Asian And Black Racial Disparity In America

Wisdom concerning racial disparity in America still escapes Liberal writers and scholars. For the latest example of ignorance and illogic, we look in one of the usual source, a fast fading main stream media propaganda mill, the San Francisco Chronicle.

Race Disparities Persist in U.S. By Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press Writer, in the November 14, 2006 San Francisco Chronicle.

“Decades after the civil rights movement, racial disparities in income, education and home ownership persist and, by some measurements, are growing. White households had incomes that were two-thirds higher than blacks and 40 percent higher than Hispanics last year, according to data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau.

“Home ownership grew among white middle-class families after World War II when access to credit and government programs made buying houses affordable. Black families were largely left out because of discrimination, and the effects are still being felt today, said Lance Freeman, assistant professor of urban planning at Columbia University and author of "There Goes the 'Hood."

“Home ownership creates wealth, which enables families to live in good neighborhoods with good schools. It also helps families finance college, which leads to better-paying jobs, perpetuating the cycle, Freeman said.

"’If your parents own their own home they can leave it to you when they pass on or they can use the equity to help you with a down payment on yours,’ Freeman said.”

Noteworthy in this article is how Mr. Freeman and others ignore Asians in their analyses of the effect of race on income, education, and home ownership. It is understandable that a writer trying to prove a point about racial disparity in America would want to leave Asians out of the discussion, because they disprove every point the writer is laboring to make.

As I noted in an earlier post, which I should have made available to the author to help him avoid appearing a fool, Asians who recently “got off the boat” penniless and uneducated are now the highest paid, highest educated, and close to the top in home ownership as a racial group in America.

Those high-achieving Asians, and whites like my wife Alice and I, did not benefit from home ownership wealth to finance college. They, and we, worked hard to put ourselves through college. The Asians, like most Blacks and many Hispanics, can be identified as a member of a racial minority by their appearance. Many Asian Americans, unlike most Blacks and many Hispanics, arrived with no education, no English language abilities, to work in unfamiliar occupations in a strange culture, and with little or no capital to begin a business or buy a home.

Thirty percent of white adults had at least a bachelor's degree in 2005, while 17 percent of black adults and 12 percent of Hispanic adults had degrees. However, 49 percent of Asian Americans had at least a bachelor's degree.

The median income for white households was $50,622 last year. It was $30,939 for black households, $36,278 for Hispanic households and $60,367 for Asian households.

The poverty rate for white residents was 8.3 percent in 2005. It was 24.9 percent for black residents, 21.8 percent for Hispanic residents, and 11.1 percent for Asian residents.

The home ownership rate for whites in 2005 was 76 percent, blacks 44 percent, Hispanics 48 percent, and Asians 59 percent.

What do these statistics show or prove? Obviously, whites have done well, as would be expected, placing first in lowest poverty rate and in highest home ownership, and second in education and income. And even more obviously, Asians have done really well, placing second to whites in home ownership and low poverty rate, and first in college education and household income. If I was a betting man, I would bet that with their education and income numbers, their poverty rate will be going down while their home ownership goes up significantly.

The author of the race disparity article would have you believe that race, and vestiges of racial discrimination, explain why blacks and Hispanics lag far behind. However, the author doesn’t explain why these same factors don’t cause Asians to lag behind, let alone why they actually excel in the supposedly racist American environment while Hispanics, and especially blacks, falter.

"The wealth gap is not just a story of merit and achievement, it's also a story of the historical legacy of race in the United Sates," said Thomas Shapiro, author of "The Hidden Cost of Being African American."

But the wealth gap between African Americans and Asian Americans is a story of merit and achievement. I’m sure Mr. Shapiro is enough of a student of history to have heard of coolie labor, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Japanese American internment camps during World War II, and the desperate, penniless refugees after the fall of Saigon, the “boat people,” and survivors of Cambodian killing fields.

It’s not like Asian refugees weren’t exposed to racism in America. Blacks in particular have attacked Korean shopkeepers in black neighborhoods, and then complained they have to travel far from their neighborhoods to shop.

Liberal cities like San Francisco have tried to impose quotas on the number of Asian students admitted to the most prestigious San Francisco high schools. Liberals in the University of California system are seeking ways to discriminate against Chinese students by establishing criteria beyond grades and test scores for admittance.

Apparently, liberals don’t like it when some minority groups don’t need their special help to thrive in America, because it might call into question why any need such help.

