Since then, US government has stopped publishing PISA test scores by race. It's embarrassing for people on all sides of the aisle, including right-wing school reform movements that need the purported terribleness of American schools for their political momentum.

[1] http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4ify7vDXrDs/TRFeGl7ocuI/AAAAAAAAGz...

[2] http://www.vdare.com/articles/pisa-scores-show-demography-is...

The US has a much higher tolerance for what in Europe would be considered pretty blatant racism.

I think that Political Correctness for the most part says we should treat everyone equally whether we like them or not which is the rational approach as I'm sure there are groups that don't like me (I'm a white middle class hard-line atheist so that probably gets me on a few lists right there).

I'd sooner live in a country with "political correctness gone mad" (a frequently cry of the right wing press here) than one where it hasn't.

We have politicians here condemning the Human Rights act because it makes them guarantee the rights for everyone even people "the majority don't like" which is exactly as it should be since the people "the majority don't like" can change so rapidly.

Of course in America you have been spared the political correctness gone mad but you are still executing mentally retarded people in some states so maybe you could do with the political correctness going a bit "mad".

“You can judge a society by how well it treats its prisoners”. - Dostoevsky

My view is that many mistake Scientifically Correct from Politically Correct. It is Scientifically Correct to say that there is very little difference, genetically, between Europeans, Asians, Africans, Latin Americans, etc. It also happens to be Politically Correct. However, it is also Scientifically Correct to say that there are huge disparities in victim reported violent crime rates between Europeans, Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans. However, this is not Politically Correct. This is an example of where a problem is identified, but unable to be discussed in the public sphere. If a problem can't be discussed, it can't be solved.

An African-American male is over 7 times more likely to murder a person than a Hispanic or European-American male. He is also over 6 times more likely to be the victim of a murder. This is elementary statistics based on data collected by the FBI. If this problem (which in my opinion is cultural rather than this phony construct called "racial") can't be discussed in an honest fashion due to political organizations which will threaten politicians with boycotts/villification/etc due to their refusal to acknowledge inconvenient truths, then the problem will simply continue. Not talking about it makes the problem become uglier, because non-Black Americans in general have internalized the fact that poor Black neighborhoods are vastly more violent and dangerous. Any realtor can tell you this. They deal with people's ACTUAL prejudices every day, rather than the Politically Correct, aspirational notions of the desire to live in a diverse neighborhood.

I say this as a white guy who grew up in various poor parts of the south, and spent large parts of my childhood with mostly black friends in mostly black neighborhoods. Political Correctness prevents us from collectively helping the predominantly black victims of a large sub-culture of black America that celebrates crime, dehumanizes women and gays, views educational/career achievement as betrayal of black identity, and tolerate men who willingly abandon their families.

America will not succeed as a nation unless black Americans succeed, and political correctness throws them to the wolves by pretending a problem they are victimized by doesn't exist.

These statistics are discussed in an honest fashion, from Saturday mornings in the barber shop to academic works. The problem isn't discussion, the problem is that too many folks don't realize "blacks are overrepresented in crime" is not the same as "most blacks commit crimes" and use those statistics to justify policies like "stop and frisk" and "it's okay to follow a black kid a night because he's wearing a hoodie."

Political Correctness prevents us from collectively helping the predominantly black victims of a large sub-culture of black America that celebrates crime, dehumanizes women and gays, views educational/career achievement as betrayal of black identity, and tolerate men who willingly abandon their families.

This sentence would be equally true without the word "black." Political correctness indeed.

Sorry, but the phenomenon of being accused of betraying your cultural identity by peers if you succeed in school and get a job is mainly a phenomenon found in a sub-culture of black America. Anyone who has been immersed in an African-American community for any length of time can tell you this. The typical insult among school-children is "acting white" or "Oreo" and it is widespread enough to warrant heavy discussion within the mainstream black community. My best friend growing up was harassed and bullied constantly in this way. It was a particularly vicious kind of bullying that I've never seen Asian, Hispanic or white children ever have to deal with.

