While I do not have enough expertise on the last 3 points to adequately respond to them, I know enough to critique the first one. I read Sowell’s study that researched West Indians in comparison to African Americans. The data was from 1969 of the public census, he wrote this in the 70s (he is very old). He found that nationally (I rounded) the median household income for African Americans was 5900, West Indians were 9000 and the national average was 9500.
He then isolated them to the same geographic area (nyc metro area) and found African Americans had 6900 and West Indians had 8800, he held about everything constant such as education, age, children etc, all of which were quite comparable. Most West Indians at the time were concentrated (over 50%) in nyc alone and therefore it would be a good geographic place to compare. 8800 median income was comparable to other groups that are located in the nyc metro area such as Italian Americans who also had an income of 8800 nationally.
Sowell wanted to test whether West Indians made more than African Americans because they were favored more as hard working and as immigrants with better education, so he isolated the census to second generation West Indians who would seem imperceptible as anything other than a black, assimilated New Yorker most of whom with the exception of the newly arrived black southerners spoke in a New York dialect. The second generation West Indies with only 1 year more of schooling had a median income of 10900, surpassing African Americans, their parents, the national average and the average of the northeast (10700), which is why Friedman said in one generation they caught up to the rest of the nation, in truth they surpassed even the average of the richest region of the USA. They surpassed whites and other ethnic groups with which they were similar and sowell maintains neither genetics nor discrimination could explain that since they are darker skinned and have more African genes.
But the author does bring up a good point, why doesn’t it seem like this pattern holds today? Things changed dramatically since then. 1. West Indians after 1970 started relocating more to the south which was perceived as more family friendly and like them religiously devout, this would depress the groups median wages overall. 2. Prior to 1970 as sowell writes about, close to 90 percent of a West Indian’s friend groups and about 90 percent of the time their marriage partner was also a West Indian. In other words they usually hung around and associated with their own ethnic group and not American blacks. After social desegregation took place throughout America and all ethnic groups started interacting more, the movements of the 1960s and 1970s encouraged certain social pathologies (illegitimacy, anti intellectualism, “acting white”, hooliganism and violence) once confined to southern whites and blacks to seep into the American black and then West Indian youth and because West Indian youth became imperceptible both by look and culture, they were pressured to conform to these social pathologies, all of which would lead to lower median incomes and stunt upward mobility. Sowell writes about this in Black Rednecks and White Liberals. There is this great study from Harvard in 1994 highlighting West Indians and their transition from an immigrant group into part of the American black mainstream. In it the West Indian parents are worried about their children becoming more like and adopting customs of American blacks including aspects of what they called “ghetto culture”.
That is my two cents on this. I encourage the author to read this, read his original study American ethnic groups (1978) edited by Thomas sowell or Sowell’s Ethnic America (1981) and then see whether Friedman’s point refutes hereditarianism or not. Thank You.
While I do not have enough expertise on the last 3 points to adequately respond to them, I know enough to critique the first one. I read Sowell’s study that researched West Indians in comparison to African Americans. The data was from 1969 of the public census, he wrote this in the 70s (he is very old). He found that nationally (I rounded) the median household income for African Americans was 5900, West Indians were 9000 and the national average was 9500.
He then isolated them to the same geographic area (nyc metro area) and found African Americans had 6900 and West Indians had 8800, he held about everything constant such as education, age, children etc, all of which were quite comparable. Most West Indians at the time were concentrated (over 50%) in nyc alone and therefore it would be a good geographic place to compare. 8800 median income was comparable to other groups that are located in the nyc metro area such as Italian Americans who also had an income of 8800 nationally.
Sowell wanted to test whether West Indians made more than African Americans because they were favored more as hard working and as immigrants with better education, so he isolated the census to second generation West Indians who would seem imperceptible as anything other than a black, assimilated New Yorker most of whom with the exception of the newly arrived black southerners spoke in a New York dialect. The second generation West Indies with only 1 year more of schooling had a median income of 10900, surpassing African Americans, their parents, the national average and the average of the northeast (10700), which is why Friedman said in one generation they caught up to the rest of the nation, in truth they surpassed even the average of the richest region of the USA. They surpassed whites and other ethnic groups with which they were similar and sowell maintains neither genetics nor discrimination could explain that since they are darker skinned and have more African genes.
But the author does bring up a good point, why doesn’t it seem like this pattern holds today? Things changed dramatically since then. 1. West Indians after 1970 started relocating more to the south which was perceived as more family friendly and like them religiously devout, this would depress the groups median wages overall. 2. Prior to 1970 as sowell writes about, close to 90 percent of a West Indian’s friend groups and about 90 percent of the time their marriage partner was also a West Indian. In other words they usually hung around and associated with their own ethnic group and not American blacks. After social desegregation took place throughout America and all ethnic groups started interacting more, the movements of the 1960s and 1970s encouraged certain social pathologies (illegitimacy, anti intellectualism, “acting white”, hooliganism and violence) once confined to southern whites and blacks to seep into the American black and then West Indian youth and because West Indian youth became imperceptible both by look and culture, they were pressured to conform to these social pathologies, all of which would lead to lower median incomes and stunt upward mobility. Sowell writes about this in Black Rednecks and White Liberals. There is this great study from Harvard in 1994 highlighting West Indians and their transition from an immigrant group into part of the American black mainstream. In it the West Indian parents are worried about their children becoming more like and adopting customs of American blacks including aspects of what they called “ghetto culture”.
That is my two cents on this. I encourage the author to read this, read his original study American ethnic groups (1978) edited by Thomas sowell or Sowell’s Ethnic America (1981) and then see whether Friedman’s point refutes hereditarianism or not. Thank You.