Trouble?
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Google “race in evaluating names in resumes” for lots of interesting results in studies of how many interview requests were received for identical resumes with Africanized names vs Anglocized names.
One related interesting result comes up with that search: a woman who received no job interviews until she used a man’s name on her resumes.
Your posts are always nicely thought out and logical. Same with @benshawks08 and @wissox. Thank you all for being on the front lines.
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Sorry bud but names are a DIRECT REFLECTION on IQ! If I moved to a foreign country and planned to stay there I’d name my child a name that would help guarantee he/she would be seen as a part of the culture. If you want to buck the culture then deal with the consequences of that and STFU! A smart person does what they can to help their child succeed. Naming your child a stupid name is exactly that, STUPID!
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@BigBad When you’re having a baby at age 15 do you think you’re equipped to give a baby a good name? Not all of my kids were born to young mothers, but a lot were. Just a tip, when you type STFU it really detracts from whatever kind of point you were trying to make.
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Doomed to my low IQ life as “Dan, Dan, the Drywall Man” by birth, I’ve often wished my parents had named me something that would reflect my potential IQ, like Terrance, Srinivasa, or Nikola, or Lebron… but no, they didn’t want to buck the culture.
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I’ve got a lot to say about this since public policy & education are my areas of expertise, but I’ll try to stay brief. No promises though!
As we ask why, like @HighEliteMajor says we have to do, the answers to this are very complicated. The state has pretty consistently botched creating equality of opportunity in this country, sometimes intentionally, sometimes with the best of intentions. Just a few examples. Jim Crow obviously was the kind of de jure segregation and oppression nobody should find acceptable in a liberal society. As the SCOTUS ruled in 1954, separate cannot be equal. Even today, by some measures school systems are as segregated as they were right after Brown. We know that integration efforts worked at first, especially in the South. After busing declined and the federal government stepped back in the 80’s (arguably betraying the mission of Brown), segregation increased.
Why is this important? Schools that are predominantly minority are generally worse than schools that are predominantly white. And school quality has a strong, causal relationship with future market and non-market outcomes. See the evaluation of the Perry Preschool program and the reams of studies evaluating charter schools as examples.
Pre-Brown, state and local governments intentionally underfunded school districts that were majority minority. As an example, (and to @Texas-Hawk-10’s point) Texas only spent 83 cents on each black kid for every dollar they spent on whites in 1960. Why? Racism. What happened post-Brown? Magically, funding equalized among schools. Not really magically (it was because legislatures didn’t want white kids to have to go to the old, decaying black schools). The other major piece is that higher quality teachers tend to work in wealthier districts. The district could be better at recruiting, offer a different quality of life, or other factors like rich kids being easier to teach than poor ones. Also to @Texas-Hawk-10’s point, across the country, poor & minority students receive about 2% more funding than their wealthier counterparts, though it’s pretty unlikely that’s enough to bridge the actual gap in terms of costs.
Since schools are residentially assigned here in the U.S., controlling who gets to live where has a strong relationship with school quality. As one of the primary channels through which any given individual’s opportunity in life is determined, this becomes very important. If we look at data on home ownership and lending, we see that blacks have historically faced severe discrimination in ability to receive mortgages and even if they were able to get a loan, many whites wouldn’t sell homes to blacks in good neighborhoods, a set of practices called redlining. Many whites who were dead broke could receive credit where middle- to upper-income blacks couldn’t ever get a similar loan.
This meant many blacks who would move couldn’t and were stuck in a bad neighborhood and possibly a bad school. In addition, blacks weren’t able to access the capital necessary to develop their own neighborhoods. This kind of hopelessness led to many of the societal ills that still exist there. Put simply, the channels to success that exist for whites exist to less of an extent for blacks.
But racism wasn’t the only culprit. I’m a libertarian so I’ll keep dumping on the state In response to this concentrated poverty (that the government in large part created) they tried to fix it with the War on Poverty and related efforts. Some of the programs were effective (SS and Medicare greatly reduced senior poverty, but have severe issues with solvency, thanks Boomers). One major program was AFDC, a means tested cash benefits program for families who had a male in the house who was unable to work for whatever reason. The program was started in the 30’s, but black women weren’t allowed to access it until the 60’s! Crazy. The program was wrought with administrative issues as well. It discouraged marriage since benefits could be cut if a beneficiary married someone with higher income. This drives some of the increase in out of wedlock births among those with low income (who are more likely to be black.) In addition, the phaseout of benefits was very sharp, which discouraged anyone to work since the marginal tax rate (when including lost benefits) became extremely high, more than 100% in some cases.
