The Police are not the problem, lack of Education is

[AgnosticBoy]

Minorities, esp. BLM, would have you believe that the police are the problem. They are not. Everything about investing in good education and community can be done without abolishing the police. Blaming the police is just scapegoating.

Do a few bad cops make all police bad?

Can we fix the societal ills of minority population without abolishing the police? Why have plenty of Blacks found success in spite of current police funding?

[AgnosticBoy]

[Replying to AgnosticBoy in post #1]

So, George Floyd was murdered by the police due to his education level? Did Derek Chauvin interview Mr. Floyd concerning his education before murdering him?

The "problem" that I'm referring to in the topic is the poor socioeconomic status of many Black communities. The police aren't causing that. If anything the police are treating a symptom of the problem which is higher street crime (robberies, violence, drug dealers, etc).

[AgnosticBoy]

Your points don't take away from my argument. You're comparing Blacks to Whites as if being as rich or in some other identical circumstance is the only way for blacks to prosper.

I'd rather compare Blacks with a higher education versus those without higher education. Get me some data on that first before concluding that education does not matter at all.

No-one has ever said that "education doesn't matter at all"; you are claiming that education is the only thing that matters, an absurd claim without any evidence, and now demanding others to do you homework for you. Educational disparities are a problem.

In terms of boosting your socioeconomic status, education is the BIGGEST factor, period. I did not go into details with supporting reasons because I thought that was easy to figure out given that the good paying careers, like doctors, attorneys, business owners, medical/health field etc. all require education.

So is your police system, as I showed (for but one example) in terms of the exceptionally high rate at which your cops kill civilians; having the world's highest incarceration rate is another obviously absurd consequence of a system oriented towards punitive punishment more than social support. Other issues besides education and police are important also (eg. access to healthcaee for one obvious example, or historically formal and ongoing credible reports of informal redlining in the algorithms used by lending branches of major banks). Simplistic 'answers' in a complex society are pretty much guaranteed to miss the mark and tend to be a hallmark of ideological rather than reasonable thinking.

Just showing data on police killings means little to me because I'd want to know why that number of deaths is happening. If it is because of higher crime then unlike you I don't blame the police for that but rather I'd blame the criminal. It's obvious that higher crime will bring on more police action. If you want a crime free community then you can't blame the police for stopping crime.

Also take a look at your study again which clearly shows that Asians are even doing better than whites. So how is that racism caused by Whites when a minority group is doing better than them?

The two most historically oppressed groups in the USA are native Americans and african Americans; those are also the two groups with the worst outcomes in downward economic mobility, health, income, wealth etc.

Try looking at the quality of their education instead of always jumping to race as the problem. I'm willing to bet that you'll find that the Blacks and Native Americans that don't fit your little study are the ones that have a good education.

Pointing out that groups which have suffered less oppression have better outcomes is not a counter-argument, it's stating the bleeding obvious: Particularly in the case of a mostly more recent immigrant population such as asian Americans whose successful immigration applications tend to be skewed towards the more highly-skilled, educated and intelligent.

[emphasis added]

I'm not sure about the percentage of Asian immigrants when it comes to average skill/education vs. highly skilled/educated. But what this shows is that you're finally admitting that "skill" and "education" plays a role more than race. If race was a big issue, or even if we had a racist system, then only Whites should be doing good. But now we see evidence against that since Asians are also doing good, and by your own admission it is because of their "skill" and "education". I would say Blacks can possess "skill" and "education", as well.

Also, what about those Whites that have failed given the fact that they are more likely to fail (60% chance of failing) then to stay in the same economic status? Could it be that the reason they're failing is the exact same reason that Blacks are faiing as well but it's just that blacks are failing at a greater percentage? Surely you not going to say that those 60% of chance for Whites to fail is due to racism against them.

You don't seem to understand what these statistics are about. If America became a perfect individual meritocracy tomorrow (or had become one decades ago), every new person born should have a roughly 20% chance of being in the upper quintile as adults, regardless of whether their parents were in the bottom or top quintile themselves. It's not a perfect individual meritocracy of course, and wealthy parents tend to confer significant benefits to their children not just in terms of inheritance but also stability, good example/habits, education, contacts/networking opportunities and so on. The fact that children of well-off parents have a better than random chance of being well-off themselves (and far better chances than children of poor parents) reflects that reality. But you seem to think that children of well-off parents should have a 100% chance of being well-off themselves...? That their ~60% 'failure' rate is somehow a bad thing? That's absurd, obviously; no, it should not be literally impossible for wealthy kids to squander their opportunities or be surpassed by more ambitious peers. Having wealthy parents already confers enough of an advantage as it is.

