I was surprised to recently learn that poverty amongst Asian Americans is actually higher than white poverty. What's also interesting to consider is that Asian populations are concentrated in high cost of living areas. If you adjust the poverty measure by cost of living factors, Asian poverty is actually much higher than white poverty.
I made another interesting discovery regarding the performance of Asian Americans in school. The stereo type is that of the High Expectations Asian Father. Anything less than an A++ is unacceptable. But studies discussed in this article reveal that in fact Asian parents are much more nurturing and easy going than we may realize. Asian children and white children both react negatively to authoritarian and demanding parenting styles and positively to more laid back and loving parenting. Asians are using more of the latter, and so their children are performing well.
Jon
ReplyDeleteYou mean Asian Americans are like other Americans? who would have thunk it! ;-)
Culture is skin deep people are people. As are their instincts and biological mechanisms.
I know, isn't it amazing? But it probably wouldn't surprise you to know that in the US it's very common to think African American culture is inferior and if they were only like Asians they'd be better off. The truth is if you subject Asians to the same conditions African Americans experience they'd react the same way.
ReplyDeleteWow, that's crazy. We're all people who would react similarly if put in a similar situation?
ReplyDeleteExcept of course for the rich, conservatives, gun totin' tea baggers, and to a lesser extent all non-union Americans. That's an entirely different breed...
Jonathan,
ReplyDeletenaughty, naughty trolling .
you know better.... if they were rich they wouldn't be in that position in the first place... They don't want for opportunity. some Asian are conservative. the wilful ignorance of the tea baggers isn't limited to a race.
nor is non unionist necessarily an ideological stance
You are attempting to confuse ideology with natural instincts pitifully poor logic. :-P
Examinator,
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, I'm trying to point out that compassion and unity extends to those who either agree with our particular ideology or if not, they are not a threat to us because they are poor.
Does your truism "culture is skin deep, people are people" extend to the wealthy and privileged? How about those who use pitifully poor logic?
I believe the notion that regardless of our culture, ideology, or identity, we are cut from the same cloth is a profound statement. But I also believe that if more people actually believed it, there would be less name calling and more grace.
Does your truism "culture is skin deep, people are people" extend to the wealthy and privileged?
ReplyDeleteMost definitely it does, and I don't think I've said anything otherwise. For instance if I was a billionaire and I committed a massive crime worthy of a long prison sentence, I might just try and bend the law to get out of it. But even other things, like taxes on the rich. If I was super rich I have to say I would be like Warren Buffett or Bill Gates and support higher taxes on the rich. I'd also give to charity. Or at least I like to think I would, though it's hard to say when you don't actually get put in that spot. But I understand that 9 out of 10 billionaires wouldn't. I'm not saying the rich are unusually bad people. They are typical people that take advantage of the situation they find themselves in. So that's why the solutions I offer are not of the kind "rich people should just be nicer." The problem is systemic. We have a system that creates enormous inequality and that inequality naturally breeds these various problems, because people are people. This is what people do when they find that they have concentrated power. We need systemic change that prevents that kind of concentrated power.
I've also talked in the past about how I feel a strong identity with tea partyers. I very much sympathize with their anger. I think they and Occupy are not that far apart. Both seek answers to our present condition, which is really terrible.
I mean, they're probably thinking why do I have to take out a second mortgage just to put my kids through school? I did everything right, followed the rules, worked hard. And now I'm going to be working into my 70's. This isn't right. So they seek answers. Unfortunately the answers they get from Limbaugh and Fox News are crazy answers. It's the fault of illegal immigrants, maybe big government welfare expenditures. That's all nonsense, but it's the line the rich feed them hoping to distract them from the real causes. But they're right to be angry, they're right to have a deep concern for the future. We have similar goals, it's just that I think the lies they've been fed need to be addressed. I absolutely do not regard them as a different breed.
Jon,
ReplyDeleteYour ideas are very similar to what Dan Carlin has been advocating for awhile. If we want change in this country, people with grievances need to stomach working with others across the spectrum who have certain views they disagree with and band together towards a common cause of systemic change.
I'm glad to hear you do not regard them as a different breed and in principal are able to sympathies with them. I think we have a lot in common with the method we try and approach contentious issues.
It does somewhat puzzle me however, when you lump the entire republican party together and claim they are simply unable to objectively look at the data. Romney thought he was going to win the election - wrong. Global warming, wrong. Economics - wrong. The list goes on and on you say.
I think a lot of these issues also fall into the umbrella of systemic issues as well. For instance, with global warming nearly half of Republicans see global warming as an issue, yet almost no Republicans in congress acknowledge it's an issue. There's a major disconnect there.