And we couldn’t talk about failed wars without bringing up the giant cash fire known as the War on Drugs (and the criminal justice system as a whole). Let’s use a specific example. Why does possession of crack cocaine carry much more severe sentences (about 1/3 longer) than powder? Could it have anything to do with the fact that crack is more commonly found in majority black neighborhoods and powder is more common to white neighborhoods? Even though powder cocaine is worth much more in street value? Not difficult dots to connect there. Another question. Why do blacks get pulled over at nearly twice the rate of whites, even controlling for factors like type of car, even though whites are more likely to carry contraband? Another fun fact: marijuana prohibition was largely based on the fear that blacks would “entice” white women to become addicted to weed. That legacy remains. Blacks are 4x as likely to be arrested for weed possession as whites even though they use at essentially the same rate. Blacks are 12x (!) as likely to be falsely convicted of drug crimes as whites. The U.S. Sentencing Commission found that, even controlling for other observables, blacks were given 20% longer sentences than whites for identical charges. Want a really huge part of family breakup and why young, black men have issues as a group? No wonder they don’t trust the institutions.
So what’s the result of all this? Well, glad you asked. Look at the maps here: https://www.opportunityatlas.org. It tells the story that both private and state actions have created a perverse kind of inequality in this country where it’s a lot harder for the average black kid to succeed in this country than the average white kid. When society continually beats a set of people down for, like, no reason it’s perfectly predictable that that set of people will have problems. One surely wouldn’t expect an abused kid to have the same outcomes as one from a perfectly healthy and safe family.
So what do we do about it? I’ve got a couple ideas. In a paper that hopefully will come out soon, I argue for universal school choice for every student in the country. If we believe primary and secondary education is positive right in this country (most states have constitutional provisions stating such) that it makes sense to allow people the freedom to exercise this right however they want, and allow for the marketplace to work to improve school quality, like we see in the charter sector. As these schools have grown and matured (and been allowed to innovate) their outcomes have gotten better. Now, it’s rare to find negative outcomes of charters, even with the strongest experimental designs.
Second, I believe strongly that we should repeal the entirety of the current welfare state and replace it with a universal basic income. The math works out to about even if we give everyone $800/month, deposited into a bank account, as soon as they graduate high school or turn 18, whichever is first. That’s enough to get above the poverty line for a couple and drastically increase bank usage.
Third, decouple employment and health care. Because of a quirk of WWII tax law, employer sponsored health benefits aren’t taxed like income, incentivizing employers to pay for health insurance instead of increasing salary. Replace it with expanded HSA’s or something similar. It would increase job mobility since your health insurance would be portable and not tied to your employment.
These three things have a common purpose: empower the individual to take control of their lives and live up to their potential unimpeded by the state. Other things like opportunity zones could help attract capital to the areas that need it.
Finally, everyone should read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Dignity-Seeking-Respect-Back-America/dp/0525534733/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=chris+arnade&qid=1551149213&s=gateway&sr=8-1. The author did the unthinkable: he went out and talked to people! Crazy thing to do these days. It really drives home the point that people in large swaths of the country feel neglected and hopeless, so they turn to drugs or other vices to escape.
Anyhoo, I’ve said too much. Have a lovely evening, everyone.
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@FarmerJayhawk The devastating effects of redlining should be taught to Americans. I’m ashamed that nothing in my world made me aware of it until about 10 years ago. Chicago or Milwaukee depending on whose methodology you believe are the most segregated cities in the country. They perfected the practice of redlining and much of the inner city woes of both places can be traced back to it.
I really believe your post and a few others above contain perspectives that most Americans have little understanding of. As I admitted, I was really unaware of these things until about 10 years ago. It certainly changes perspectives when you start to have an understanding of what ways so many have been intentionally kept down.
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@FarmerJayhawk I read an something interesting but I can’t remember where that posited if we took all the money the government spends trying to decide who qualifies for certain benefits and making sure no one accidentally gets too much, there’s be enough left over to provide services to nearly everyone.
Never heard a libertarian arguing for universal income. Is that just a you thing or common among others you know? I’ll be asking my libertarian friends.
School choice worries me a bit because of the way some people have used that phrase to support the privatization of schools but I’d love to read your paper about it and learn more about your point of view.
Thanks for sharing and let me know when that paper comes out!
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@FarmerJayhawk Another example in Texas of holding minorities down and a contributing factor in the disparity of conviction rates and sentence lengths is the prison system. I can’t speak on other states, but in Texas, most prisons are privately owned and operated. They are also among the richest and most powerful lobby groups in the state. They don’t make money by rehabbing convicted criminals so they don’t become repeat offenders, they make money by keeping those prisons as full as possible.
This lobby group is why Texas will be among the last states to decriminalize marijuana, let alone legalize it even for medicinal use. Marijuana convictions are big business in Texas, along with other misdemeanor level drug crimes because those fill these private prisons and fund a lot of law enforcement agencies in the state.
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@benshawks08 that would make sense! There’s a lot of stuff out there about monitoring costs of these programs and how they’re basically wastes of money.