I don't expect that every White person would succeed in your study. But I would expect ONLY Whites to succeed if it were a racist system. Now the reasons you've offered for Whites not succeeding, I question why you don't also apply that to Blacks? Why do you think that race is always the issue as opposed to being some of the time? Do you think it's literally impossible for wealthy Black kids to also squander their opportunities or be surpassed by more ambitious peers?

[koko]

In terms of boosting your socioeconomic status, education is the BIGGEST factor, period. I did not go into details with supporting reasons because I thought that was easy to figure out given that the good paying careers, like doctors, attorneys, business owners, medical/health field etc. all require education.

A reminder that those with college degrees have the highest debt in society, now at $1.7 trillion. This because contrary to popular mythology, education is often the road to a dead end career and life of poverty. I know this from first hand experience because I am one of those unfortunates who wasted his entire life savings on a useless education that got me nowhere.

By the way, George Floyd graduated from high school and had a college education (South Florida Community College and Texas A&M University-Kingsville). Look how "far" it got him.

[AgnosticBoy]

In terms of boosting your socioeconomic status, education is the BIGGEST factor, period. I did not go into details with supporting reasons because I thought that was easy to figure out given that the good paying careers, like doctors, attorneys, business owners, medical/health field etc. all require education.

By the way, George Floyd graduated from high school and had a college education (South Florida Community College and Texas A&M University-Kingsville). Look how "far" it got him.

That's an excessively negative way of looking at it. As if all college educated Blacks will suffer the same fate : /. Care to bring up the Black educated people that have made it far? President Obama maybe?!

[historia]

contrary to popular mythology, education is often the road to a dead end career and life of poverty. I know this from first hand experience because I am one of those unfortunates who wasted his entire life savings on a useless education that got me nowhere.

There are always exceptions to the rule. But to appreciate the value of education, one need not rely on 'mythology', just look at the statistics: Those with a higher education have, on average, a higher income and are less likely to be unemployed than those with less education.

[Mithrae]

No-one has ever said that "education doesn't matter at all"; you are claiming that education is the only thing that matters, an absurd claim without any evidence, and now demanding others to do you homework for you. Educational disparities are a problem.

In terms of boosting your socioeconomic status, education is the BIGGEST factor, period. I did not go into details with supporting reasons because I thought that was easy to figure out given that the good paying careers, like doctors, attorneys, business owners, medical/health field etc. all require education.

You began the thread with a lovely stereotype of what minorities "would have you believe," and simply declared it to be false. No evidence, no discussion, no positive proposal - just blindly accusing 'minorities' and BLM especially of "scapegoating." When I pointed out that in fact the rate at which American police kill American civilians (the specific issue which has driven BLM and sparked its biggest waves of protests) is indeed exceptionally high compared to other countries, you dodged that fact and instead resorted to attacking a weak strawman of "education doesn't matter at all." Now you are seemingly taking the route that actually you weren't really interested in discussing the complaints of BLM, you just wanted to make a vague and rather obvious comment about the value of education?

Well, yes... good on you for realizing it, I guess, but what was the point of stereotyping and slandering minorities and BLM if you weren't going to discuss the actual issues which sparked this and earlier waves of protests?

So is your police system, as I showed (for but one example) in terms of the exceptionally high rate at which your cops kill civilians; having the world's highest incarceration rate is another obviously absurd consequence of a system oriented towards punitive punishment more than social support. Other issues besides education and police are important also (eg. access to healthcaee for one obvious example, or historically formal and ongoing credible reports of informal redlining in the algorithms used by lending branches of major banks). Simplistic 'answers' in a complex society are pretty much guaranteed to miss the mark and tend to be a hallmark of ideological rather than reasonable thinking.

Just showing data on police killings means little to me because I'd want to know why that number of deaths is happening. If it is because of higher crime then unlike you I don't blame the police for that but rather I'd blame the criminal. It's obvious that higher crime will bring on more police action. If you want a crime free community then you can't blame the police for stopping crime.

