According to this article, which reported on a study, the problem for black students vis-a-vis income is that they choose majors in college that “don’t reflect” their college effort. Specifically, they move into jobs like social work or childhood caring fields, so called “intellectual and caring fields... where low incomes do not reflect their years of higher education.” By comparison, honkey kids select majors like science, engineering, architecture, pharmaceutical studies, etc. These are so called STEM majors.
The result is that black students are picking fields that have salaries that are typically only 50% of the STEM fields. Hence, they make a butt load less money.
This explains not only why blacks don’t make as much as whites, it also explains why their jobs are less secure. It also explains why so many end up working for the government, because that is the typical employer for those fields. Said differently, this means that the reason blacks are far less economically secure than whites is because they choose, to go into fields that make them less economically secure. It has nothing to do with racists lurking in the bushes sabotaging black careers.
Interesting. Just suggesting that personal choice has something to do with the failures of blacks would have gotten one sent to re-education camp a few years ago. Indeed, much like feminists, race baiters pushed the idea in the 1990's that blacks and whites were identical. Hence, any disparity in results had to be the result of discrimination (as an aside, any positive disparity for blacks, such as in sports, was essentially accepted but considered off limits for exploration lest doing so opened the door to investigations of negative disparity). Many an author or researcher found themselves attacked for being a bigot for exploring good or bad disparities. So indeed, times have changed if a report like this can come out without the study authors being lynched for
Now... all that said, there is an interesting bit of backtracking. At one point, the author of the study clearly realizes that blaming blacks, rather than racism, for their own failures does remain a thoughtcrime in certain circles. So he tries to explain part of this away. According to the author, this issue isn’t all about personal choice. Instead, blacks are forced into making these choices by the racists in Silicon Valley because most blacks cluster in black colleges and Silicon Valley, which is packed with Kanye-hating racist racists, puts in only lackluster recruitment efforts on those campuses. Boo racism! But the study also notes that black students are “concentrated in institutions where students have limited choices of majors offered.” As the article then notes, “in other words, it’s tough... to major in a field such as chemical engineering if it’s not an option on campus.”
Think about what this really means, though. Translated to reality, this means that attending a black college keeps black students down because those colleges aren’t as good as non-black colleges at offering good choices of study. This would also explain why evil racist Silicon Valley doesn’t hire many kids from black colleges too, doesn't it?
What’s more the study suggests that these schools need to improve their counseling to explain to black students what other options are out there because, right now, they are apparently telling these students to “give back” to the community through these low income careers. Again, this means that not only are black colleges failing black students, but the counselors at those schools are leading kids down the path that causes the income disparity which has heretofore been attributed to Evil Racism™.
In other words, the reason blacks earn less, hold crappier jobs and are less economically secure is because they make choices that lead them into the wrong fields. Leading them into those fields are the black counselors at black colleges, which fail these students with bad advice and by not even offering the programs those students need for success. Honestly, this is a "well, duh," moment. But the fact that it can now be spoken is a huge step forward in our culture.
The first step in solving a problem is being able to discuss the problem. Times are indeed changing.
Thoughts?
By the way, two things I would add in this moment of Black Glasnost. First, people have long noted that blacks excel in athletics. I think it's important to point out that this too is essentially a question of choice. A much greater percentage of black children are told that sports is a viable career path than white kids. The result is that the candidate pool of black athletes is much higher than that of other races in the US. This is the same reason Latinos dominate baseball and whites dominate golf: personal choice leads to different applicant pools which leads to different racial outcomes. The one exception seems to be pure running skill. And for that we possibly have point two...
Point Two: there was an interesting discovery discussed this week regarding genetics. Apparently, humans and neanderthals interbred about 100,000 years earlier than thought. The result is that about 2% of the DNA of whites and Asians is from neanderthals. Blacks, apparently, do not share this. This actually suggests that some differences between the races might be genetic in nature. It will be interesting to see if science finds that this does lead to meaningfully different traits.
OT: The GOP has decided to collectively re-enact the final scene from Thelma and Louise.
ReplyDeleteAndrew,
ReplyDeleteThe Georgetown University study (available at the first link for the interested) isn't saying anything new or controversial. The shortage of blacks studying STEM has been openly discussed since at least the late 90s. Though the articles I posted below were all written in the past five years I can dig up older ones with a bit of time.
http://www.usnews.com/news/stem-solutions/articles/2016-02-09/report-black-students-underrepresented-in-high-paying-stem-majors
http://washingtoninformer.com/news/2014/jul/08/study-examines-absence-blacks-stem-careers/
http://washingtoninformer.com/news/2014/jul/08/study-examines-absence-blacks-stem-careers/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/24/stem-education-and-jobs-d_n_1028998.html
https://www.blacksintechnology.net/to-fix-stem-crisis-go-back-to-the-future/
http://madamenoire.com/272646/workforce-of-the-future-why-african-americans-must-consider-stem-careers/
http://www.ebony.com/career-finance/why-african-americans-may-be-left-out-of-the-21st-century-job-market-498#axzz413naurU4
OT but Trump won Nevada with 46% of the vote (more than Cruz and Rubio combined). Everything is coming up Hillary.
