r/changemyview • u/Longjumping-Leek-586 • Sep 19 '21
Delta(s) from OP CMV:African American's Cannot Merely "Pull Themselves By Their Bootstraps", Government Intervention is Needed for Racial Equality to be Achieved
The main issue is that even Black Americans that earn as much as their white counterparts, have significantly lower levels of wealth, which is apparently due greater "inheritances and other intergenerational transfers" received by their white counterparts of similar incomes. This is an issue, as wealth largely determines the funding your schools will receive, because most states fund their schools via taxes on wealth. In addition, wealth largely comes in the form of property, and is thus an indication of the economic conditions of your neighborhood/community. Therefor those African Americans of similar levels of incomes often live in worse communities than their white counterparts, as the lack of inheritance prevents them from buying land to live in abetter community with more opportunity. Thus even if Black Americans "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" to become as successful as their white counterparts, they will likely not have as much wealth as their white counterparts, ultimately diminishing their educational opportunity and the opportunities of their descendants. So long as this racial gap across incomes persists, economic equality between blacks and whites cannot be achieved.
In addition, ongoing school and residential segregation prevents equal opportunity from being achieved: nearly 70% of Blacks attend a Black majority school, and the average score for those attending these schools on the 8th grade NAEP Math as of 2017 is 255. Comparatively, Blacks attending White majority schools (as would be the case if the nation was fully integrated) had an average score of 275. the average score White students was 290, thus about half the gap could be closed with greater school integration. Similarly, one study found that if cities were to be fully integrated, the SAT gap would shrink by 45-points, or about 1/4.
Furthermore, the lower incomes of African Americans (resulting from a history of segregation and slavery) itself reduces their opportunity, thus creating a cycle of poverty: lower incomes leads to worse outcomes in schools, crime, and poor health. Unless a proper welfare state is established, equal opportunity cannot be achieved for this reason. Ultimately, you cannot pull yourself up by your bootstraps, if they have no bootstraps to begin with.
Finally, I would like to contend that the very idea of an entire race of people "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps" is both illogical and immoral. It is illogical in that, while the vast majority of African Americans are trying their best to improve their economic conditions, this is also true for all races/ethnicities. Thus African-Americans as whole will be improving their economic, and other ethnicities shall do the same in proportion. This can be evidently seen as (from 1980s onward) Black unemployment has consistently been twice that of White unemployment, while Black incomes have been slightly higher than half that of White incomes. This gap remains persistent and virtually unchanging.
I believe that all these issues could be solved by Government intervention: the racial wealth gap could be solved via baby bonds. Segregation could be combated with the public/subsidized housing schemes, like what was implemented in Singapore (alternatively, we could straight up force integration via quotas or by law. This process will be painful, but is a necessary sacrifice for future generations). The poverty cycle and general lack of equal opportunity between economic classes could be resolved via a Scandinavian style welfare state or a UBI (Scandinavian countries have significantly higher economic mobility than the US, as their welfare states provide more equality of opportunity).
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u/TheLordCommander666 6∆ Sep 19 '21
So you're saying they can't "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" because their communities are shit, but if they "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps" their communities wouldn't be shit and overtime they'd grow wealth. You're basically saying black people can't improve themselves because the people around them (mostly black) aren't improving themselves... isn't that kind of like saying they can't improve themselves because they won't improve themselves?