Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The American Dream is over. America is no longer a meritocracy where through hard work you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make a future for you and your family.

America has never been a meritocracy. If you were white, male, rich, you started off way ahead of others.

If you are rich.

If you’re white and male and grew up in a hollow in east Kentucky you just die young and until recently probably from black lung… now from opioids or suicide. No one cares about them though because they’re “maga” and had “privilege”… the privilege to be born into a third world country hidden in plain sight.

I hear what you are saying…but it’s crazy how every politician just lies to this group over and over.

I wish someone would finally go on the record and just tell them…you have to move. Nobody is opening a factory here. There is no salvation for you…ever.

BTW, you don’t have to move that far and there are plenty of growing areas that share your politics…but nobody is ever saving rural WV or KY or MS…nobody.

That’s very true; historically people would move around this country for opportunities; certain segments of the population nowadays just won’t do that.

Anonymous wrote:Looking at data about people freed after being wrongly convicted of crimes is instructive here. Black people make up about 13% of the US population, but more than 50% of the poeple wrongly convicted of crimes who are later exonerated by DNA or other evidence. And that's just in cases where the system worked as designed. In the multiple studies of 15 large scale police scandals were people were framed on a large scale to further corrupt ends, the overwhelming majority of people wrongly convicted were Black.

https://repository.law.umich.edu/other/122/

Well, they generally commit > 50% of murders so that’s probably not surprising. People are conflating rates of arrest/suspension etc, with systemic issues. It’s only a bias if the rates of arrest differ from the rates of committing crimes, and those actually track very well. The FBI does a crime victimization survey which broadly tracks the races of people committing crimes; it matches very well with the proportion of people charged with crimes.

If you’re suggesting that arrests should mirror population proportions, then clearly the biggest issue is the bias against men. Men make up 50% of the population and are 97% of the people shot by police. Asians are arrested and charged at rates far lower than expected. The only explanation must be pro-woman and pro-Asian bias. It couldn’t possibly be differences in crime rates in those populations.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The American Dream is over. America is no longer a meritocracy where through hard work you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make a future for you and your family.

America has never been a meritocracy. If you were white, male, rich, you started off way ahead of others.

If you are rich.

If you’re white and male and grew up in a hollow in east Kentucky you just die young and until recently probably from black lung… now from opioids or suicide. No one cares about them though because they’re “maga” and had “privilege”… the privilege to be born into a third world country hidden in plain sight.

I hear what you are saying…but it’s crazy how every politician just lies to this group over and over.

I wish someone would finally go on the record and just tell them…you have to move. Nobody is opening a factory here. There is no salvation for you…ever.

BTW, you don’t have to move that far and there are plenty of growing areas that share your politics…but nobody is ever saving rural WV or KY or MS…nobody.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The American Dream is over. America is no longer a meritocracy where through hard work you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make a future for you and your family.

America has never been a meritocracy. If you were white, male, rich, you started off way ahead of others.

If you are rich.

If you’re white and male and grew up in a hollow in east Kentucky you just die young and until recently probably from black lung… now from opioids or suicide. No one cares about them though because they’re “maga” and had “privilege”… the privilege to be born into a third world country hidden in plain sight.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Admissions will get easier for the next decade. Come back in 2035 and people will be talking about Brown as a safety.

Just kidding. Mostly likely the T10 schools will continue to be just as selective, but below that, schools will be increasingly less selective to desperate for students.

Please.

More like the T100 will continue to be just as selective. If you think this is going to start making it easier for kids to get into schools like Georgetown, Vanderbilt, UNC, etc., you're kidding yourself.

Demographic changes will, though. There’s going to be a cliff fall in a few years that will reset this selectivity craziness. If only something would happen to cause the same in price.

Looking at data about people freed after being wrongly convicted of crimes is instructive here. Black people make up about 13% of the US population, but more than 50% of the poeple wrongly convicted of crimes who are later exonerated by DNA or other evidence. And that's just in cases where the system worked as designed. In the multiple studies of 15 large scale police scandals were people were framed on a large scale to further corrupt ends, the overwhelming majority of people wrongly convicted were Black.

https://repository.law.umich.edu/other/122/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The American Dream is over. America is no longer a meritocracy where through hard work you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make a future for you and your family.

America has never been a meritocracy. If you were white, male, rich, you started off way ahead of others.

