NationStates Jolt Archive

I read this article yesterday and thought it raises a lot of issues worth discussing. I quoted them, making this post fairly long, because I know a lot of people won't bother clicking on the link.

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11326407
Nearer to overcoming

Barack Obama's success shows that the ceiling has risen for African-Americans. But many are still too close to the floor

WHEN Roland Fryer was about 15, a friend asked him what he would be doing when he was 30. He said he would probably be dead. It was a reasonable prediction. At the time, he was hanging out with a gang and selling drugs on the side. Young black men in that line of work seldom live long. But Mr Fryer survived. At 30, he won tenure as an economics professor at Harvard. That was four months ago.

Mr Fryer's parents split up when he was very young. His father was a maths teacher who went off the rails: young Roland once had to borrow money to bail him out of jail. His great-aunt and great-uncle ran a crack business: young Roland would watch them cook cocaine powder into rocks of crack in a frying pan in the kitchen. Several of his relatives went to prison. But Mr Fryer backed away from a life of crime and won a sports scholarship to the University of Texas. He found he enjoyed studying, and was rather good at it. By the time he was 25, the president of Harvard was hectoring him to join the faculty.

Mr Fryer now applies his supple mind to the touchy, tangled issue of racial inequality. Why are African-Americans so much less prosperous than whites? Why do so many black children flounder in school? Why do so many young black men languish behind bars? Why are stories like Mr Fryer's considered so surprising?

[...]

Life for the average African-American has also improved remarkably. The median black household income has risen from $22,300 (in 2006 dollars) in 1967 to $32,100 in 2006. Black life expectancy has soared from 34 in 1900 to 73 today. Most blacks today are middle class.

Yes, say the pessimists, but the gap between what blacks and whites earn and what they learn, which narrowed steadily between the 1940s and the late 1980s, has more or less frozen since then. Blacks' median household income is still only 63% of whites'. Academically, black children at 17 perform no better than a white 13-year-old. Blacks die, on average, five years earlier than whites. And though the black middle class has grown immensely, many blacks are still stuck in crime-scorched, nearly jobless ghettos.

What ails black America? Public debate falls between two poles. Some academics and most civil-rights activists stress the role played by racial discrimination. It may no longer be overt, they argue, but it is still widespread and severe. Julian Bond of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People reckons that racism is still “epidemic” in America.

Black conservatives, while never denying that racism persists, think it much less severe than before and no longer the main obstacle to black advancement. Bill Cosby, a veteran comedian, tours the country urging blacks to concentrate on improving themselves: to study hard, to work hard and—especially—to shun the culture of despair that grips the ghetto.

[...]

Mr Fryer eschews histrionics in favour of hard data. He is obsessed with education, which he calls “the civil-rights battleground of the 21st century”. Why do blacks lag behind whites in school? Mr Fryer is prepared to test even the most taboo proposition. Are blacks genetically predisposed to be less intelligent than whites? With a collaborator from the University of Chicago, Mr Fryer debunked this idea. Granted, blacks score worse than whites on intelligence tests. But Mr Fryer looked at data from new tests on very young children. At eight months to a year, he found almost no racial gap, and that gap disappeared entirely when he added controls for such things as low birth weight.

[...]

He looked at a large sample of public-school children who were asked to name their friends. To correct for kids exaggerating their own popularity, he counted a friendship as real only if both parties named each other. He found that for white pupils, the higher their grades, the more popular they were. But blacks with good grades had fewer black friends than their mediocre peers. In other words, studiousness is stigmatised among black schoolchildren. It would be hard to imagine a more crippling cultural norm.

[...]

A study by Richard Sander of the University of California, Los Angeles, found that when the bar is lowered for black applicants to law school, they are admitted to institutions where they cannot cope. Many who drop out of top-tier colleges might have thrived at slightly less competitive ones. Mr Sander calculated that the net effect of pro-black preferences was actually to reduce the number of blacks who passed the bar exam. That is, racial preferences for black law students result in fewer black lawyers. John McWhorter, the author of “Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America”, argues that lowering the bar for blacks also reduces their incentive to excel at school. “As long as black students have to do only so well, they will do only so well,” he says.

[...]

