> Skin color isn't it, actually.

Is contradicted by this

> My mixed race friend mentioned he was accused of "acting white" in school because he actually tried to get good grades.

Unless you are taking skin colour very literally, which is obviously not it (someone's academic performance is not going to change if they get a heavy tan or use s kin whitening cream or take a drug that changes skin colour etc.).

I interpreted "white" to mean an ethnic identity, not a literal description.

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4 days ago | parent | next [-]

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kingkawn 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

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graemep 4 days ago | parent [-]

Saying that skin colour is not important is racist? Or are you objecting to the idea that culture matters? Or are you saying that how people identify, and how society classifies them has no impact?

Really confused by what you are claiming is racist.

	▲	tomrod 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I find this sort of claim really common (the commenter you responded to). Skin color is unfortunately correlated to socioeconomic outcomes in the United States. Once poverty is controlled for, at least in my analysis, most of this difference is ameliorated (though mild correlation persists). Most people in this vein, at least in my experience, will describe after a long conversation that they think there can only be two sources of correlation - genetic ("nature", which I disagree is a primary cause of socioeconomic outcomes) and a weird subset of nurture that fails to take into account intergenerational impact (history), instead focusing solely on state (assertion of Markovian process to life). In my view, nuture breaks out into those components -- history defines the resources you have access to in your broader community, and state defines your immediate challenges. It's hard to get resources to change your life if you have a bad state, but it is possible. Americans love an underdog story and the bad-state good-history fits it well. Bad-history leads to a lot of additional issues -- systemic type issues. Americans have seen this in both hostile urban planning to a full community and to hostile resource reallocation to rural areas (towns shutting down with no way to recover) in favor of suburbia. From my studies, I think Strongtown lands the description of the issues (Youtube channel). I'm not epistemically arrogant enough to assume I am 100% right here -- much of this is from 20 years of research experience but there is always more to understand at a population level and how that relates to the individual level. I am epistemically arrogant enough to require people to hold to their ideals -- if someone wants to ensure equality of opportunity, that has to both be for the state (Little Jimmy and Jane come from a poor family) as well as history (and none of Little Jane's community has been to college and nor do they understand the college application or financial assistance process; further, most are unbanked and most of the male population can't get gainful employment due prison sentences connected to overpolicing and/or desperation behaviors [a catch-22 for communities wanting to build a brighter future while also exercising punitive justice]).