Then how did Asian women end up ahead of white men in terms of income? And Asian men are higher than that.

The current working generation of Asians had fairly poor parents.

Is it possible that it's still a meritocracy (more or less) but you just don't have as much merit as you think?

I'm white, and if this "starting out way ahead because I'm white" business is true, I am still trying to figure out how Barack Obama, Tyler Perry, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan and countless other black millionaires/billionaires passed me so easily??? Hmmm - drawing a blank...unless perhaps...they earned it (meritocracy)?

Oh wow, haven’t seen this argument since back when people thought we solved racism with Obama’s presidency. Including Michael Jordan, an athlete, is pretty weird.

Denying systemic racist factors that do exist because there are people who succeed is weirder.

Including MJ is weird?? Why?? He outworked nearly everyone he competed against. He took his natural talents and his Herculean work ethic and transformed himself into the greatest player in the history of the sport. Talk about merit! And speaking of the NBA, it seems to be quite the meritocracy - it is a mostly black league. Why is that? It's because they happen to be the best players in the world - that's why.

Being so hyper-focused on explaining everything away under the all encompassing aegis of "systemic racism" is lazy, intentionally deceptive and flat out wrong. "Classism" is probably more to blame for all of these perceived ills than anything. A poor white kid from Appalachia has the same chance at success in life as a poor black kid from the inner city - not good . It's not a white/black problem - it's a money problem.

Not lazy at all. It’s taking an opinion backed by copious amounts of research and data. Talking about success solely on the tail end of a race is pretty damn lazy, however.

Give me a break - there is no legitimate research out there today that has proven systemic racism is anything other than left wing fantasy.

There are literal mountains of evidence of systemic racism, a huge percentage which was paid for by police departments. Their research found that Black people are more likely to be stopped (less so at night, when cops can't see their race), more likely to be searched (despite being slightly less likely to have drugs or weapons), more likely to be charged than whites based on similar facts, more likely to be found guilty based on similar evidence, more likely to be imprisoned that whites with similar convictions, likely to be imprisioned longer than whites with similar convictions, and less likely to be paroled than whites with similar records. Reseach of lifestyle crime enforcement has consistently shown that no matter the justification for enforcement efforts like jaywalking or bike violation ticketing, the focus is likely to be minority neighborhoods, even when the goal is to reduce traffic deaths in a specific downtown business area or a wealthy suburb. Here's an article that summarizes some of this research: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/opinions/systemic-racism-police-evidence-criminal-justice-system/#Policing

In education, Black kids are more likely to be suspended or expelled for the exact same behaviors that white kids are given a pass for. And this is by both Black and white teachers -- i.e. it's SYSTEMIC more than it's personal.

Of course, honest people don't actually need to read all this evidence. Any adult alive today knows about redlining, sundown towns, the US government's herculean effort to promote segregation in previously unsegregated areas when building federal housing in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and all of the other seeds of today's engineered inequality. Anyone who has lived in a city like DC or Cleveland or countless other cities where highways and parks and other geographical devices were built to separate white residents from black residents can see it. Anyone who knows anything about towns like Fergeson where the city government decided to finanace lower property taxes for wealthy whites with a complex, opaque, and punitive system of fines overwhelmingly levied on Black citizens can see it.

Claiming not to see it is the exact equivalent of looking at Musk's Nazi salute or Trump doubling down on calling for the execution of 5 Black kids after they were proven innocent and claiming you don't see racism.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The American Dream is over. America is no longer a meritocracy where through hard work you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make a future for you and your family.

America has never been a meritocracy. If you were white, male, rich, you started off way ahead of others.

Then how did Asian women end up ahead of white men in terms of income? And Asian men are higher than that.

The current working generation of Asians had fairly poor parents.

Is it possible that it's still a meritocracy (more or less) but you just don't have as much merit as you think?

I'm white, and if this "starting out way ahead because I'm white" business is true, I am still trying to figure out how Barack Obama, Tyler Perry, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan and countless other black millionaires/billionaires passed me so easily??? Hmmm - drawing a blank...unless perhaps...they earned it (meritocracy)?

Oh wow, haven’t seen this argument since back when people thought we solved racism with Obama’s presidency. Including Michael Jordan, an athlete, is pretty weird.

Denying systemic racist factors that do exist because there are people who succeed is weirder.