That said, blacks certainly face barriers in the job market. Two economists, Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, sent out 5,000 replies to job advertisements in Boston and Chicago. Each fictitious applicant was randomly assigned either a black-sounding name, such as Jamal or Lakisha, or a white one, such as Emily or Greg. For every ten jobs the “whites” applied for, they were offered one interview. The “blacks” had to post 15 letters to elicit the same response. Clearly, some managers are racist. But many are not. And many firms are desperate to hire and promote blacks, if only to avoid lawsuits.

[...]

Even when blacks earn as much as whites, the whites are typically far wealthier. In 2000 the average white household in the bottom fifth of income-earners had net assets of $24,000. The figure for blacks was a piffling $57. Whites in the middle fifth were five times wealthier than their black counterparts.

Partly this is because whites inherit more. But it is also because of different approaches to investment. Blacks are more likely to put their money in the bank, notes Mr Fryer. Whites are more likely to invest in shares, which generate higher returns. Compound this over a couple of generations and the effect is colossal.

[...]

Is the state racist? Those who think so often point to the criminal-justice system. A startling 11% of black males aged 20-34 are behind bars. Overall, black men are seven times more likely to be incarcerated than white men. Until recently, sentences for crack offenders (who are mostly black) were much harsher than those for powder-cocaine offenders (mostly white). Ex-convicts in several states are barred from voting, a penalty that deters no crime but signals to wrongdoers that they can never be full citizens again. “We are becoming a nation of jailers, and racist jailers at that,” reckons Glenn Loury, an economist.

Not so, says Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think-tank. Blacks are more likely to be jailed because they commit more crimes, she argues. In 2005 the black murder rate was seven times higher than that for whites and Latinos combined. Harsh crack laws account only for a smidgeon of the disparity in incarceration rates. In 2006 blacks were 37.5% of state prisoners; exclude drug offenders and that figure drops to 37%. And since black criminals' victims are mostly black, some argue that locking more of them up has saved many black lives.

[...]

Yet many blacks feel alienated in a way that is “vastly disproportionate to real-life stimulus,” frets Mr McWhorter. When New Orleans flooded, some speculated that the government had blown up the levees. Even cooler heads believed that the botched response stemmed from George Bush's indifference to black suffering.

Alienation has consequences. Amid the revolutionary fervour of the 1960s, says Mr McWhorter, many blacks learned that “America's racism rendered it unworthy of any self-regarding black person's embrace and that therefore blacks were exempt from mainstream standards of conduct.” The conventional wisdom about ghettos—best expressed in William Julius Wilson's book “When Work Disappears”—is that inner cities decayed because factories moved away. But the jobs often moved only a couple of bus rides away. Noting that millions of blacks moved halfway across the country to find work during the “great migration” in the early 20th century, Mr McWhorter wonders why so many of their descendants failed to follow suit.

[...]

Yet many African-Americans are intensely gloomy. In a poll last year, only 44% said they expected life for blacks to get better, down from 57% in 1986. The subprime mortgage crisis, which will cost many black families their homes this year, will surely deepen the gloom.

Some blacks contend that racism has simply gone underground. Ellis Cose, a journalist, once wrote that even middle-class blacks suffer constant subtle racial slights, and that these are so distressing that they “are in the end most of what life is”. Other blacks think he exaggerates. Sometimes, says Mr McWhorter, the assistant trailing you in a store is just trying to sell you something.

[...]

So where do you think black people stand in the US? Is it racism, is it culture? Is there a problem, or is the correlation between race and level of achievement purely coincidental? Would Obama's election change anything (from the same issue, The Economist (http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11332201) also writes about race and the election)?

snip of complex and nuanced discourse on race

Only one living black man has the courage, humility, and intellect to speak on this issue.

Uncle Ruckus.

And Uncle Rucksus says, don't trust them new n*****s over there.

I read this article yesterday and thought it raises a lot of issues worth discussing. I quoted them, making this post fairly long, because I know a lot of people won't bother clicking on the link.

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11326407

I'll admit I didn't read the article, even when you quoted it inline.

It's the Economist. It takes a stance on ANY issue in terms of how society complies with modern economic theory. Which is to say, it's almost always wrong! :p

I read a great, admittedly, cartoon on this and it put it somewhat like this, just with pictures..and probably better writing...and probably completely different to my interpretation, but there you go, we're not all perfect.

Anyway...

