Race

So, the system?

If racism explains the negative disparities for blacks, what explains the positive disparities for Jews and Asians?

That's what I'm saying. Let's say it can't be racism. What is it?

Cultural. Biological.

So Blacks are culturally and/or biologically...what?

Less inclined to the behaviors that lead to success.

Goldberg is not wrong to point out that Jews can often avoid victimization by being white-passing in appearance. Nor is it unfair to say that Blacks and Indigenous peoples have had a worse shake historically, in North America, than Jews and Asians. These are factors in the relative success rates of these groups, in addition to what @Paladin is saying.

The problem is this business of trying to quantify everyone's misery according to their group, and trying to classify some people as needy and others not so much. The endgame of this thinking is to treat people as individuals, whose privileges and needs differ at the level of their person, so why not just do that?

Isn't that another way of saying inferior?

Not inferior. Culturally different.

Oh my god, this is exactly what I was trying to say when @Bailey and @Man Afraid of his Shoes was asking me about supposed systemic racism. This is what I was thinking, but couldn't find the words for it.

Culturally different in a way that makes them less successful, but not inferior?

Sure. Australian aborigines (as a culture) aren't going to be building microchips anytime soon, but that doesn't make them inferior.

Are you saying we should judge people by the content of their character and not by they're skin color?

Well said.

So if it's because of culture, but it's not about inferiority....

Which, to be clear, is not necessarily their fault. History matters and I don't believe in free will. But correcting a problem begins with being honest about the nature of it.

Would you agree that many Asian cultures place a priority on educational success?

Do you think that would matter? Not just in an individual, but in the aggregate?

Might that cultural aspect result in better economic outcomes?

I'm not using any judgmental language here.

We all are what we are. We are born into the culture we are born into.

Of course, we are all also free-thinking individuals and can evaluate our cultural norms and priorities and consider whether they are beneficial or not.

Absolutely. But do White Americans and Black Americans share the same educational culture? if not, is THAT why predominantly black schools get less funding than predominantly white schools?

Anti-Semitism is an ugly thing.

Yes an no. In many places they share the same institutions and similar access. But are their cultural priorities (in the aggregate) with regard to education exactly the same?

You mean like the funding of predominantly black schools vs. the funding of predominantly white schools? Is that disparity because Blacks have different cultural priorities? For instance, when Whites and Blacks actually do share the same institutions and similar access, Blacks to better than when they don't. Bussing worked.

It's not clear that the funding makes the difference.

Suppose blacks (as a group) value living in a community with other blacks (who have similar cultural preferences) and place less emphasis on educational achievement, their communities might be less inclined to affluence. Since education is often locally funded, that may in turn result in lower funding. Lower funding may be the effect, not the cause.

https://www.chalkbeat.org/2019/8/13...e-money-for-schools-helps-low-income-studentshttps://www.chalkbeat.org/2019/8/13...e-money-for-schools-helps-low-income-students

Then how would you explain the disparity that exists within the same locality?

I'd need an example.

Educational funding absolutely matters. And where @Paladin and I probably differ is that I think more funds should absolutely be dropped on poor and minority neighbors, financed by higher taxes on the rich.

But where this argument falls short, is that it doesn't account for how Asian families are also living in those shithole school districts when they're fresh off the boat and starting out. Still they succeed. Why is that?

Chicago?

I don't know. How many Asians go to predominantly Black schools?