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I agree that white liberals love to treat blacks as inferiors (and that any number of black leaders love to reinforce that treatment such as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, etc).

But be careful with the statistics. If I test a white poor, rural student from Mississippi against a white private school student from Amherst, the test results will reveal that the Amherst student performs better. No racial implications - its just that economics and culture impact test scores.

So, why do blacks underperform on standardized tests? Well, it could be that blacks are, on average, more stupid than whites. But it could be that blacks have lower income than whites, partly due to racial prejudice and partly due to terrible education. Also, some black writers have lamented about the culture of drugs, violence and instant wealth that has infested inner cities; this is part of the "Why bother?" mentality that many inner city blacks have adopted over the years.

So, what do we do about it? Better education seems like a good answer, but the political realities are such that the programs adopted tend to be demeaning (see original poster's story about NJ or Ted Kennedy's proposed black-speak program [guaranteed to ensure that blacks never fit into society in other than sports or entertainment] or just plain embarrasing (moving away from reading, writing and arithmetic and moving towards black culture, sensitivity training, sexual awareness - I think all of these things have value, but as additional material to the basic education, not as substitutes).

This requires black households to 1) reduce their abandonment problems, 2) reduce teenage pregnancy [and abandonment] and 3) tout education. Liberals never want to address these issues because they would be attacked as racists. But they need to be discussed more so that a solution can be found.

I teach and I understand the concerns of people on this board. However, I have had numerous black students who are every bit as good as my best white students. However, these black students tend to come from more affluent familiies that have escaped the inner city.

So, how do help blacks or hispanics escape the inner city? This is a hard problem that does not lend itself to simple Hillary-type solutions such as give schools more money (that is, give my friends more money so that they can pocket it or give it to their friends). I don't know the answer except to follow the example of Malcolm X (the latter days, not the early "white devil" days) - blacks have to become educated and do it themselves.

But white liberals make it difficult. Take movies for example. Many movies about blacks depict inner-city LA and end up glorifying the power and camaraderie of the gangs? Many of them. We then give Denzel Washington, a very talented actor, an Oscar for probably his worst role - a crooked black cop with power who only screws up when he kills one of those nasty (and white) Russians. I heard kids leaving the theatre saying "I wish I had that job!" Danny Glover, a less-talented actor, is worshipped by the liberals because he says "discrimination" about everything.

The point is that white liberals encourage the race-baiting for their own power base. They have no incentive to actually fix the problems (gee, if blacks succeed, they become Republicans! We better screw this up royally and convince them that we are their friends). This was Bill Clinton's model - can anyone tell me what Clinton did that helped blacks so much OTHER than telling them that he did so much?

So, why do blacks underperform on standardized tests? Well, it could be that blacks are, on average, more stupid than whites. But it could be that blacks have lower income than whites, partly due to racial prejudice and partly due to terrible education.

All people are not equal no matter how many laws we pass. Could poverty and violence be the culprit? I know many immigrants that come from h*ll, they are not native speakers, they are disliked by others racial groups and they are poor.
Guess what? They work hard, and maintain high GPA's, and become productive citizens.

Personnaly, my fmaily came from a reservation that is real poor and alcoholism is a problem (to put it mildly) and guess what? We don't kill and rob and we are able to handle learning.