Take about 1, 000 white males from, say, Ohio and send them over to Africa to be slaves in a household over there. Take care to rape their women, whip them if they're lazy, ensure they know they're inferior by separating them in terms of facilities and don't, Good Lord don't, give them any real education. Oh, and send them out to the fields to pick yams all day.

Free them after about, say 100 years, but they can't go back to America, because you've ravaged that land into destruction and war, and they can't vote either, or use the same facilities or education...but they're 'free'. Ensure the African population knows that they are superior in every way and give them license to treat those Ohioans like dirt.

Carry on for about 200 years more and then give them some voting rights.

See if they can be as successful as the native population in 40 years.

Can't prove this of course but if anyone from Ohio, or any other state, the South might be preferable, wants to volunteer, let us know.

I read a great, admittedly, cartoon on this and it put it somewhat like this, just with pictures..and probably better writing...and probably completely different to my interpretation, but there you go, we're not all perfect.

Anyway...

Take about 1, 000 white males from, say, Ohio and send them over to Africa to be slaves in a household over there. Take care to rape their women, whip them if they're lazy, ensure they know they're inferior by separating them in terms of facilities and don't, Good Lord don't, give them any real education. Oh, and send them out to the fields to pick yams all day.

Free them after about, say 100 years, but they can't go back to America, because you've ravaged that land into destruction and war, and they can't vote either, or use the same facilities or education...but they're 'free'. Ensure the African population knows that they are superior in every way and give them license to treat those Ohioans like dirt.

Carry on for about 200 years more and then give them some voting rights.

See if they can be as successful as the native population in 40 years.

Can't prove this of course but if anyone from Ohio, or any other state, the South might be preferable, wants to volunteer, let us know.

Strawman.

Ohioans can't dance.

Seriously Neu, damn you and your capitalist sources, please for once post a remotely unbiased source.

Seriously Neu, damn you and your capitalist sources, please for once post a remotely unbiased source.

Yeah, even the headline was bullshit.

"Blacks are too close to the floor."

Well fucking duh, they can't float.

Except for Sammy Davis Jr, but he was a Jew, probably got so smooth via Kabbalistic sorcery.

Strawman.

Ohioans can't dance.

Dammit, that's the last time they fail me!

*rips the heart from Ohio*

Dammit, that's the last time they fail me!

*rips the heart from Ohio*

What's more, the entire parallel fails fundamentally.

If you were to send white people to africa as slaves, within a matter of years they would have outwitted and conquered their "masters" and risen to their natural and rightful place enthroned at the head of all social, political, and economic power.

And any black smart enough to impede them would, by definition, be smart enough to be grateful for white guidance.

Thats what my Uncle Ruckus told me, and he has no reason to lie because he's a black himself. Or as he calls it, a "rim stealing monkey".

it is a mixture of both. what happened in the past stems affects to day as blacks in the Us have less inherited capital. there is also a modern culture issue. A large number of young black men seem to think doing what a white person says is the worst thing they could do. Even if said white person is a teacher.
Dr Cosby provides the best viewed I've seen on this in awhile
http://archive.southcoasttoday.com/daily/06-04/06-02-04/a13op244.htm

What's more, the entire parallel fails fundamentally.

If you were to send white people to africa as slaves, within a matter of years they would have outwitted and conquered their "masters" and risen to their natural and rightful place enthroned at the head of all social, political, and economic power.

And any black smart enough to impede them would, by definition, be smart enough to be grateful for white guidance.

Thats what my Uncle Ruckus told me, and he has no reason to lie because he's a black himself. Or as he calls it, a "rim stealing monkey".

I didn't say white people, I said Ohioans, we're talking about white people from Ohio, who couldn't outwit a rabbit that walks on hind legs and has a propensity for dressing up as a female.

it is a mixture of both. what happened in the past stems affects to day as blacks in the Us have less inherited capital. there is also a modern culture issue. A large number of young black men seem to think doing what a white person says is the worst thing they could do. Even if said white person is a teacher.
Dr Cosby provides the best viewed I've seen on this in awhile
http://archive.southcoasttoday.com/daily/06-04/06-02-04/a13op244.htm

That's why whites are superiors.

Or maybe I'm thinking of Cyborgs....highly advanced, silver colored cyborgs.

Silver is the most white.