Including MJ is weird?? Why?? He outworked nearly everyone he competed against. He took his natural talents and his Herculean work ethic and transformed himself into the greatest player in the history of the sport. Talk about merit! And speaking of the NBA, it seems to be quite the meritocracy - it is a mostly black league. Why is that? It's because they happen to be the best players in the world - that's why.

Being so hyper-focused on explaining everything away under the all encompassing aegis of "systemic racism" is lazy, intentionally deceptive and flat out wrong. "Classism" is probably more to blame for all of these perceived ills than anything. A poor white kid from Appalachia has the same chance at success in life as a poor black kid from the inner city - not good . It's not a white/black problem - it's a money problem.

Not lazy at all. It’s taking an opinion backed by copious amounts of research and data. Talking about success solely on the tail end of a race is pretty damn lazy, however.

Give me a break - there is no legitimate research out there today that has proven systemic racism is anything other than left wing fantasy.

This is definitely true If you say it blindly...
https://guides.library.illinoisstate.edu/systemic_racism/statistics
https://library.usfca.edu/statistics-and-data/racial-discrimination
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8688641/
https://libguides.lib.umt.edu/ResourcesAgainstRacism/Data
https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/191/9/1521/6631584
Read up, it's good to be educated.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The American Dream is over. America is no longer a meritocracy where through hard work you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make a future for you and your family.

America has never been a meritocracy. If you were white, male, rich, you started off way ahead of others.

Then how did Asian women end up ahead of white men in terms of income? And Asian men are higher than that.

The current working generation of Asians had fairly poor parents.

Is it possible that it's still a meritocracy (more or less) but you just don't have as much merit as you think?

I'm white, and if this "starting out way ahead because I'm white" business is true, I am still trying to figure out how Barack Obama, Tyler Perry, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan and countless other black millionaires/billionaires passed me so easily??? Hmmm - drawing a blank...unless perhaps...they earned it (meritocracy)?

Oh wow, haven’t seen this argument since back when people thought we solved racism with Obama’s presidency. Including Michael Jordan, an athlete, is pretty weird.

Denying systemic racist factors that do exist because there are people who succeed is weirder.

Including MJ is weird?? Why?? He outworked nearly everyone he competed against. He took his natural talents and his Herculean work ethic and transformed himself into the greatest player in the history of the sport. Talk about merit! And speaking of the NBA, it seems to be quite the meritocracy - it is a mostly black league. Why is that? It's because they happen to be the best players in the world - that's why.

Being so hyper-focused on explaining everything away under the all encompassing aegis of "systemic racism" is lazy, intentionally deceptive and flat out wrong. "Classism" is probably more to blame for all of these perceived ills than anything. A poor white kid from Appalachia has the same chance at success in life as a poor black kid from the inner city - not good . It's not a white/black problem - it's a money problem.

Not lazy at all. It’s taking an opinion backed by copious amounts of research and data. Talking about success solely on the tail end of a race is pretty damn lazy, however.

Give me a break - there is no legitimate research out there today that has proven systemic racism is anything other than left wing fantasy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The American Dream is over. America is no longer a meritocracy where through hard work you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make a future for you and your family.

America has never been a meritocracy. If you were white, male, rich, you started off way ahead of others.

Then how did Asian women end up ahead of white men in terms of income? And Asian men are higher than that.

The current working generation of Asians had fairly poor parents.

Is it possible that it's still a meritocracy (more or less) but you just don't have as much merit as you think?

I'm white, and if this "starting out way ahead because I'm white" business is true, I am still trying to figure out how Barack Obama, Tyler Perry, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan and countless other black millionaires/billionaires passed me so easily??? Hmmm - drawing a blank...unless perhaps...they earned it (meritocracy)?

Oh wow, haven’t seen this argument since back when people thought we solved racism with Obama’s presidency. Including Michael Jordan, an athlete, is pretty weird.

Denying systemic racist factors that do exist because there are people who succeed is weirder.

Including MJ is weird?? Why?? He outworked nearly everyone he competed against. He took his natural talents and his Herculean work ethic and transformed himself into the greatest player in the history of the sport. Talk about merit! And speaking of the NBA, it seems to be quite the meritocracy - it is a mostly black league. Why is that? It's because they happen to be the best players in the world - that's why.