You only have to watch prime-time television to know that phenomenon is common amongst many demographics.

Anyone who has been immersed in an African-American community for any length of time can tell you this.

I'm black. I went to an upper-class mostly-white private school, and there was some pressure to "fail" but it came from both whites and blacks. One the other hand, my peers who went to the local inner city high schools found extremely supportive environments, so much so that I really regret that my parents sent me to the private school.

The typical insult among school-children is "acting white" or "Oreo"

It might be "typical" yet I never heard anyone say it out loud IRL. However terms like "nerd," "geek," "dweeb" etc were common occurrences IME. And it wasn't coming from black kids.

it is widespread enough to warrant heavy discussion within the mainstream black community.

Heavy discussion is not academic rigor. It's been studied by a lot of people (not just Ogbu) and as might be expected, the results are complicated. Quoting from an older post of mine:

Tyson et al found that reduced academic achievement was generally for a variety of reasons ("fear of not doing well academically" being the biggest) and not "acting white": http://www.tc.columbia.edu/students/see/events/Darity_et_al_...

Cook and Ludwig as well found that "acting white" was not much of a factor in academic perforamnce: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291520-66...

I had quoted from two other papers by Erika White and Roland Fryer (who is a proponent of the "acting white" hypothesis but had to adjust his definition to show any trends) but those links are dead now.

Holy shit, sir. I salute your patience and compassion as you dealt with this self-appointed expert on race relations. Your capacity for longsuffering is legendary, and if you are ever in the Bay Area, please contact me.

Seriously.

I would buy you a keg of beer.

They both make valid points, likely because they're coming at the issue from different directions. Listen to them both and balance your viewpoint but try to be a bit less snarky.

The black criminal subculture is unique in America. There is no equivalence in other groups. Black males between the age of 14 and 24 make up 1% of the population and commit 27% of all murders. It's shocking and astonishing, and well above what you would predict would be the effect of poverty alone[2].

1 in 3 black American males will serve a jail sentence.

[1] http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/whites_subjected_to_too_m...

[2] http://takimag.com/article/guns_and_race_steve_sailer/print

FWIW, people that study population genetics sound shockingly racist. Science is science, whether or not we want it to be.

[1] http://m.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/the-u...

its not a race problem, its a cultural problem.

Political Correctness prevents us from collectively helping the predominantly black victims of a large sub-culture of black America that celebrates crime, dehumanizes women and gays, views educational/career achievement as betrayal of black identity, and tolerate men who willingly abandon their families.

Everyone, including(maybe even especially) black americans, should watch this speech. Anyone who feels Obama is wrong after watching the video should closely examine themselves for why that is and what beliefs they carry that the speech conflicts with.

There is nothing in that speech which is not already common-knowledge or thoroughly discussed among blacks.

American black culture wasn't nearly so dysfunctional before the rise of the welfare state and the War on Drugs. Illegitimacy was under 30% in 1960 (compared to about 80% today). That has a lot of knock-on effects for other social ills.

And a quick side-note, there was a radio-host. A white woman I believe. They talked about gun-law reform. That's another thing that gets minorities in trouble. She made the comment that if someone started a campaign to get all black males in Oakland signed up with the NRA and obtain a gun legally, gun-laws would be changed immediately. Why don't minorities sign up with NRA to begin with? I don't know, but whatever the reason is, that's why gun-law hasn't changed. I believe that to be very true and I think laws in America are generally set in a way that lowers the likelihood that a non-minority will break them. It probably wasn't that way on purpose at first, but once some people noticed the money from prisons and correction-facilities - combined with American's fear of immigrants... the success of war on drugs in terms of who's getting ruined by it... again not saying there would be zero problems, but the disproportionate levels e see today wouldn't be happening. Don't forget the reason why a lot of black people are even in America to begin with...

It occurs to me that you could write a similar story of woe for the Chinese who have gone through a rough century or three, and they are the highest earning ethnic group in the USA. It makes one think.

No it doesn't. The Chinese were taken from their country, stripped of their culture, made slaves and to this day the main target of racism in America? And their home country is trapped in a pattern of greed & corruption for natural resources?