I didn't say white people, I said Ohioans, we're talking about white people from Ohio, who couldn't outwit a rabbit that walks on hind legs and has a propensity for dressing up as a female.

Yes. Yes, that was a rabbit.

Because I wouldn't put on a bra with a couple of oranges in it, and a wig I found behind FoodWay, and some clothes I shoplifted from Lane Bryant, and tease a bald man with a speech impediment as a way to cope with my own shortcomings.

Anyway, Ohio isn't just caucasians, there are plenty of rim monkeys in Ohio.

That's why whites are superiors.

Or maybe I'm thinking of Cyborgs....highly advanced, silver colored cyborgs.

Silver is the most white.

don't get me wrong the culture is partly a reaction to the past. But if we are not able to to apply the educational principles of http://www.myconfinedspace.com/watermark.php?src=wp-content/uploads/2006/04/wwadr1s.jpg

then all Americans black and white will be left behind.

don't get me wrong the culture is partly a reaction to the past. But if we are not able to to apply the educational principles of http://www.myconfinedspace.com/watermark.php?src=wp-content/uploads/2006/04/wwadr1s.jpg

then all Americans black and white will be left behind.

I lived in Japan, and the only thing they really have going for them is that they are secretly building a working Voltron underneath mount Fuji.

Bruce Campbell is going to drive it for them.

At first, the world will rejoice as they stomp North Korea, then China...then, the applause will taper off as they kick the piss out of Mongolia, Nepal, and Russia...we will all look on in silence as they trash Eastern Europe, then Regular Europe...

By the time they are squatting a torrent of radioactive robopiss onto New York, there will be only screams.

Why is there no "all of the above" button???
I mean Black American Culture as it is spread around the world (rappers with chain bling shooting pregnant men & women, smoking weed and drinking alcohol, pimping women and beating them) is a DISGRACE!!!
There used to be times where it was different and there was still a voice of emancipation. And now when Black americans have same rights as any other USA citizen they are the only ones who can emancipate themselves!
Of course in the past action could be quite radical but HELL IT IS STILL BETTER THAN A STUPID RAPPER ON TV FILLIN' HIS POCKET WITH VIOLENT DOG EAT DOG PROPAGANDA!!! And remember yesterdays revolutionaries are todays ruling caste.

And finally: F*** TUPAC SHAKUR! USELESS WHEN HE WAS ALIVE! USELESS NOW HE'S DEAD!!! NEVER DID NO SHIT FOR THE COMMUNITY!!! YOU CALL THAT CULTURE??? I CALL IT BULLSHIT!!! BUT THEN AGAIN I THINK MAYBE HE'S A GOOD EXAMPLE OF AMERICAN CULTURE! IN FACT RATHER SEE HIM AS A HISTORICAL DOCUMENT OF YEARS OF USELESS BULLSHIT CULTURE!
CULTURE? LOL!
*the finally thing is something I just had to spit out*
*srsly! at least ché guevara died for a cause (Jesus too but he kind of resurrected which is not really fair towards other martyrs)*

Why is there no "all of the above" button???
I mean Black American Culture as it is spread around the world (rappers with chain bling shooting pregnant men & women, smoking weed and drinking alcohol, pimping women and beating them) is a DISGRACE!!!
There used to be times where it was different and there was still a voice of emancipation. And now when Black americans have same rights as any other USA citizen they are the only ones who can emancipate themselves!
Of course in the past action could be quite radical but HELL IT IS STILL BETTER THAN A STUPID RAPPER ON TV FILLIN' HIS POCKET WITH VIOLENT DOG EAT DOG PROPAGANDA!!! And remember yesterdays revolutionaries are todays ruling caste.

And finally: F*** TUPAC SHAKUR! USELESS WHEN HE WAS ALIVE! USELESS NOW HE'S DEAD!!! NEVER DID NO SHIT FOR THE COMMUNITY!!! YOU CALL THAT CULTURE??? I CALL IT BULLSHIT!!! BUT THEN AGAIN I THINK MAYBE HE'S A GOOD EXAMPLE OF AMERICAN CULTURE! IN FACT RATHER SEE HIM AS A HISTORICAL DOCUMENT OF YEARS OF USELESS BULLSHIT CULTURE!
CULTURE? LOL!
*the finally thing is something I just had to spit out*
*srsly! at least ché guevara died for a cause (Jesus too but he kind of resurrected which is not really fair towards other martyrs)*

Fuck Tu-? Fuck Tupa-? Are you mad? Insane? Clinically touched?

