<p>Speaking of other countries and upward mobility, I coincidentally came across this article - </p>
<p>[Lamborghini</a> to Drive Alongside Rickshaws in India - Bloomberg](<a href=“http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-19/lamborghini-snares-millionaires-in-india.html]Lamborghini”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
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<p>My hypothesis would be that a combination of the impacts of multi-generational racism, including redlining of neighborhoods (making it impossible for African American families to own their own homes, and then pass on wealth to their heirs - and have that happen for several generations) as well as well-documented higher interest rates, well-documented racism in delivery of health care (studies showing that AF-Ams WITH THE SAME INSURANCE get poorer quality health care than their white peers), the social engineering of Social Security, whereby AF-AMs, especially Black men, pay in, but mostly don’t collect, with those funds going to my mother (to be passed on to nice little ol’ white me - and this happened for three generations, all adding to inheritance, investment, ability to fund businesses, pay for higher education, etc.), the placement decisions of quality teachers, documented differences in criminal justice sentencing…anyway I have a much longer list. Combine them all together in a nice stew.</p>
<p>I do think that some AF-AMs and Hispanics have experienced upward mobility. On the whole, though, whether you look at net wealth, employment, changes in life expectancy, etc., things are moving in the opposite direction. </p>
<p>But the original question was why LESS social mobility here for everyone than in some other places. I’m suggesting that, for white folks, that might not be the case.</p>
<p>In some areas, the lack of mobility has to do with illegal immigration and lack of literacy in English across multiple generations. Which is why I teach people to read. It’s the greatest gift you can give someone and it keeps on giving to their children and their children’s children.</p>
<p>Kudos to you, zoosermom.</p>
<p>
Does the study have some illustrative examples of this? If a black person and a white person with the same insurance walk into the same hospital (probably a key here) with the same condition does the study say that the white person will receive better care than the black person due to racism on the part of the staff or procedures? Or is it really that the white is going to the top hospital in town and the black the worst hospital in town despite having the same insurance and that really ‘anyone’ experiencing the two disparate hospitals would see a difference?</p>
<p>I think generally our society has a lot of social mobility, both upwards and downwards and back and forth, and generally it’s up to the individual to determine which direction they’ll head in based on decisions they make through their lives.</p>
<p>"<br>
Quote:
well-documented racism in delivery of health care (studies showing that AF-Ams WITH THE SAME INSURANCE get poorer quality health care than their white peers)
Does the study have some illustrative examples of this? If a black person and a white person with the same insurance walk into the same hospital (probably a key here) with the same condition does the study say that the white person will receive better care than the black person due to racism on the part of the staff or procedures?"</p>
<p>It shows that, with the same condition (heart condition), they will go to the SAME doctor and get different (in the case of AF-AMs, inferior) treatment. The physicians, when confronted, weren’t even aware of it (they were actually shocked by it), but the data were pretty overwhelming. AF-AMs were also offered less in the way of preventive care, and advice on behavioral interventions.</p>
<p>This kind of study has been done on multiple occasions. "One particularly insightful study compared referral patterns of 720 internists and family physicians in videotaped interviews of scripted Black and White heart disease patients age 55 and 70 played by professional actors. Care was taken to keep all extraneous factors constant in the scripted scenarios, which were identical between the two racial groups. It concluded:</p>
<p>“Our finding that race and sex of that patient influence the recommendations of physicians independently of other factors may suggest bias on the part of physicians. However, our study could not assess the form of bias. Bias may represent overt prejudice on the part of physicians or, more likely, could be the result of subconscious perceptions rather than deliberate actions or thoughts. Subconscious bias occurs when a patient’s membership in a target group automatically activates a cultural stereotype in the physician’s memory regardless of the level of prejudice the physician has.”</p>
<p>[Black</a> unemployment rate: Highest since 1984 - Sep. 2, 2011](<a href=“http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/02/news/economy/black_unemployment_rate/index.htm]Black”>Black unemployment rate: Highest since 1984 - Sep. 2, 2011)</p>
<p>I’m not sure how anyone can say that racism does not contribute to economic differences. I don’t want it to be so, but the statistics say it must be so. There is no other explanation for the disparity in unemployment given the same educational background: for example, african american males graduating recently with a four year degree experience 24% unemployment right now. caucaisons with the same degree? 13% unemployment. Obviously neither number is good, but still that is a staggering stat in my opinion.</p>
<p>Also, as a member of the 1%, I fully support the questions the 99% are asking right now. I just wish they knew the right questions… There is so much that can be done to change things, just not the things that the media and politicians want them to know about. All of them have the same lobbyists, unfortunately, and the smart political donors donate to both sides of the aisle.</p>
<p>mini:</p>
<p>Do you have a link to that study?</p>
<p>Also, did it denote a difference based on the race of the hospital staff the patient interacted with? Does it make a difference if the black patient is seeing a black doc or a white is seeing a black doc as opposed to both seeing a white doc? What if the doc is Asian?</p>