The latest This American Life podcast discussed this very issue, and how there most likely are many Republican congressmen who would agree that global warming is an issue in private, but would get skewered if they acknowledged this in public.
It's the same issue that you've pointed out with the scientists who think things are much worse in fact that they'd publicly admit.
It does somewhat puzzle me however, when you lump the entire republican party together and claim they are simply unable to objectively look at the data. Romney thought he was going to win the election - wrong. Global warming, wrong. Economics - wrong. The list goes on and on you say.
ReplyDeleteIs it puzzling because you think I'm saying that Republicans are a different kind of animal?
You recall how once I discussed a book called "The Republican Brain" which talks about how certain kinds of personalities gravitate towards Republicanism. Basically difficulty in admitting nuance. Everything is black and white. Abortion is murder, you're either on the side of God or the devil. This kind of thing. That was my world for a long time, and I wasn't a different or defective human. I was just raised in an environment that led to this. The key was not Christianity in my opinion. Christianity is pretty big all over the world, and yet the rest of the world has very different attitudes towards treatment of the poor, health care, etc than what exist in the US. I think the difference is our propaganda system. Not just the news. Take things like "Back to the Future" where these Libyan "terrorists" are the villians right at a time when Reagan kind of arbitrarily goes after Libya. Football which generates intense tribal passions based on totally irrational grounds. Having watched the movie "Predator" recently, which was made in 1987, I wonder why I thought it was normal that US military is in Guatemala, and when Arnold kills all those "insurgents" or whatever they are called it feels totally natural. You don't really consider that these are really the indigenous people attempting to repel an outside invading army. People just come to accept that the environment they live in is normal, and they don't think to question it. Hollywood normalizes American empire from a very young age.
So I think to put anyone in this propaganda climate, whether they are the child of French dissidents or the child of a pacifist from Japan, you raise them here in this climate and a lot of them will end up dogmatic Republican types that fail to recognize nuance and learn to see in the evidence whatever conclusions they are conditioned to prefer, like war, like they'll win an election, like the idea that giving the rich more power is really good for everyone else. For those that extract themselves from this conditioning, at least to the degree that they can, I think it's admirable, but failing to do so is quite normal, just as hoarding wealth even when you already have more than you need is normal.
Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteIn any group of anything you care to measure, at some level of comparison there will ALWAYS be a distribution from one extreme to the other . For example ; When comparing any random group of people's by heights there will always be a shortest and a tallest ( not necessarily an average , usually not) .But the majority (number) will be clustered AROUND the mean (math average). Math determines that there will be an equal number on either side of that average point.
Does this change any of those measured as people. Of course not.
If those in the sample were all be different nationalities are any not people now? Of course not.
Now those people may belong to different political parties, are any not people now? Again no
If those in the sample were rich, poor, Intellectually challenged are they still people? Yep
Regardless of the differences all the above are people
It is equally possible that either the tallest/shortest is also either the dumbest or the brightest.
The difference in the opinion distributions of say a so called Liberal amongst the same sapling would reveal
the same factors i.e. There would be the most leftie, the least leftie and a nominal mid range ( average) around most of the lefties are clustered. And an equal number on either side of this mathematic average.
The same would apply on the other side only the distribution would measure 'conservativness' .
If one plotted this on a graph one would see a 'bell shaped' curve that would describe each criteria one plotted. The peak of the bell is the math mean . With each end representing the two extremes.
The next factor to consider is where on this line the peak in the bell curve would be. Using our heights for example the peak and the placement would depend on the difference between each height measured.
i.e. if all those sampled were equally 2” different then the peak would be in the middle of the graph.
N.w if the smallest was 15” shorter than the next and all the rest were clustered together with say *upto * 1/2” difference then the graph would be skewed towards the highest end . The variations on a theme are endless.
Now if we measured the views of the left i.e. the skew would be towards the right (the mean) with a fairly even slope. Now if we were to look at the right(conservative side) the slope would be different . Most likely have a substantial tail. ( i.e. the difference between a moderate “conservative” to the far right would be extreme. More extreme than the gap between the say mung bean eating, marijuana smoking pacerfist) and the centerist leftie.
None of these divisions or points of difference remove one sampled person from the the scientific definition of a person.
Without the above principles being true then mathematics/ technology couldn't exist, as they do then these principals MUST be true at least I this universe. And by logic based on these principals the above analysis must be true also.
Clearly then the ranking of humans is non scientific and as such also clearly corrupted by non scientific (emotional/ subjective) factors.
Hey troops,
ReplyDeleteHere is a lulu a perfect argument against Libertarianism
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/offbeat/17279715/gleeful-twitter-boast-gets-cops-attention/
Not the boasting just the attitude about road tax and the cyclist.