Tupac Shakur was awesome in Romeo Must Die, and you are a trick ass mark if you....wait, Tupac...no, I'm thinking of Aaliyah, my bad.

...rappers with chain bling shooting pregnant men...
Right, let's get back to civilised discourse then, shall we.

And as a side note, I don't like the "all of the above option", because it makes the answers so obvious as to require no thought at all, and hence no debate.

Right, let's get back to civilised discourse then, shall we.

It DID exceed the reasonable limits of a jest, by a few hundred words. : |

And as a side note, I don't like the "all of the above option", because it makes the answers so obvious as to require no thought at all, and hence no debate.

You might want to include it in future.

Consider: would you rather that air-heads vote in your poll, or post to your thread .?

If you give them a big button to push, marked "I am an idiot" ... they won't be quite so determined to prove it by posting.

...rappers with chain bling shooting pregnant men...
Right, let's get back to civilised discourse then, shall we.


REMEMBER B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls)
He looked quite pregnant (probably of quintuplets or even sextuplets!) to me!
(#)We'll always love big poppa!(#)

Why is there no "all of the above" button?

Like NL said, it's up to you to give your opinion. If that doesn't fit inside the options of the poll, you should use words to say so.

I mean Black American Culture as it is spread around the world (rappers with chain bling shooting pregnant men & women, smoking weed and drinking alcohol, pimping women and beating them)

Crap. I live on the other side of the world, and the black americans I am most aware of are (a) Condolezza Rice, (b) Barack Obama, (c) Oprah Winfrey, and (d) Colin Powell.

I'm vaguely aware of "rappers" but couldn't name one off the top of my head. I guess my education is lacking in Music Video content. Tragic eh.

... is a DISGRACE!!!

You might want to look at the recording music industry, and their promotion of whatever is available as "rebellion music," then the equally worthless "morally pure" music they promote the next year.

If you would judge black americans by their Pop Music Stars, and call their "culture" only what you can buy in the shop ... it's time to stop sucking the corporate arse. Really.

It's the Economist. It takes a stance on ANY issue in terms of how society complies with modern economic theory. Which is to say, it's almost always wrong! :p
Well, sometimes it does that, though you'd rarely find an article that you come out of thinking "this recommendation is flat-out wrong". They usually include caveats where appropriate.

This article is of course merely a range of statistics describing the current situation and giving credence where valid to both views. It basically let's us make our own minds up.

Seriously Neu, damn you and your capitalist sources, please for once post a remotely unbiased source.
http://www.isreview.org/issues/57/feat-reconstruction.shtml

Of course, this particular source doesn't actually cover the alternative/Bill Cosby view for the reasons behind the current issues, nor does it cover the right time period. It's the price you pay for unbiased and balanced reporting.

Of course, if you can find a better source that covers the topic of the thread, feel free.

Dr Cosby provides the best viewed I've seen on this in awhile
Well, your article makes a different point to the one you seem to make, but in general I think I tend more towards the Cosby idea.

While there are differences in pay and hiring rates for black men (moreso than women, apparently) which are likely to be systemic, that is hardly a reason why black people should be doing worse in school or collect less net wealth. So I tend to think that while racism does exist and should be ended, there's probably not a whole lot to gain from blaming it for the problems that can be seen today.

Bump? Maybe?

Don't know, don't care. I'm not into state enforced philanthropy. Private charity and philanthropy is a wonderful, morally enriching endeavour, but to allow the state to fulfil this fucntion is to permit it to exceed its mandate and make unnecessary morally subjective decisions.

It's the Economist. It takes a stance on ANY issue in terms of how society complies with modern economic theory. Which is to say, it's almost always wrong! :p

No it doesn't, that's complete bullshit.

Seriously Neu, damn you and your capitalist sources, please for once post a remotely unbiased source.

It would seem that irony, to you, is a bit like goldy and bronzy, only made of iron.

snip

If you were looking for the sniper smiley, it's there on the right.