If you had been interested in actually communicating, and spent maybe a whole ten seconds looking the two graphs I posted, you would have known that the second one accounts for this obvious point by comparing killings by police against murder rate for all those countries (with the USA still having an exceptionally high rate of killings by police), and against police killed in action for three countries (with again the USA having much more murderous cops than Canada or Australia relative to the risks of their job). Yet another shocking statistic was raised in this post you've quoted (and mentioned to you several times in a previous thread), which you also seem determined to ignore; the fact that the USA has the highest incarceration rate... not just among developed countries, but in the world. Apparently even tin-pot dictatorships don't imprison their people as much as "the land of the free" does!

But sure, you keep telling yourself and anyone else who'll listen that any criticism of America's law enforcement system is nothing more than "scapegoating" by those minorities.

[koko]

In terms of boosting your socioeconomic status, education is the BIGGEST factor, period. I did not go into details with supporting reasons because I thought that was easy to figure out given that the good paying careers, like doctors, attorneys, business owners, medical/health field etc. all require education.

By the way, George Floyd graduated from high school and had a college education (South Florida Community College and Texas A&M University-Kingsville). Look how "far" it got him.

That's an excessively negative way of looking at it. As if all college educated Blacks will suffer the same fate : /. Care to bring up the Black educated people that have made it far? President Obama maybe?!

I am not impressed by mere social tokenism. There are tens of thousands of people with education who are still sweeping floors and getting nowhere. Just like I did.

[koko]

contrary to popular mythology, education is often the road to a dead end career and life of poverty. I know this from first hand experience because I am one of those unfortunates who wasted his entire life savings on a useless education that got me nowhere.

There are always exceptions to the rule. But to appreciate the value of education, one need not rely on 'mythology', just look at the statistics: Those with a higher education have, on average, a higher income and are less likely to be unemployed than those with less education.

Statistics can be skewed and are used to deceive plenty of people. When I attended Hamline Law School they reported that their graduates all got high paid jobs within days of graduating. The state supreme court and the industry went with their lies as if it was the incontrovertible truth. But it was all a lie. Many of their graduates became floor sweepers and cab drivers. Later on the school was dissolved because its degrees were worthless.

To this day official government statistics tell you college graduates earn over one million more dollars than do high school graduates. In my experience, again, that is nothing mjore than a blatant lie designed to fool people into wasting their money on loans that enrich banks and other wealthy elitist institutions.

Don't believe the lie. Believe the TRUTH that student debt is over $1.7 TRILLION.

[Tcg]

There are always exceptions to the rule. But to appreciate the value of education, one need not rely on 'mythology', just look at the statistics: Those with a higher education have, on average, a higher income and are less likely to be unemployed than those with less education.

We should not forget, especially in light of the claims being made by this O.P., that education is not a solution for systemic racism. Yes, higher education on average helps individuals earn more money during their lifetimes, but as we have been reminded by Zzyzx, higher education increases the wage gap between whites and blacks:

.
Addendum:

The racial wage gap is accelerating even in times of broader economic expansion. In a February update to Wilson and Rodgers’s research, EPI’s Elise Gould noted that the black-white wage gap had grown from about 22 percent in 2000 to about 24 percent in 2007 to about 27 percent in 2019. This latter spike was registered after 10 years of economic recovery.

But that wasn’t all. “It’s clear,” Gould wrote, “that education is not a panacea for closing these wage gaps,” because the black-white earnings gap had also increased among high school graduates (15 percent in 2000, then 17 percent in 2007, then 18 percent in 2019); college graduates (17, then 19, then 23 percent); and holders of advanced degrees (13, 17, then 18 percent).

In other words, higher education, far from diminishing racial wage disparities, seems now to widen them. Or to put things less cynically, a college degree fails to neutralize other factors that are steadily enlarging wage gaps between white diploma-holders and black diploma-holders.
https://newrepublic.com/article/158142/ ... inequality

Tcg

[AgnosticBoy]

[Replying to Tcg in post #19]

Was the source for that article based from a peer-reviewed source? What explanation did they offer for the wage disparity? Were the comparisons between the groups based on equal factors, such as same level of education, same type of education, same level of skill/experience, etc?

I would hope things like this are known before floating around a non peer-reviewed source, especially if it lacks independent replication.