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I came across today a movie trailer today which is/was The American Society of Magical Negroes. It really showed me how much the elite black class is grifting. The story apparently revolves around black people using magical powers to keep white people from chimping out and attacking black people. I'm not going to sit here and say black don't have grievances in America and against whites, but I don't think this whole type of thinking helps blacks. It makes it clear to me (and many other instances obviously) that the black elite and black academics define themselves against whiteness. Like they can't imagine blackness without white people in America. An America with no racism against blacks isn't possible to them, and the DEI and all that kind of stuff is necessary to keep them safe. This leaves many kinds of positions for more or less grifting that are basically only open to blacks and leave them a position to cry about racism and also benefit from it handsomely in terms of salary.
Working in Silicon Valley has given me the opportunity to work with a bunch of Nigerians that make insane salaries and live luxurious lifestyles. One thing I've noticed from them is that they don't think about the black/white distinction the same way. At my current company, the director of security is a Nigerian and half of the staff is Nigerian. Obviously they are hiring their own ethnics at a preferable rate, but I haven't seen one of them be part of the "Black at XYZ Company" groups or really care about that. They actually seem to be pretty happy with the current state of affairs in the US an have integrated pretty well.
I'm going to sound like a boomer conservative here, but it seems to me black elites in America seem obsessed with keeping the race divide front and center and their bloated salaries are a direct benefit to them. I don't think that black performance or lack thereof has anything to do with racism. I've never met a single normie person that is anti-black and hates them. I myself am pretty racist and HBD minded and I don't hate blacks at all. I find ghetto criminal blacks to be a nuisance and I don't like that, but even I would have to admit the vast majority of blacks are just normal people who want to live their lives and be happy. When I lived in Chicago, other than a few really unsafe areas I didn't mind walking around majority black neighborhoods.
It seems to me that there is an elite black class that was raised on the Civil Rights movement that can't move on. Their world view of racism is hopelessly outdated and most people would be fine hiring blacks and living near them. However, as currently constructed there is an elite black class that wants the status quo because they benefit from it Being a civil rights activist and a socila justice advocate is beneficial for these people instead of telling blacks they can succeed or fail on their own merits and to just be normal Americans.
As a non-American, the blacks have no one to blame but themselves. No, I am not being unnecessarily harsh on them or anything of that sort. Why the fuck does someone have to "make it out of the hood"? Just literally walk out of the hood. There are for hire signs everywhere and just start working a minimum wage job. Done, you're out of the hood! If you are not braindead, sit for the SAT, and then go to community college -> a state university, student loans are a thing, right?
If a group of people can't make it in the US of all places, there is NOTHING, NOTHING you can do for them.
And of course, grifters gonna grift. Is their grifting feeding the cycle? Probably, but its probably a coup complete problem at this point.
The problem with "just literally walk out of the hood" is something that applies not just to African-Americans, but poor people of various stripes around the world: family. One of the major reasons given for why poorer people have poor spending habits is that if you are known to have any money available, your kin will come to prevail upon you as to why they need some. If you "make it big," every auntie and half-sibling and unemployed cousin is going to come begging for a little help. Unless you're willing to simply cut ties with your entire family — not an easy ask for anyone (save maybe the most atomistic of WEIRDs) — your success is mostly going to be eaten up by your extended clan, often making it not worth the effort.
Plus, there's also violence affecting family as well. You can work your way up, get into a top university, get married, become a respected judge or an english professor, live in a nice LA neighborhood, send your kids to private school… and then, one day, your nephew back in "the hood" in Philly has pissed off the wrong bunch and now has to come live with you for awhile.
I’ve heard this expressed pithily as “one of the worst things about being poor is having to live alongside other poor people.” It sounds cruel and god knows there are plenty of rich arseholes but my friends from genuinely deprived backgrounds seem to have to endure a huge amount of interpersonal drama with family, from people needing to be bailed out (literally) to female relatives or friends needing help after getting beaten up by abusive boyfriends or spouses or friends stealing from them. Even if not all poor people have high time preferences and low willpower, the large majority of people with high time preferences and low willpower end up poor, and make life miserable for others in their community trying to escape.
Years ago I had reason to hear a one-hour job overview, from the head of security of a vast consumer goods warehouse. Security...they're worried about stealing stuff, right? Somewhat, but mostly it was the employees creating a giant, ongoing soap opera.
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There is also, I think, a psychological addiction many people have to familiar environments, so a person who grows up around the physical and emotional chaos of poverty will in some way continue to crave that chaos in their life even if they have the will power and conscientiousness to move themselves out of that environment. It will be a constant struggle for them to not fall back into the "comfort food" of the bad life decisions that were normal during their formative years.
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One of the worst things? It is absolutely by and large the worst thing if you're living in the west. There is like no comparison at all.
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Yes, it was likely different when 95% of people were ‘poor’ and only 5% had any money at all, but in the developed world where ‘poor’ generally refers to the bottom 20% you’re going to see very high correlation with low conscientiousness, high time preference etc.
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