Don't know, don't care. I'm not into state enforced philanthropy. Private charity and philanthropy is a wonderful, morally enriching endeavour, but to allow the state to fulfil this fucntion is to permit it to exceed its mandate and make unnecessary morally subjective decisions.
Except, of course, when this philantropic states decides to fund your university education.

Except, of course, when this philantropic states decides to fund your university education.

Not really. Providing a high level of education ought to be a necessity for any administration. Making morally subjective decisions on behalf of an electorate who, as a majority, do not want you in office, is not.

morally subjective decisions.

And how is the decision not to act not morally subjective?

Not really. Providing a high level of education ought to be a necessity for any administration.
And I could quite happily claim that providing a high standard of living or access to health care free at point of use ought to be a nesessity for any administration. It's no more or less subjective than provision for education.

Making morally subjective decisions on behalf of an electorate who, as a majority, do not want you in office, is not.
Well, both Congress and Bush were elected, and so are all US state governments. What other mandate do they need?

He looked at a large sample of public-school children who were asked to name their friends. To correct for kids exaggerating their own popularity, he counted a friendship as real only if both parties named each other. He found that for white pupils, the higher their grades, the more popular they were. But blacks with good grades had fewer black friends than their mediocre peers. In other words, studiousness is stigmatised among black schoolchildren. It would be hard to imagine a more crippling cultural norm.Is he still talking about very young children here?

A study by Richard Sander of the University of California, Los Angeles, found that when the bar is lowered for black applicants to law school, they are admitted to institutions where they cannot cope. Many who drop out of top-tier colleges might have thrived at slightly less competitive ones. Mr Sander calculated that the net effect of pro-black preferences was actually to reduce the number of blacks who passed the bar exam. That is, racial preferences for black law students result in fewer black lawyers. John McWhorter, the author of “Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America”, argues that lowering the bar for blacks also reduces their incentive to excel at school. “As long as black students have to do only so well, they will do only so well,” he says.This paragraph seems to contradict itself. If blacks do not benefit from lower standards, then why would they thrive at "less competitive" schools? I suppose the schools could be less competitive for reasons other than their standards, but usually top-tier is thought to mean higher standards.

This paragraph seems to contradict itself. If blacks do not benefit from lower standards, then why would they thrive at "less competitive" schools? I suppose the schools could be less competitive for reasons other than their standards, but usually top-tier is thought to mean higher standards.

You misunderstand. The argument is that blacks do not benefit from relatively lower standards, such as those brought about by affirmative action--standards lower than those for others applying to the same school.

Of course, the trouble is that the black graduation rate is lower than the white graduation rate across the board--and admission to selective colleges may actually improve this problem.

Is he still talking about very young children here?
Here's the paper in question: http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/fryer_torelli.pdf
The survey covers a sample of more than 90,000 junior high and high school students from 175 schools in 80 communities around the US.

This paragraph seems to contradict itself. If blacks do not benefit from lower standards, then why would they thrive at "less competitive" schools? I suppose the schools could be less competitive for reasons other than their standards, but usually top-tier is thought to mean higher standards.
It refers to standards of entry. If I get into Harvard because I'm black if I hadn't otherwise, I'm more likely to be unable to cope with the work and drop out. Much better to be admitted into a school fair and square and being almost certain to be able to deal with the coursework.

You misunderstand. The argument is that blacks do not benefit from relatively lower standards, such as those brought about by affirmative action--standards lower than those for others applying to the same school.As far as I knew, affirmative action did not create lower standards for blacks.

Here's the paper in question: http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/fryer_torelli.pdfWell, I suppose if he has empirical data then I shouldn't overgeneralize based on my personal experience, but still, I'm skeptical.

It refers to standards of entry. If I get into Harvard because I'm black if I hadn't otherwise, I'm more likely to be unable to cope with the work and drop out. Much better to be admitted into a school fair and square and being almost certain to be able to deal with the coursework.*shrug* I suppose the paragraph was worded differently than I would have thought it should be worded, if this is what it was trying to say.

As far as I knew, affirmative action did not create lower standards for blacks.
http://www.law.ucla.edu/sander/Systemic/final/SanderFINAL.pdf
Here is that particular paper. The conclusion is the part to look for, down the very end.

If I get into Harvard because I'm black if I hadn't otherwise, I'm more likely to be unable to cope with the work and drop out. Much better to be admitted into a school fair and square and being almost certain to be able to deal with the coursework.

