OK - that was a pretty good reply. I never looked at it that way and you're a clearly bringing something to the table here. I would add that since they tend to stay after coming here, it is still better than their homeland, though in fact they may just be stuck and determined to make the best of it.
Originally Posted by Jewish Lawyer
Thanks, I may be a bleeding heart liberal progressive (and damn proud of it), but I do try and bring a pragmatic bent to looking at these issues.
In most cases, yes, America is better than their homeland(s) in most (or at least enough) ways.
Also, immigrants tend to settle together in areas and support each other (they are often the best educated and most entrepreneurial people from their countries so they fit well with American ideals and values) which American blacks do too, but American blacks have some additional inbuilt barriers and prejudices against them (perceived as lazy and criminal and policed and incarcerated heavily out of all proportion).
I have a niece struggling with addiction and heard Dr. Carl Hart (the first black Ph.D. neuro-scientist tenured at Columbia U.) speak with Chris Hayes so I'm reading his autobiography mainly for the scientific approach to addiction. It really does challenge what we know about drugs and society, but it is an important view into what it is like to grow up poor and black in America. He tells what "hood" society is like from a person who has transitioned from the "hood" to an Ivy League professorship. It is eye opening and he writes clearly and in a very matter-of-fact manner with no blame at all.
Hart grew up in a lower middle class neighborhood, but when his parents divorced when he was 11 he moved with his mother to the Miami "hood" so his formative teenage years were lived in some of the toughest parts of Miami. He tells what it was like to survive with parents who struggled to put a roof over their heads and food on the table and calls out his luck at having sisters who took care of him, strong grandmothers, athletic and musical talent that kept him out of trouble and some math ability. If not for luck (first that he decided to join the Air Force when he didn't get an athletic scholarship to college, later more luck) he could easily have wound up slinging rock and/or in jail. It was never clear until he got his Columbia professorship that he would succeed in the end and at any time it was possible, even likely that he could easily have taken another course and sunk into obscurity. At no point was it clearly obvious that he would make the "good" decision and it would work out for him. I think it is an important book because it gives some insight into what American black communities are really like and perhaps some hints about how we might really help them solve their own problems and become more mainstream (unlocking the talent and entrepreneurial ability that are there and being wasted). Obviously formulating drug and incarceration policy and laws based on science rather than anecdote and hysteria would be a good first step.
High Price by Dr. Carl Hart