> What I do know is, you can't compensate for that by handing people undeserved opportunities.
How do you know this?
Not that I agree with your framing, but even if I accept it for the sake of argument, that black culture is lazy and underachieving in a way white culture isn't, it still seems to me that if you hand black people undeserved opportunities (leaving aside that the word "undeserved" is a huge stretch here, given that you've just admitted that it's for no fault of their own), they'll move into a culture of good white traits like being smart and competitive and creative, and they'll have kids who grow up looking up to their parents' hard-working, humble, humorous white coworkers at Google.
Not OP, but giving false promise to people is very cruel. A lot of people who do not get into schools on their own merits (for whatever reason) do not do as well. The drop out rate among African Americans is significantly higher. This may be because of the colleges attended, but even in the same college, these differences remain. This doesn't necessarily mean that its caused by different standards for different races. For instance it may be because some students have trouble fitting in or finding the support they need. But it is worth considering.
>> Not that I agree with your framing, but even if I accept it for the sake of argument, that black culture is lazy and underachieving in a way white culture isn't...
That is absolutely not my thesis; you're either wilfully or ignorantly misrepresenting what I said. Some black people do make it in tech; some make it in other fields. They generally do so the way the rest of us do, by hard work. Perhaps harder work, in fact, because of cultural barriers that still exist.
Actually, the parent posting is an excellent example of the extreme conclusions to which people jump whenever the hot potato topic of race comes up. It's a kneejerk response: White man shoots black man, must be racism. Half of inmates in max security prisons are black -- must be racism.
The fact is that black culture itself is diverse and while most blacks do achieve respectable middle class lifestyles, there is an achievement gap that some experience, that cannot be dressed up with canards like "cultural barrier" or "dialectical discrimination".
>> ...they'll move into a culture of good white traits...
Yes, this is the old 1970s era rationale for quota systems. "Such practices are inherently unfair and even a form of reverse racism, but in the long run it somehow magically produces equality." This notion has been long since discredited and indeed these kinds of affirmative action and quota practices may even have prolonged black underachievement. It's just like the failed forcible integration efforts of the '70s. They didn't work because while you can mix ethnic groups, you can't mix economic classes; those who can move, move.
I apologize for ignorantly misrepresenting it. That seemed like an accurate way of rephrasing your claim, "maybe Black Americans don't get that in their upbringing." But I guess I have lost some subtlety.
Anyway, I was under the impression that the lives of minorities in the US is much better today and the correlation between race and class is much weaker today than before the 1970s, no? ("Forcible integration," for instance, brings to mind the Little Rock Nine in the 1950s and the "segregation forever" speech in the 1960s, but maybe you're referring to something else.) How has this been discredited, and in what way did they not work? Sorry if this is a naïve question.
How do you know this?
Not that I agree with your framing, but even if I accept it for the sake of argument, that black culture is lazy and underachieving in a way white culture isn't, it still seems to me that if you hand black people undeserved opportunities (leaving aside that the word "undeserved" is a huge stretch here, given that you've just admitted that it's for no fault of their own), they'll move into a culture of good white traits like being smart and competitive and creative, and they'll have kids who grow up looking up to their parents' hard-working, humble, humorous white coworkers at Google.
Doesn't that have measurable positive results?