As usual, this argument depends on false assumptions about the nature of affirmative action. If you "get into Harvard", whatever "race" you are, you already meet basic qualifications. You can handle the coursework.

The trouble is that Harvard gets a very large number of such applicants--more than it could ever accept. So it uses various means to narrow the pool. Race is a factor at this point. But only then.

As usual, this argument depends on false assumptions about the nature of affirmative action. If you "get into Harvard", whatever "race" you are, you already meet basic qualifications. You can handle the coursework.

The trouble is that Harvard gets a very large number of such applicants--more than it could ever accept. So it uses various means to narrow the pool. Race is a factor at this point. But only then.

That's not what the study says. According to it, between six and seven hundred black students accepted to accredited schools are below the standard requirements but boosted above the level because of the way this particular system works.

As usual, this argument depends on false assumptions about the nature of affirmative action. If you "get into Harvard", whatever "race" you are, you already meet basic qualifications. You can handle the coursework.
The conclusion from the article:
CONCLUSION

I began this Article with a simple question: does affirmative action, as practiced by American law schools, clearly help blacks more than it hurts them? Although I started this project with serious doubts about some things law schools were doing, the answer to the big question turned out to be far less ambiguous than I would have imagined possible. Law school admissions preferences impose enormous costs on blacks and create relatively minor benefits. By looking at law schools systemically, we can see patterns and larger consequences that would be invisible or speculative if we looked at any one school or group of schools in isolation. As it is, the key features of the current system seem very clear.

For blacks, there are two primary benefits of affirmative action. First, black students widely have the opportunity to attend significantly more elite schools than do white peers with similar credentials. Preferences boost students up the hierarchy of 184 schools by 20 to 50 steps, sometimes more; a very large majority of black students accept these opportunities and attend schools that used preferences to admit them. Second, the system as a whole leads to the admission of an additional five or six hundred black students—about one-seventh of the annual total—who would not otherwise be admitted to any accredited school. Cutting against these benefits are six major costs of the current system of racial preferences.

1. Black students as a whole are at a substantial academic disadvantage when they attend schools that used preferences to admit them.292 As a consequence, they perform poorly as a group throughout law school. The median GPA of all black students at the end of the first year of law school lies roughly at the sixth percentile of the white grade distribution. Put differently, close to half of black students end up in the bottom tenth of their classes. This performance gap is entirely attributable to preferences; none of it seems to be attributable to race per se.

2. The clustering of black students near the bottom of the grade distribution produces substantially higher attrition rates. Entering black law students are 135% more likely than white students to not get a law degree. Part of this is the effect of low grades on academically strong black students who would have easily graduated from less competitive schools; part of this is the effect of high attrition among the five or six hundred academically weak black students admitted to the low-prestige law schools. But again, virtually all of the black-white gap seems attributable to preferences; virtually none of it seems attributable to race or to any correlate of race (such as income).

3. Generally low grades among blacks have even larger effects on bar performance. Blacks are nearly six times as likely as whites to not pass state bar exams after multiple attempts. The difference, again, is mostly attributable to preferences. Half of the black-white bar passage gap is traceable to the effects of blacks with good credentials getting low grades at higher-prestige schools; nearly a quarter is due to low-prestige schools admitting blacks with lower credentials than almost any of the other students in the system.

4. When blacks pass the bar and enter the job market, they encounter a generally positive climate. Blacks earn 6% to 9% more early in their careers than do whites seeking similar jobs with similar credentials, presumably because many employers (including government employers) pursue moderate racial preferences in hiring. Nonetheless, affirmative action by schools hurts blacks in the job market more than it helps. The data in Part VII suggests that employers weigh law school grades far more heavily in evaluating job candidates than most legal academics have assumed. Law school racial preferences give blacks fancier degrees, but also systematically lower their GPAs. For at least two-thirds of black law graduates, the harm preferences do to a student’s grades greatly outweighs the benefit derived from the more prestigious degree. Only black students graduating from the top ten law schools even arguably derive net benefits from this trade-off. Racial preferences therefore have not been an indispensable part of credentialing blacks for the job market; overall, they clearly end up shutting more doors than they open.