ReplyDeleteKanye-hating racist racists
ReplyDeleteI can safely say that there's nothing racist about hating Kanye... unless, of course, you hate him just for his skin color, but why hate him for that when there are plenty of legit reasons to hate him!
I don't even hate him; he's that most wonderful of character archetypes: the idiot who doesn't know he's an idiot. :-)
Kit and Anthony, Nevada is a caucus state. Caucuses are dominated by small amounts of idiots who outnumber other small groups of idiots. It means nothing. And keep in mind, Trump has interests in Nevada. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if Trump employees outnumbered other caucus goers.
ReplyDeleteOhio and Florida are what matters.
Scott, Kanye is a real ass. He spews hate. He's a bully, in Millennial parlance. He's a racist.
ReplyDeleteAnthony, It's not the small number of blacks in STEM degrees/jobs that's interesting in this article. They've been lamenting that for a long time, just as they lamented the lack of girls in science and math for decades now.
ReplyDeleteWhat is different is the idea that this is because of choices made by blacks, guidance given by blacks, and the failure of schools run by blacks specifically for blacks. In the past, the assumption would have been that white racism was the cause.
Even more notable is the lack of anyone screaming "racism" when the study basically said "this is because of choices blacks make." That would have brought howls in the past of whitewashing, blaming the victim and reinforcing racism.
In the past, this was either attributed to racism or was treated as some mystery that no one could possibly understand. In fact, the fact that they needed to do a study speaks to this. Had the question been, "why aren't white kids going into XXX," no one would have run a study to try to solve the "mystery." Everyone would have just pointed to the likely cause(s) -- it doesn't attract them. And then they would have tried to figure out how to attract them, and that would be the end.
But in this case, because of the reflex by the politicized black community to blame everything on racism, they do a study. And I would suggest they only do a study so that when they finally do state the obvious, they can point to the study and say "but science proved it" if they get attacked for racism.
But even that wasn't enough in the 1980s and early 1990s with feminists and the more extreme black intellectuals. For them, even speaking an inconvenient truth was tantamount to sexism/racism.
That's why I see this as significant.
Andrew,
ReplyDeleteDo you have links to your claim that in the past shortages of black programmers and suchlike was blamed on racism rather than black students choosing the wrong majors?
The discussions I remember and the articles I provided links to all indicated the problem was blacks not choosing those fields rather than racism.
Anthony, Let me add this. The point to this article and some of the others I've written on race/gender lately is to show that times have changed. This article and this study simply could not have been done in the 1980s or early 1990s without the researcher/author being torn to shreds for racism.
ReplyDeleteAt that point, all negative disparities were considered the result of racism or sexism and to suggest otherwise, especially too suggest that blacks/women were to fault in any way, was career suicide. Anyone doing so would have been savaged over and over as racists themselves.
These days, I'm seeing more and more people who are willing to speak inconvenient truths, even if they still tread lightly. And I'm not seeing the blowback that once existed. At the same time, I'm seeing evidence everywhere that race/sex matter less as distinctions now than at any point in my lifetime. Blacks and women are making choices that would have brought derision from race baiters and feminists in the past. Whites are ignoring the issue instead of jumping scared. Race/gender no longer captures the imagination of the culture.
Sure, there are still some dinosaurs (particular newsroom feminists) who still fight the battles of the past, but the public generally ignores them and ignores their rants.
Hence, anti-cop rallies are poorly attended and there has been a backlash against people like Tarantino, women are openly embracing things like Fifty Shade or being a housewife -- Selena Gomez's latest songs are pure feminist thoughtcrimes, believable mixed-race marriages/adoptions are everywhere in ads now, there are black villains on television again, the fat stupid white father is all but gone from sitcoms again, Hollywood and Madison Avenue have given up pushing girls into sports, etc. There was even a white actor cast to play Michael Jackson with only a few objecting. Do you remember the stink about "Miss Saigon" in the 1980s and all the screaming that only black/female/gay actors could play black/female/gay characters? All of these things suggest that hypersensitive race/gender world the left wanted to build have shattered.
All of this strikes me as America finally moving beyond these issues, and that is good for America, good for Americans, great for minorities, and good for conservatism.
Before I return to the topic at hand, let me sum up my thoughts on last night by turning to John of Gaunt’s famous speech in Shakespeare’s Richard II:
ReplyDeletePerformed here by Sir John Gielgud: LINK
——————
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son,
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!