In fact, some might even be so bold as to remark that minorities who work hard, who study hard, achieve more in America by far than anywhere else in the world. That would destroy entire liberal cultures that focus on identifying victims on the basis of race and “lack of opportunity.”

Anytime you read about any group in America not doing well because they are suffering from the “indirect effects of lingering racism,” ask yourself why others are not.

The answer may be painful, but as Sakini (Marlon Brando) said in Teahouse of the August Moon: "Pain makes man think. Thought makes man wise. Wisdom makes life endurable."

"Socks up, boss!"

University of California Frustrated By Proposition 209

Frustrated by Proposition 209, a University of California group seeks to use the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1892 as a model for a Chinese Student Exclusion Act.

According to two recently released faculty reports, the University of California disproportionately serves the state's highest-income, best-educated families, and UC needs to look beyond test scores so high-school graduates from all backgrounds get a fair chance of being admitted. One report, signed by ten UC faculty members and administrators and a student leader, concludes that the UC should consider dramatically cutting the number of freshman applicants guaranteed admission because their high-school grades and UC eligibility test scores are highest.

Who now stands the best chance of being admitted to the University of California system? This should come as no surprise, but as the foregoing UC admissions criteria indicate, the best students as documented by test scores and grades do best at winning admission.

However, for some strange reason merit based admissions don’t make UC faculty, administrators, and student leaders happy.

They are displeased because admissions based on merit favor those who work and study hardest. They can’t have that! Since those favored for admission now are members of a minority, at first blush it would seem they would be welcomed. However, they are the wrong minority, they’re Asian. And most of the Asians are Chinese.

Since the second highest admissions go to no one’s favorite group, Whitey, the UC faculty, administrators, and student leaders have sounded the alarm. “The serious students are coming! The serious students are coming!”

UC admissions of the “right” minorities are sinking rapidly in the wake of passage of Proposition 209, which was supported by 54% of the California voters. Who are these “right” minorities, and why are their admissions sinking?

The “right” minorities, of course, are Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans, who make up 46 percent of California high school graduates, but only 19 percent of UC Freshmen. Their admissions are sinking because Californians passed Proposition 209 in 1996, banning consideration of racial factors in college admissions for the University of California campuses.

The Left feels that this is tragic. Oddly enough, the Left reveres Martin Luther King, but doesn’t honor his dream of a color-blind society. In fact, the Left is rapidly moving towards adapting apartheid’s system of racial typing to create systems that use race to divide the “spoils,” in this case admissions to the UC system.

Lest you think I am being outrageous, Native Americans and Hawaiians are already applying the practices of apartheid. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii has proposed using linear descent from indigenous Hawaiians as the criteria for participation in a new government modeled on Indian tribes. Just as in the Old South under slavery, and in South Africa under apartheid, where a person was a black if they had the slightest trace of black ancestry, so a trace of Hawaiian blood would make a person Hawaiian. However, unlike under apartheid, racial identification would be used to choose the recipients of preferential treatment, rather than injury.

Of course, UC can’t say they are using race as one of the standards for admission. They have to come up with other criteria to use as a stalking horse for race, such as leadership or “spark.” As a point of clarification, I am not being sarcastic by putting quotation marks around “spark.” The San Francisco Chronicle article did it first, and I’m just following their example, using the criteria proposed by the UC study group that they wouldn’t or probably couldn’t define. They are sure their new criteria will be as good or better predictors of success as grades and SAT scores, they just aren’t sure what those criteria are.

I wonder why they think Asians and Whitey wouldn’t exhibit a lot of leadership and “spark” too, and still be the ones to win admission? Isn’t it racial stereotyping to assume that, in addition to not being able to dance and jump, that Asians and Whites wouldn’t be able to lead and be “sparky” too?

According to the UC report: "The status quo encourages students to treat college preparation as an arms race, to focus only on amassing grade and test score points."

My question then is, what will prevent the bright, hard working Asian and White students from still treating college preparation as an arms race, and focusing on leadership and getting “sparky” as well as on amassing grade and test score points?

I think that the esteemed faculty, administrators, and student leaders at UC think they have found a way around Proposition 209 by using leadership and “spark,” which are very subjective criteria, instead of race. That is, no matter what leadership and “sparkiness” the Asians and Whites learn and display, they won’t be the ones the UC admissions officers are looking for. Conversely, Blacks and Hispanics will be overflowing with it. Isn’t it amazing how these sorts of things just happen?