I’m not sure how common it is. I think the major disagreement is about the existence of a welfare state at all. I believe we need one. As great as charities are and have been they can’t plug all the leaks in society. So my argument is that a) a welfare state is necessary and b) the current one focuses way too much on in-kind benefits instead of just giving people cash.
I’m agnostic on who actually provides education and I’m definitely not informed enough to tell everyone what system is best. Some people really like their private, religious school. Some love their neighborhood public school. Great! Lets just make the government neutral on it and let people make these choices (within certain guardrails).
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Texas Hawk 10 said:
@FarmerJayhawk Another example in Texas of holding minorities down and a contributing factor in the disparity of conviction rates and sentence lengths is the prison system. I can’t speak on other states, but in Texas, most prisons are privately owned and operated. They are also among the richest and most powerful lobby groups in the state. They don’t make money by rehabbing convicted criminals so they don’t become repeat offenders, they make money by keeping those prisons as full as possible.
This lobby group is why Texas will be among the last states to decriminalize marijuana, let alone legalize it even for medicinal use. Marijuana convictions are big business in Texas, along with other misdemeanor level drug crimes because those fill these private prisons and fund a lot of law enforcement agencies in the state.
That makes sense. People making money from incarceration gives me the willies. The incentives are just bad. Have you read Frank Baumgartner’s book about the death penalty? Apparently Houston is the execution capital of the country and the ideal of equal justice under law is basically just a slogan. Also plugging it because he was kind enough to answer any and all questions from a lowly grad student a couple years ago.
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Blaming school districts and cops. Perhaps it’s culture that doesn’t care about education or obeying the law? For every “crap” school I’ll show you plenty of kids who learn and move on. For every rich school I’ll show you kids who did nothing and are failures. It’s iq and culture in the home. Stop trying to put all of society into a monetary or racial algorithm. Society isn’t an equation to be solved.
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@FarmerJayhawk @benshawks08 @wissox @Texas-Hawk-10
Nice discussion. One thing to add is the effect of zoning restrictions as an allegedly race-neutral tool that has been highly instrumental in perpetuating segregation and resulting educational quality differences.
Sidenote: A recent article somewhere discussed the correlation between gun control resistance and race. In the 60s through the early 90s, apparently the NRA and Republicans largely supported certain types of gun control. Those eras’ highly visible “criminal elements” included the Black Panthers and inner city gangs committing drivebys with assault-style weapons (resulting in the ban that expired in 2004).
The article discussed how gun ownership among whites has exploded, and now the gun rights organizations think it is a divine right to get any gun they want. But they didn’t think so when it was blacks who were the targeted owners.
I don’t think it is necessarily a compelling argument, but it is food for thought.
Incidentally, the studies of racial bias based on names mentioned earlier include a number that show applicants with “white-sounding” names get approved at a substantially higher percentage with identical financials.
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Savage Inequalities, a devastating look at how schools differ by zip code and The New Jim Crow, two excellent books on the subject.
Before we moved from Louisiana we lived in a nice suburb of Baton Rouge. Top schools in the state actually and the facilities were very nice. They just installed a video scoreboard that is the largest in the nation for High Schools. Down the road where I taught, in the same parish, our football team and the soccer team I coached had to use other teams fields because the lights caught fire. At a similar school I was at a game where one of the lights exploded, shrapnel narrowly missing a group of students in the stands. Savage Inequalities indeed.
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Texas Hawk 10 said:
@FarmerJayhawk Another example in Texas of holding minorities down and a contributing factor in the disparity of conviction rates and sentence lengths is the prison system. I can’t speak on other states, but in Texas, most prisons are privately owned and operated. They are also among the richest and most powerful lobby groups in the state. They don’t make money by rehabbing convicted criminals so they don’t become repeat offenders, they make money by keeping those prisons as full as possible.
This lobby group is why Texas will be among the last states to decriminalize marijuana, let alone legalize it even for medicinal use. Marijuana convictions are big business in Texas, along with other misdemeanor level drug crimes because those fill these private prisons and fund a lot of law enforcement agencies in the state.
The American prison system is slave labor. I would say it’s broken, because in reality it is but for the purpose it is actually used for it’s perfect…
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@BShark It is interesting that most people have no idea that slavery is NOT absolutely illegal in the US. The 13th amendment prohibits slavery or involuntary servitude except as punishment upon conviction for a crime. The 8th amendment (cruel and unusual punishment) limits the treatment that can be meted out, but probably will continue to be broadly interpreted until it effectively negates the exception to the 13th.
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Great discussion above.