——————
#NothingEscapesShakespeare
Ok, I’m not quite that gloomy but, I’m not too happy, either.
re Kanye,
ReplyDelete“he's that most wonderful of character archetypes: the idiot who doesn't know he's an idiot”
Exactly. And not only that, he thinks of himself as a genius! He is completely oblivious to the notion that as he proclaims himself “God’s gift to humanity” and “the voice of a generation” everyone might be laughing behind his back.
Which we are.
Anthony, Andrew, I think there's some linguistic confusion going on that I'd like to try to clear up. The focus has been on the word "choose" as the point of controversy. But that's not it. The controversy is rather on the answer to why blacks don't choose STEM careers.
ReplyDeleteI won't speak to the 80s, because I was a child, but in the 90s and 00s, the orthodox response was "racism" or more specifically, "systemic racism." The HuffPo article provides a great insight into what is meant by this: stereotypes, economics, lack of role models, discouraging environments, sense of isolation, undefined "barriers," even that math and science are perceived as hard or boring by young blacks. In other words, negative forces external to blacks are keeping them out of STEM.
The USNews article is different in its tone--and to be sure, it elaborates on sentiments touched on by BIT, Madame Noire, and Ebony--in identifying positive internal forces from black communities: black families and institutions encouraging their kids into non-STEM fields.
The difference is subtle but very, very important. I also note how most of the articles Anthony cites are publications intended for black audiences, so I think there's a bit of the "our business" phenomenon going on. It has always been allowed for blacks to address other blacks on what they should do or change, but it has been generally taboo for whites to chime in. Whites routinely have to deal with the "we can say that but you can't say that" double-standard, and for a "white" publication to toss that aside, it's a big deal.
Anthony, I don't have links. It is what I recall happening over and over at the time. It is the arguments I saw made on shows like Crossfire every night, year after year at the colleges I attended (particular during the routine protests about lack of black/female ___), at the periodic lynchings of one scientist or another who naively suggested that choice was the issue rather than racism.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in law school, the black students formed their own law review because "racists" kept them off the official one (it was based purely on grades). A professor who said race had nothing to do with it almost lost his job. Another who used the example "Does it rise to the left of a tort if KKK members march through a black neighborhood shouting 'death to niggers'" found himself smeared in the Washington Post for months by black students as a racist. They wanted him fired and even held a rally to make that happen which drew some famous race baiters. Others wanted books like Tom Sawyer banned because it used a word they don't like.
I recall professors being required to apologize for racism for suggesting that the poor (no mention of race) are partially at fault for their own poverty because of choices they make. I remember the debate about Ebonics and how whites who suggested that black students needed stronger English programs were accused of "genocide" for denying that Ebonics was a real language. Attempts to discuss the lack of achievement by blacks in academics resulted in seminars being protested and shouted down and articles accusing the professors of racism. None of this was rare or uncommon. It happened at famous schools, it happened at other schools. Every school I attended had incidents like this.
(continued)
(continued)
ReplyDeleteIn the early 1990s, conservatives suggested that teachers be required to show they could meet basic skills tests of reading ability, language proficiency and basic math skills, and they were slammed for racism.
I saw black groups scream about a lack of representation on film, so Hollywood added black characters into everything whether they fit or not (the "Grease II" effect). Then they screamed about negative stereotypes and all the blacks except noble, smart, married professionals vanished. Look at every gang you'll find on film from the late 1970s through the 1990s and you'll always see a rainbow of color with the truly bad ones being the white members. Try and find a black character who commits a sex crime in the 1990s. I remember the attacks on white actors playing minority roles, and soon that was de facto banned too. Black face is racist, but white face is ok. Feminists did this too, by the way.
I remember books like "The Bell Curve" which noted that blacks score lower on IQ tests and the author was savaged as a racist. Then there was an attempt to ban the IQ test. The SAT for years has eliminated questions on which blacks fare more poorly than whites. I remember how the success of private schools was attacked in the late 1980s because they supposedly were run by racists who excluded blacks to raise their numbers. And when black private schools were created in the 1990s that succeeded, I recall the attacks that this was cherry-picking black students so whites could abandon the majority of black kids.
I have seen hundreds companies sued for racism because they don't have enough blacks/women, even though blacks and women simply weren't interested in those fields. And I've seen black professors argue that it doesn't matter if blacks are available to fill the jobs or not... it's still racism not to hire them. Later they were sued because they don't have enough minorities in key positions or on boards. Arguments that pay disparities between fields that attract women/blacks and those that attract white men are racism. The whole concept of Affirmative Action and Title IX. I remember a steady drumbeat on the left for proportional representation of blacks/women in board rooms and legislatures. Several European countries even passed proportional representation laws. Racial jerrymandering. The obsessive focus on black quarterbacks and the number of black coaches. Etc.