You and I both know what conclusion you're trying to force without actually saying it. Same thing FOX News does. You're talking exactly like the kind of media that's being described by this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQnxnYEVp4U

I'm not an idiot. I don't blame "the Blacks" for the awful and continuing effects of 400 years of slavery combined with 100+ years of Jim Crow. Any cultural/ethnic group that survives a 500 year rape is going to have horrific and lasting effects to deal with.

But hey, I'm just a southern white man, so let me go pick up my banjo, and find my sheets for the klan rally tonight. We're gettin us some of that lectricity so we's a celebratin'.

Please, go on and enjoy your day feeling pompous and superior. I doubt you've ever even spent the night in a black person's house, let alone attended a black church, but you sir, are, by nature of your not being southern, more culturally enlightened than me. You smack of being the typical suburban raised white person who was raised in a de facto segregated community, and now does whatever he can to distance himself from it by pointing at others and calling them racist.

I mean, to trot out the "seven times" figure with no context and expect us to treat it like it provides justification for anything is a gross misapplication of statistics.

I also was not raised in the suburbs, but a place that is rural, white and very hostile to anyone who isn't.

EDIT: Moreover, the mere fact that you would trot out the existence of your Asian wife as proof of your non-racism against blacks is proof enough. It's demonstrative of your us-them mindset: see, you can't be racist, you're married to one of them. Nevermind that Asians are not blacks -- it's just that they're not white, and you can't be racist if you like a non-white, right?

(Hint: not right)

I mean, just the fact that you're bringing out nazis and the klan as your examples of most white racists is absurd. The white racists who are the problem aren't the people who go out of their way to how everyone how much they subscribe to theories of white supremacy. Between those people and, say, Rush Limbaugh listeners or people in favor of starkly discriminatory voter laws, the latter are much more of a threat to daily life. And those people don't think they're racists, because they believe racists have hoods and swastikas.

Jesus it's not cherry-picking at all -- there's a reason why "I can't be racist, my best friend is black" is a joke/gag/dead giveaway of racist attitudes. You should try hard to understand why that is. Presenting the Asian-ness of your wife as if it immunizes you from being racist, or proves you aren't now and can't ever be, is classic tokenization.

Maybe this is a new idea for you, but some white guys marry Asian women because they're racists. They project their weird stereotypes/fetishes into an entire race of women. Cross-race affinity, still racist. Not saying that's you, just saying racist behavior is more than "I don't like those people."

Another thought for you -- people can and often are more racist towards some groups than to others.

Can you imagine a politician giving a speech about that?

[1] http://takimag.com/article/guns_and_race_steve_sailer/print

Finding the root causes of the disparity would be a fascinating sociological challenge, if we had the courage to pursue it.

Please expand. Nowhere in Europe has anything resembling the 4/5ths rule or Griggs vs Duke Power, no European country has a visible minority community as large as Blacks in the US, and no European country has a policy of discriminating on the basis of race in university admissions, to the best of my knowledge.

I think the OP should point out to some actual studies about how much more blatantly racist Americans/America are/is than Europe/Europeans.

Really? Because it always seemed the other way around to me--Europe lacks the strong taboos against overt racism that America has evolved. Americans are crypto-racist, but they don't share the shamelessness Europeans seem to have when they show up to football stadiums and make monkey noises at African players or chant "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas" when playing a "Jewish" club. That kind of thing happens in countries like Spain, Italy and Holland but would be unthinkable in the United States.

Maybe in some spheres but not all. Look at sports, for example. Outright racism by fans against athletes is unheard of in North America whereas it seems pretty common in Europe. Perhaps my perception is biased by the media reporting on it?

I would love to see a reference verifying the causality that you are implying when it comes to the decision to drop ethnicity from the statistics.

Also, I sincerely doubt that those of African and Arab ethnicity are over-represented in all crime categories. Violence, petty theft, sure, possibly. This is generally the category which the low-income portion of the population tends to dominate. But I think you will be hard pressed to find a document showing that the ethnics groups you are referencing are more prevalent when it comes to tax fraud.