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@wissox In the district I work in, there’s only 4 football stadiums total. None of the high schools have on campus stadiums for sub varsity teams. We have the main stadium where the varsity teams play. There’s an auxiliary stadium and two stadiums on middle school campuses. That’s 4 fields to play games on for 5 HS varsity teams, 15 sub varsity HS teams and up to 48 middle school teams (12 middle schools, 2 grade levels with 2 teams each). One of the middle school games each week is played at a local private school’s field just to make the logistics work. It’s been about 20 years since our district has had a team reach the semi finals of the state playoffs. The biggest reason is because of the lack of quality facilities in the district so kids that have real D1 talent are frequently recruited by local private schools or other school districts with better facilities.
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… Trouble brewing from the NCAA?
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Texas Hawk 10 said:
@FarmerJayhawk Another example in Texas of holding minorities down and a contributing factor in the disparity of conviction rates and sentence lengths is the prison system. I can’t speak on other states, but in Texas, most prisons are privately owned and operated. They are also among the richest and most powerful lobby groups in the state. They don’t make money by rehabbing convicted criminals so they don’t become repeat offenders, they make money by keeping those prisons as full as possible.
This lobby group is why Texas will be among the last states to decriminalize marijuana, let alone legalize it even for medicinal use. Marijuana convictions are big business in Texas, along with other misdemeanor level drug crimes because those fill these private prisons and fund a lot of law enforcement agencies in the state.
And local law enforcement has extreme privilege to confiscate property upon an arrest. Finally some of this has been called out by media, including national media because of specific local jurisdictions operating far beyond any good spirit of law enforcement and fairness.
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Just the other day, my sister who works on a jobsite in Connecticut said they were doing some roadwork excavation, had the area blocked off with some big roadway cones and police officers helping direct traffic. At one point, a car did not obey the officer directing traffic, rolled slowly into the barricade, almost into the excavation where people were working. The officers approached the car and find the driver slumped over, starting to turn purple, bags of drugs in the passenger seat. The driver was overdosing. They gave him those meds that bring him back and basically save him. Driver says he is on his way to pick up his kid from school. Officers proceed to allow him to drive away. When the angry construction workers who almost got rolled up on ask the officers why they let him go with the drugs out everywhere they said that they are instructed to not arrest black people for drug offenses. If the person was white, he would have been arrested per the cop.
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Just a note: My comment before the one on slavery had a final paragraph about unequal rates of approval but I didn’t say for what!. This reference was about mortgage applications where the researchers sent identical financial statement and credit history information to lenders, with only the different names. Caucasian sounding names were approved for mortgages far more than black ones.
I have always wondered about the methodology of these studies because to accomplish truly identical applications with only different names you would have to falsify something in the application. And that is a federal offense! Maybe they get clearance to do a study from HUD or something.
Anyone remember the sting operation in Chicago where the US Attorney enlisted local attorneys to investigate the local Bar community and Cook County judges? These attorneys helped uncover a plethora of corrupt judges, clerks, prosecutors, and court officials.
In Chicago, the Machine always gets its revenge: The perps turned around and filed ethics complaints against the undercover lawyers who were the front men offering the bribes, alleging violations of the Code of Professional Responsibility’s prohibition of dishonest conduct since they lied in pretending to be offering bribes.
Reminds me of my drug dealing clients in the Army who routinely would try to get the undercover cops to sign sworn statements that they were not cops.
Law was so much fun!
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“… I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is, Jenny…”
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I just read (in an actual paper printed on newsprint!) that the NCAA has ordered Mary Hardin-Baylor to vacate its 2016 Division III national football championship and 29 victories over the 2016-17 seasons because the football coach let a player use his car for more than 18 months.
Wow, they are REALLY trying to set some strong precedents here!
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Tough Love. Guess Uber wasn’t an option
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@mayjay that’s a lot of games in 2 years
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@Crimsonorblue22 15-0 in '16, 14-1 in '17. They lost in the champ game in '17.
10-0 each season, then 5 rounds in their NCAA tourney.
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@mayjay UMHB is a top D3 program so that’s definitely a big blow for that program.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 I read that it started as the “women’s department” of Baylor.
Back when that was the only safe way for a woman to be associated with Baylor.
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@mayjay It appears BU should have kept the separation. Wasn’t it only two or three years ago there was a big scandal involving BU football players inappropriate treatment of BU co-eds?
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@mayjay Baylor was granted a charter before Texas statehood in 1845. The college itself was coed, but the classes were still segregated by gender. Eventually they split a few years later with the male university moving to Waco and merging with Waco University to become Baylor and a female university (Baylor Women’s College) that eventually become known as Mary Hardin Baylor during the Great Depression.
I have quite a few friends that have gone to each school so I’ve heard about their histories several times before.
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Cliff Clavin for the win!
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HighEliteMajor said:
Cliff Clavin for the win!
Sometimes you want to go Where everybody knows your name
And everyone likes seeing you walk in the door! Like all the KU bucketeers, for example.
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With affection of course.
