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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   19800 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026

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Do we have large income gaps between black populations and non-black populations in the US?

If you spend enough time on Twitter you begin to realize any time some SES graph shows up by geography they all look identical. And they are all very similar to % black population. Whether it’s income, murder, life expectancy or whatever else you can think of that shows outcomes you see worse outcomes in heavily black areas.

Even if you do something like group white people versus black people by income you end up finding things like the children of the top 10% of black parental income have the same chance of ending up in jail as bottom income whites.

So basically you can do all kinds of statistical test by race and find huge differences. These things aren’t disputed by the right and the left. They dispute the meaning of these statistical tests. It’s also at the heart of disparate impact is proof of racism.

The lack of convergence to similar outcomes is the evidence for a failure to assimilate.

If you spend enough time on Twitter you begin to realize any time some SES graph shows up by geography they all look identical. And they are all very similar to % black population. Whether it’s income, murder, life expectancy or whatever else

Is this actually what we see though? About 1/3rd of Georgia's population is black and yet and it's GDP per capita (roughly $82k) is comparable to that of Norway and Switzerland. How do you explain that?

Personally, I suspect pretty much all scholarship on this topic to be an ugly mish-mash of academic bullshit and statistical ignorance.

I mean all of America is rich. So that’s not that surprising. And Georgia is a weird example for you to pick because it is known to be the wealthiest black community in America.

I’m not sure what you are arguing that the statistics aren’t correct. They are just statistics. Are you arguing that we don’t have things like a big wealth gap between white and blacks? The left and right agree this is true.

Would you prefer we compare Alabama to Germany? In either case I would argue that the point stands.

I'm not saying that wealth gaps don't exist, I'm saying that your claim that...

If you spend enough time on Twitter you begin to realize any time some SES graph shows up by geography they all look identical. And they are all very similar to % black population.

...would appear to be contradicted by the observation that there are multiple states with double-digit black populations whose outcomes are comparable or superior to those of "whiter" nations and states despite their alleged handicap. If the state of Georgia were isekaied into the EU, it wouldn't just be "the wealthiest black community" it would be one of the wealthiest communities in the EU period.

You can dismiss this as just "America being rich" but that just begs the question of "why?" because it sure as hell isn't because of racial purity.

The lack of convergence to similar outcomes is the evidence for a failure to assimilate.

The lack of convergence can be better explained by genetics than culture. Especially if you have black children of well off parents (who would be raised in a different culture) still reverting to the average of their race on a bunch of life outcomes.

If anything American culture as a whole has assimilated into black culture. Black athletes, pop stars, comedians, and actors have outsized representation.

People get culturally assimilated in the US, but not necessarily genetically assimilated.

When choosing immigrants you care a lot about outcome assimilation and that has not occurred likely because of genetics. Now blacks have a claim to America as their homeland because they have been here a long time but the lack of outcome assimilation is a strong argument against letting any group immigrate to the US.

And while American culture is a melting pot between Anglo and black culture it’s also clear that there is a culture gap between the two groups which probably does have a genetic component.

So while modern American culture is a combination of both groups we don’t really want to add more groups that can’t blend into existing American culture especially when a large part of that is likely genetic. It’s still a strong argument against immigration.

Full assimilation would be to not be able to find group differences between people of different ancestry so even if the cause is genetics the two groups haven’t assimilated by formed one society of distinct groups.

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