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Obama - Another Man From Hope

I am struck by the outpouring of emotion from Blacks because of the election of Obama to the presidency. It’s not that I didn’t expect it, but one aspect repeats itself that surprises me: apparently Blacks will now be able to do what they couldn’t before, prosper in America. Again and again I read statements that now Blacks will be able to succeed educationally, vocationally, and economically.

It will be wonderful if that is true, but I wonder why it should be.

Two other large, easily identifiable minorities in America are more prosperous and successful than Blacks, and neither of them has ever had one of theirs become President. Asians in America as a group are as successful, and in terms of education and median income more successful, than White Americans.

Although not as successful in America as Whites or Asians, Hispanics already do better than Blacks in terms of education, median income, home ownership, and poverty rate.

Blacks can claim that they are still victims of lingering racism and the slavery of some of their ancestors (which ended over 150 years ago), but Asians and Hispanics have also been exposed to racism, not only in America, but often in their former homelands (perhaps even having personal knowledge of slavery). Many came to America with only the proverbial, often wet, shirts on their backs, not speaking English, frequently illiterate even in their native languages, penniless, and thrust into a strange culture. When they arrived they envied American Blacks, who were literate in English and established in American culture and in their communities.

Then in less than a generation many Asian immigrants became more prosperous than most of the long-established Black Americans, with higher median incomes and education levels than Whites.

Amazingly, all of that was accomplished without an Asian President, or even an Asian Secretary of State or Supreme Court Justice.

Affirmative Action Defeat Met With Deafening Silence

The deafening sounds of silence that announced the landslide passage of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (Proposition 2) in Michigan indicate how the main stream media put their imprint on “news.” Each day I searched the San Francisco Chronicle for news of Ward Connerly’s attack on affirmative action in Michigan. Each day there was nothing. In fact, the latest interest the Chronicle appeared to have in the matter was October 30, a week before the election, when it reported a Michigan poll showed Proposition 2 was in a dead heat for passage.

Not surprisingly, the dead heat turned out to be a sixteen-point victory for Proposition 2, 58 percent for, 42 percent against. Mr. Connerly has already succeeded in having similar propositions passed in California and Washington.

The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative makes it unlawful for all public employers and public contractors, as well as public schools, to discriminate or grant preferential treatment on the basis of race, ethnicity, skin color, gender or national origin.

I don’t think the point has ever registered in the minds of Liberals that, in order to grant favors to one group, you have to discriminate against another. For those that think such discrimination is necessary for Blacks and Hispanics to progress, I would like to call their attention to the successes that Asian immigrants have had in America.

Naturally, Liberals are blind to minorities that don’t need their help, like the Asians. In fact, in California, Asians have done so well that they are now one of the groups that Liberals want to take from to give preferences to Blacks and Hispanics. To a Liberal, success means that you’re a target for discrimination.

Proposition 2 was opposed by Democrats, some Republican leaders, labor unions, the Catholic Church, major media outlets, the University of Michigan, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

Against this formidable opposition, Ward Connelly only had the support of reason and fair treatment. It was no contest.

When a “blue” state like Michigan joins blue states like California and Washington, and gives an overwhelming defeat to affirmative action, Ward Connerly can proudly say that “affirmative action is dead.” The United States is well on its way to becoming the color-blind nation of Reverend King’s dreams.

Please click on the label below to see all my articles on this topic.

Still Bitchin' and Complainin' - Black Democrats

Benediction at Obama 's inauguration, Rev. Joseph Lowery: 'Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen. Say Amen'...

I'm glad that Rev. Lowery didn't ask the Lord to let "the yellow be mellow," because as I've already proven, most Asians are doing really well in America.

Asians have higher median incomes, higher education levels, the second highest home ownership, and second lowest poverty rate when compared to whites in America.

Since many Asians arrived in the United States with just the clothes on their backs, little education, and not speaking English, they have done remarkably well.

Was their advantage that their skin is white? As Rev. Lowery might rhyme, "No, that ain't right."

Was it because of their political pluck? "Lots of luck!"

Congressional Blacks, 43; Hispanics, 26; Asians and Pacific Islanders, 5.

So what special privileges do Asians in America have that makes them as successful or more successful than whites?

First, (take note of this, Rev. Lowery, 'cause it rhymes) dedication to education.

Second, hard work.

In America, Rev. Lowery, that's all it takes.

So tell the Black to get out of the back, the Brown to stop being down, and the Red that "yes we can."

A slave is someone waiting for someone else to set them free.

Slave, Obama set you free!

You're free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last!

Now go to class and get to work.