"media found out that africans and arabs were way, way over-represented in all [violent] crime categories" AND THEN "the Swedish crime prevention board (BRÅ) no longer publish crime statistics containing ethnic background information" is hilarious enough already.

[Citation needed]

Oops, statistics are secret. Doh!

The reasons for such a move are mixed. Some part is certainly PC, some other part is that the segregation along "race boundaries" is actually misleading. Income class and eduction is usually a way better boundary when segregating crime statistics. However, for a long list of reasons, africans and arabs (or people moving into the country in general) are over-represented in the poorer classes and underrepresented in the richer class which in turn makes them appear stronger in crime statistics.

Another reason is that statistics are often read the wrong way, a problem that occurs very often with the official german crime stats: The most often cited statistic is the "Polizeibericht [1]", but that lists reported crimes - so everything that ever gets reported to the police. Some of those reports never get prosecuted, some get acquitted at trial, ... The police report in Berlin used to list all reports where the perpetrators nationality was unknown as "foreign", an error that seriously skewed the stats for any cursory reader. Statistics like that are a very weak datapoint - useful if you know how to read them, useless or even dangerous for most cases where they're cited. This misrepresentation of public data leads to a certain caution in publishing stats by the persons in charge.

Back to the Topic: I don't think that maps of that kind would get you shot, hanged or made outcast in Europe. Quite to the contrary, such maps exist and do provide valuable insight - though the same caveats that apply for the statistics apply here as well. As an example here's a map of how many non-germans live in berlin by quarter: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/7/7d/Bev%C3%B6lkeru... (top left). It's not as fine-grained as the one discussed here, but that's probably more due to unavailability of finer data. More maps of germany in the official report by the "Statistisches Bundesamt" https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Thematisch/Bevoelke...

[1] The official name is Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik (PKS) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polizeiliche_Kriminalstatistik...

Stop and Frisk in NYC overwhelmingly targets blacks and latinos, to the point where it's been declared unconstitutional, for example.

[1] http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/whites_subjected_to_too_m...

I would suggest the complete opposite is true, on both counts.

Maybe there are cases where these statistics could be legitimately useful, but I'm not aware of any.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/08/lead-crime-rac...

For some reason whether you have a community of muslims or africans, it happens to be impoverished. On the other hand, if you have a community of asians or western europeans, it doesn't.

That's exactly the problem parent is trying to convey. It's not that africans are inherently criminal, it's just that they have dangerous group dynamics.

I might be mis-understanding the context here: I've been to a few impoverished communities composed of 98% descendants of Western Europeans. Think: white trash.

Really? Where I live they don't give the race of the assailant out, but its assumed and unfortunately all too correctly as to what it is.

I am quite sure a few high up in Washington would like it as such here in the US. Two in particular, our President and Attorney General, seem to go out of their way to jump on racial issues as if its some type of popularity thing, they unfortunately come across as desperate.

Spared my butt, we just do our best to tune it out because its bombarded at us through media and government daily. Like the boy who cried wolf, when you cry wolf so many times when there is none no one will listen when there is.

My heart bleeds for you persecuted middle class whites. Oh, the pain and injustice you must endure!

Page 46 of BRÅs 1996 report (http://galnegunnarsblogg.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/bra-199...) says the following:

"Invandrares överrepresentation i brottslighet beror inte på en ogynnsam fördelning vad gäller kön, ålder eller bostadsort. Den beror inte heller på en generellt sett låg socioekonomisk status (mätt genom s.k. SEI-kod) i Sverige."

"Immigrants overrepresented in crime is not due to an unfavorable distribution in terms of gender, age or place of residence. It does not depend on the generally low socioeconomic status (as measured by the so-called SEI code) in Sweden."

And now it's your turn: citation needed.

He lives in Belgium (I used to), and I don't know to which part of the world he was referring to (probably Belgium and/or surrounding countries).

--

0. http://progcours.ulg.ac.be/cocoon/en/enseignant/U191908.html