Being so hyper-focused on explaining everything away under the all encompassing aegis of "systemic racism" is lazy, intentionally deceptive and flat out wrong. "Classism" is probably more to blame for all of these perceived ills than anything. A poor white kid from Appalachia has the same chance at success in life as a poor black kid from the inner city - not good . It's not a white/black problem - it's a money problem.

Not lazy at all. It’s taking an opinion backed by copious amounts of research and data. Talking about success solely on the tail end of a race is pretty damn lazy, however.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The American Dream is over. America is no longer a meritocracy where through hard work you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make a future for you and your family.

America has never been a meritocracy. If you were white, male, rich, you started off way ahead of others.

Then how did Asian women end up ahead of white men in terms of income? And Asian men are higher than that.

The current working generation of Asians had fairly poor parents.

Is it possible that it's still a meritocracy (more or less) but you just don't have as much merit as you think?

I'm white, and if this "starting out way ahead because I'm white" business is true, I am still trying to figure out how Barack Obama, Tyler Perry, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan and countless other black millionaires/billionaires passed me so easily??? Hmmm - drawing a blank...unless perhaps...they earned it (meritocracy)?

Oh wow, haven’t seen this argument since back when people thought we solved racism with Obama’s presidency. Including Michael Jordan, an athlete, is pretty weird.

Denying systemic racist factors that do exist because there are people who succeed is weirder.

Including MJ is weird?? Why?? He outworked nearly everyone he competed against. He took his natural talents and his Herculean work ethic and transformed himself into the greatest player in the history of the sport. Talk about merit! And speaking of the NBA, it seems to be quite the meritocracy - it is a mostly black league. Why is that? It's because they happen to be the best players in the world - that's why.

Being so hyper-focused on explaining everything away under the all encompassing aegis of "systemic racism" is lazy, intentionally deceptive and flat out wrong. "Classism" is probably more to blame for all of these perceived ills than anything. A poor white kid from Appalachia has the same chance at success in life as a poor black kid from the inner city - not good . It's not a white/black problem - it's a money problem.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The American Dream is over. America is no longer a meritocracy where through hard work you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make a future for you and your family.

Baloney. I work with (legal status) refugees where they come not knowing the language, plucked out of refugee camps where they have never even seen a cell phone contract or bill. Within 5-10 years all of my families have managed to buy a house, kids are fluent and being educated, everyone is working and getting by even with lower paying jobs.

You do realize that things are changing, right? You’re talking about the past. Any thoughts that you would care to share about the future? I’m assuming you understand at least a little bit about the Big Bill that was passed in Congress recently. If not, carry on, and I hope things continue to work out well for the families that you work with.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pricing out the donut hole family. Got it. It just sucks to be us in every way, shape, and form.

Not poor enough to get FA, but not rich enough to front $30k every year for 4 yrs for in state tuition, and feeling bummed about the frugality and tons of sacrifices over the decades to just to fund 529s, retirement, and general monthly expenses.

YEP. The "regular" families get screwed over and over, including for college. We are living this right now.

100% THIS !

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The American Dream is over. America is no longer a meritocracy where through hard work you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make a future for you and your family.

America has never been a meritocracy. If you were white, male, rich, you started off way ahead of others.

Then how did Asian women end up ahead of white men in terms of income? And Asian men are higher than that.

The current working generation of Asians had fairly poor parents.

Is it possible that it's still a meritocracy (more or less) but you just don't have as much merit as you think?

Pretty wrong. Many came from upper middle class or wealthy Chinese and Indian families.

There are also many children of Nigerian and Caribbean island families who do very well in this country, in addition to Asian kids. And there are gazillions of white kids who are stuck in generational poverty. The systemic racism charge grows more tired with each passing year. It's not 1925.

Your point? Those Nigerian and Caribbean families are also pretty wealthy or coming from privileged households- that’s how our immigration system works. We don’t bring in random immigrants who aren’t going to succeed in our country; and when we do, we deport them and call them terrible things (looking at the Haitian community…)

Thank you for saying this about the Haitian community, people really have their heads in the sand thinking that the bigotry and discrimination of 1925 is not alive and well in many places. People could have pointed to Madame CJ Walker in 1925 and said the same thing folks say now about Oprah (“how can there be a problem if Madame CJ Walker is a millionaire”)
As if you can’t have exceptions or success stories while also still having a systemic problem.