5. In 2001, about 86% of all black students who attended accredited American law schools would have been eligible for admission at one or more law schools in the total absence of racial preferences. System-wide, racial preferences expand the pool of blacks in law school by only 14%. These 14%—about five to six hundred students admitted to low-prestige schools—have very low academic credentials and face long odds against becoming lawyers. Only a fifth of this group finishes law school and passes the bar on their first attempt; fewer than a third become lawyers after multiple attempts at taking the bar.

6. When one takes into account the corrosive effects of racial preferences on the chances of all black law students to graduate and pass the bar, these preferences probably tend, system-wide, to shrink rather than expand the total number of new black lawyers each year. If all preferences were abolished, the data in Part VIII suggests that the number of black attorneys emerging from the class of 2004 would be 7% larger than it is. The number of black attorneys passing the bar on their first attempt would be 20% larger. These numbers are simply estimates, resting on the assumptions I have detailed; but even if the attrition effects of the current system were much smaller than I have estimated, we would still be producing approximately the same number—and much better trained—black attorneys under a race-blind system.

These are simply the direct, easily quantifiable effects of law school racial preferences. I have said nothing about the stigma of preferences, about the effect of low grades on student esteem, about the life consequences for hundreds of young blacks each year who invest years of effort and thousands in expense but never become lawyers, or about the loss to communities that could be served by black lawyers but are not because racial preferences have had the effect in recent years of reducing our annual output of qualified black attorneys.

So where do you think black people stand in the US?

In the back.
I shouldn't even have to leave a disclaimer. Seriously folks...
If they know their place.

Crap. I live on the other side of the world, and the black americans I am most aware of are (a) Condolezza Rice, (b) Barack Obama, (c) Oprah Winfrey, and (d) Colin Powell.
Same here but except for Oprah Winfrey for as far as I know they are not even part of Black American Culture.

I'm vaguely aware of "rappers" but couldn't name one off the top of my head. I guess my education is lacking in Music Video content. Tragic eh.
I dunno that many of them neither but I've got sisters who used to listen to that crap and on the radio they tend to play it as well

You might want to look at the recording music industry, and their promotion of whatever is available as "rebellion music," then the equally worthless "morally pure" music they promote the next year.

If you would judge black americans by their Pop Music Stars, and call their "culture" only what you can buy in the shop ... it's time to stop sucking the corporate arse. Really.
Duuh! of course! Pop music sucks and numbens minds. But what I hate about lots of tha gangsta crap you get on TV is that it is a kind of propaganda for the terrible lifestyle in the ghetto's and they try to portray it as something good. And most of those gangsta rappers you see on TV (*excuse me* probably all of them) don't even live in "the hood", but live comfortable lives full of luxury. How do you expect people in the ghetto to strive for better better lifestyle and truly emancipate themselves from mental slavery if in their social circle "gangsta"-lifestyle is seen as something cool thus having ambition, striving for better lifestyle and opening up to the world outside is seen as uncool. Really! It's a pitty!
Now I must relativate this by saying that this kind of peer pressure has always existed in modern society and always will but what I hate in this case is that it is stimulated. I don't mind rebellion as long as the message is positive in any sense: towards your own emancipation, re-establishing society, expressing yourself. This is rebellion supporting communities ruled by pimps and drugsdealers! They might as well defend feudal society. There is no way I would ever want to defend that! or are they going to say the same thing as what catholics in Europe from the middle ages up to the early 20th century have been saying "Oh! But it's the most natural system".
We're in the 21st century and feudalism is outdated! (Even though there are still forms of it here and there all over the world.) The only difference between the "ghetto-fabulous" society inside the ghetto that these rappers praise and feudal society is the lack of (inheritable) nobility titles!

Anyway: this is not a post to analyse/generalise the whole Black American society as a whole. And I'm not saying Black American culture is only gangsta rap. Of course there is more than that: there is still gospel, soul and the whole Harlem Renaissance and so forth and so on as this is only a small fraction of it.
It is just my perspective of "Gangsta".Though I'm not condemning anyone for enjoying gangsta-rap as I can't condemn anyone from whatever music s/he likes but I do condemn it's content and especially the commercialisation of it. Today gangsta rap is rather a praise to ghetto-life from safe hollywood suburbia than a critical voice from within. Wow! I had never imagined how hard it was to survive in the suburbs of Hollywood!
I do feel bad though for rappers who sincerely try to spread a positive message.