<p>It;s one of about 30 “Decisions” studies:</p>
<p>[MMS:</a> Error](<a href=“http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199902253400806]MMS:”>http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199902253400806)</p>
<p>Thanks for the link mini. From the link -
Does that mean that the black group received better care?</p>
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Or not?</p>
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Or is the study that valid? Plus the study was with ‘actors’ - not a study of real patients. This may have provided insight but also could affect the results.</p>
<p>
Was it based in actual racism or might it have been based on other factors, like previous experiences with the gender and race and how those factors enter the physiological equation? </p>
<p><a href=“the%20bias”>quote</a>…may (be because)…could (be because)…
[/quote]
These are unfounded conclusions on the part of the report that have little meaning.</p>
<p>The physicians who participated in the study were overwhelmingly white (around 80%) and male (around 70%). It’d be interesting to see how the race and gender of the docs would have made a difference and what the general recommendations would be to patients - i.e. should they seek out a doc of their own race in gender, of some particular other race or gender, or does it actually make enough of a difference to worry about?</p>
<p>As I said, there are 30 other studies, most since this one (1999). All of the rest were with actual clients, and plotted actual treatment and outcome. Had I posted those, you would likely have said that the clients weren’t really the same (which is why I chose to give you this one.)</p>
<p>So, go research the studies yourself.</p>
<p>I have many Jamaican clients in Florida.</p>
<p>They do well in America, and their kids become doctors and engineers.</p>
<p>There is still upward mobility in America.</p>
<p>It just does not lie, by and large, in getting degrees from expensive colleges in psychology and history.</p>
<p>I understand that many available jobs in engineering and the sciences remain unfilled.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, down here in Florida, there will soon be two MORE new law schools opening.</p>
<p>Does that make sense?</p>
<p>Bluebayou, thanks for the link. </p>
<p>You don’t see a problem with your link?</p>
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I don’t know what I would have said but I don’t simply accept the conclusions of individuals, with their own biases, as to the reasons for the results of studies, which often have their own biases in both methodology and conclusions. I guess I’m the skeptical and questioning type.</p>
<p>Posts 13, and 14… This is something I don’t get.</p>
<p>Where is the shareholder outrage? </p>
<p>Shareholders should be occupying wall street and protesting and stating that they aren’t going to take it anymore. Shareholders.</p>
<p>I look at pay at these financial firms…and then I look at the stock prices of these same firms, and I think, “what the he’ll?”.</p>
<p>Any group that has 70% of their kids out of wedlock, idolizes the hip-hop culture and so on is going to have problems.</p>
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I can’t think of any reason why marital status or taste in music should have any effect on the treatment prescribed for heart disease re the studies mini’s referring to. If it does, then that’s bias.</p>
<p>GladGradDad,
I suggest you read the 1965 report by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, which is as valid today as it was then.</p>
<p>"‘Culture of Poverty’ Makes a Comeback</p>
<p>For more than 40 years, social scientists investigating the causes of poverty have tended to treat cultural explanations like Lord Voldemort: That Which Must Not Be Named.</p>
<p>The reticence was a legacy of the ugly battles that erupted after Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then an assistant labor secretary in the Johnson administration, introduced the idea of a “culture of poverty” to the public in a startling 1965 report. Although Moynihan didn’t coin the phrase (that distinction belongs to the anthropologist Oscar Lewis), his description of the urban black family as caught in an inescapable “tangle of pathology” of unmarried mothers and welfare dependency was seen as attributing self-perpetuating moral deficiencies to black people, as if blaming them for their own misfortune. </p>
<p>But in the overwhelmingly liberal ranks of academic sociology and anthropology the word “culture” became a live grenade, and the idea that attitudes and behavior patterns kept people poor was shunned.</p>
<p>Now, after decades of silence, these scholars are speaking openly about you-know-what, conceding that culture and persistent poverty are enmeshed." </p>
<p>[Scholars</a> Return to ?Culture of Poverty? Ideas - NYTimes.com](<a href=“Scholars Return to ‘Culture of Poverty’ Ideas - The New York Times”>Scholars Return to ‘Culture of Poverty’ Ideas - The New York Times)
the full report is available online here-
[U.S</a>. Department of Labor – History – The Negro Family - The Case for National Action](<a href=“http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm]U.S”>http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm)</p>
<p>^^ I don’t know if you were referring to my post immediately preceding yours but if so, the keyword is ‘should’ (“don’t see why marital status or taste in music ‘should’ have any effect”) since firstly, I doubt that the attending physician would know the patient’s taste in music or whether the patient’s parents were married at the time the patient was born, and secondly whether it actually has any real affect on the physiology of the heart. If it does I might need to try to get my kid to quit listening to any hip-hop music (and same for me when I’m with her because I think some of it is catchy and funny - not to be jacking anyone’s style or cutting their swagger).</p>
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<p>Shareholders simply sell the stocks of companies that behave badly to the point that it affects earnings and the balance sheet. By that measure, shareholders have already shown their anger at management.</p>