Indien racistendom, de niet-blanke wereld niet in gijzeling houdt zal
blijken
dat intelligentie geen kwestie is van pigmenten.
Dat de blanken in de USA nu de domste blijken (zie artikel hier beneden)
komt doordat de blanken
in racistisch Amerika relatief minder hoeven te preseteren om
maatschappelijk
toch een redelijke plaats in te nemen.
Conclusie: racisme maakt de blanken steeds dommer en tegelijkertijd steeds
agressiever: zij kunnen hun maatschappelijke positie slechts met
gewelddadigheid handhaven.
Afrikaanse immigranten zijn de succesvolste 'etnische groep' in Amerika.
In ieder geval als educatie het laatste woord is betreffende succes, en we
op de droge cijfers afgaan is dat het geval. Maar liefst 43,8% van hen heeft
universitaire bul op zak, dat is zelfs een hoger % dan de zo vaak
geroemde Aziatische immigranten waarvan 42,5% een universitaire opleiding
heeft afgerond. Daar tegenover hebben van de Europese, Canadese en
Russische immigranten 'slechts' 28,9% een bul.
En let wel, vooral op top-universiteiten zijn Afrikaanse immigranten
relatief vaak te vinden.
Het succes in het onderwijs van Afrikaanse immigranten staat in groot
contrast tot de moeilijkheden die inheemse Zwarte Amerikanen hebben in
het onderwijs; die Zwarten dus met een slavernij verleden...
WASHINGTON-Do African immigrants make the smartest
Americans? The question may sound outlandish, but if
you were judging by statistics alone, you could find
plenty of evidence to back it up.
In a side-by-side comparison of 2000 census data by
sociologist John R. Logan at the Mumford Center, State
University of New York at Albany, black immigrants
from Africa average the highest educational attainment
of any population group in the country, including
whites and Asians.
For example, 43.8 percent of African immigrants had
achieved a college degree, compared to 42.5 of Asian
Americans, 28.9 percent for immigrants from Europe,
Russia and Canada, and 23.1 percent of the U.S.
population as a whole.
That defies the usual stereotypes of Asian Americans
as the only "model minority." Yet the traditional
American narrative has rendered the high academic
achievements of black immigrants from Africa and the
Caribbean invisible, as if it were a taboo topic.
Instead, we should take a closer look. That was my
reaction in 2004 after black Harvard law professor
Lani Guinier and Henry Louis Gates Jr., chairman of
Harvard's African-American studies department, stirred
a black Harvard alumni reunion with questions about
precisely where the university's new black students
were coming from.
About 8 percent, or 530, of Harvard's undergraduates
were black, they said, but somewhere between one-half
and two-thirds of black undergraduates were "West
Indian and African immigrants or their children, or to
a lesser extent, children of biracial couples."
If we take a closer look, I said at the time, I bet
we'll find that Harvard's not alone. With all of the
ink and airwaves that have been devoted to immigration
these days, black immigrants remain remarkably
invisible. Yet their success has long followed the
patterns of other high-achieving immigrants.
As one immigrant Jamaican friend once told me, "I'm
too busy working two jobs to worry about the white
man's racism."
Now comes a new study that finds a consistent pattern
of Ivy League and other elite colleges and
universities boosting their black student populations
by enrolling large numbers of immigrants from Africa,
the West Indies and Latin America.
Immigrants, who make up 13 percent of the nation's
college-age black population, account for more than a
quarter of black students at Ivy League and other
elite universities, according to the study of 28
selective colleges and universities. The authors of
the study, published recently in the American Journal
of Education, included Douglas S. Massey of Princeton
University and Camille Z. Charles of the University of
Pennsylvania. The proportion of immigrants was higher
at private institutions, 28.8 percent, than at the
public ones, where they comprised 23.1 percent of
enrollment.
Are elite schools padding their racial diversity
numbers with black immigrants who do not have a
history of American slavery in their families? This
development immediately calls into question whether
affirmative action admission policies are fulfilling
their original intent.
But as Walter Benn Michaels, a professor of English at
the University of Illinois at Chicago, writes in his
book "The Trouble With Diversity: How We Learned to
Love Identity and Ignore Inequality," the original
intent of affirmative action morphed back in the 1970s
from reparations for slavery into the promotion of a
broader virtue: "diversity." Since then, it no longer
seems to matter how many of your college's black
students had slavery in their families. It only
matters that they are black.
That said, I don't begrudge black immigrants or any
other high-achieving immigrants for their impressive
achievements. I applaud them. I encourage more
native-born American children, particularly my own
child, to take similar advantage of this country's
hard-won opportunities.
But I also think we need to revisit the meaning of
"diversity." Unlike our current system of feel-good
game-playing, we need to focus on the deeper question
of how education can be improved and opportunities
opened up to those who were left behind by the civil
rights revolution.
We tend to look too often at every aspect of diversity
except economic class. Yet, the dream of upward
mobility is an essential part of how we Americans like
to think of ourselves.
It's also why a lot more people are trying to get into
this country than trying to get out.
Page is a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist
specializing in urban issues. He is based in
Washington, D.C. E-mail:
[email protected]