There was a steady drumbeat of race/gender hate, jealousy and whining come from the left over the past several decades. No disparity escaped their ability to blame it on racism/sexism and denying their attacks was considered a thoughtcrime in and of itself.
I don't have links for this stuff because I'm not writing a research paper, but I can tell you that I personally witnessed much of this and I saw the rest regularly reported by the MSM.
Kit, Nevada means nothing. Don't feel gloomy yet. The Giuliani article is more troubling than Nevada.
ReplyDeleteKanye is an idiot. True.
P.S. The BIT article was a bit ridiculous in that it's main suggestion was to give STEM a makeover to be more hip hop. #STEMsowhite
ReplyDeleteP.P.S. Black pundits, pols, and talking heads have a tendency to claim common experiences for their race and encouraging that sort of thinking in others. Nothing in the "invisible knapsack" couldn't or doesn't happen to people of other races, but those instances are heavily discounted as "not the same." For example, if a clerk keeps tabs on me in a store, I must've done something to draw his suspicion, but for a black person in the same situation, his skin becomes the only possible factor. A more concrete example is a friend of mine who didn't know before he was told that the FAFSA was for anyone attending college and not just blacks.
tryanmax, Well said.
ReplyDeleteI don't read black publications generally, though I have from time to time read articles in them. So it is very possible they are taking a different tone than publications meant for white consumption.
What I can say without the slightest hesitation is that in "white" publication, in the MSM and in contacts between whites and blacks, the idea that blacks may be even slightly at fault for their own circumstances (no matter what the issue) is treated as if it were an expression of race hate.
On systematic racism, I think a conscious decision was made to shift to systematic racism for two reasons. First, it avoids the need to point a finger at any one person. When you do that, the person gets a chance to defend themselves which is problematic when the charge is fake... which it usually is. It's also hard because you end up attacking allies -- like teachers. By inventing institutional racism, there is no one who will defend themselves against the charge. Instead, you take on the legal team of some organization who either just wants the charge gone or who may even be collaborating with you.
Secondly, by shifting the racism to the institution, it can continue forever. Indeed, if the problem is John Smith, once Smith is fired, the institution is clean. But if it's education itself, then there will always be racism which gives them power to always demand changes to address the supposed continuing racism.
Third, it's a nebulous charge that lets you shift away from having to prove that someone has been negatively affected to instead using any sort of disparity as proof of racism. That avoids a lot of problems. And that ultimately gives you power if you have a continuing right to demand changes in how something runs.
tryanmax, Creating a racial/gender identity is the key to political power. That's what these groups specialize in. That way, you can use the entire group to represent whatever issue the leaders want.
ReplyDeleteThat works too. But I think in the past decade, these groups have broken down because they've demanded something their members didn't want. Black leaders seemed to be demanding de facto segregation and feminists were basically demanding that women become independent of men. That didn't really fit what their members wanted and the harder they pushed, the more they lost people. These days both groups seem to be fairly desperate to regain their troops, but about 2/3 have moved beyond them and are actively ignoring their commands.
Andrew.....Looking back, I think the "straw that broke the camel's back' if you will, on the whole racial b.s. was the DC council member that had to resign for using the word "niggardly" to describe how DC would have to be very careful and stingy when it came to allocating funds.
ReplyDeleteSome idiot on the council, who probably even went to college on a "studies" curriculum, took offense and the member was fired/resigned.
to show you the extent of the asshattery that was involved, there's this: "But Ronald Walters, a professor of political science at the University of Maryland, said that Howard is best suited now for a government job "where he's not in the public face."
"This is a problem of political inexperience on all sides compounded by culture ignorance on all sides," Walters said. "The mayor can't afford to have an aide in a town that is 63 percent black making this kind of mistake. I think he did the right thing [accepting the resignation]. Williams sent a message that racial insensitivity won't be tolerated in his administration."
And that is coming from a "Professor" of PolySci no less.
To top it off, the council member was gay, so you had one of the first victim against victim groups going after each other!
So, to recap, a gay man used a perfectly legitimate word appropriately, yet since it sounded like another word, some idiot got offended, the guy had to resign and the rest of the world got to see to what state of affairs our Nation's Capital had come to regarding race relations.
Again, looking back, I think this was when the wheels came off the racial grievance bus and people finally woke up to see just how asinine and out of touch these race-baiters were.
Always good to know that karma has a sense of humor!
Tryanmax,
ReplyDeleteRegarding the BIT article, black pop culture figures encouraging kids to study science is very different than complaining that science is racist. The implicit acknowledge is that people are not doing X because they are choosing not to do X.
As the writer of the article pointed out, it would not have been the first time pop culture convinced a group of people to embrace something they had been leery of in the past.
https://www.blacksintechnology.net/to-fix-stem-crisis-go-back-to-the-future/
Over the holidays, I watched a documentary about American aviation. During World War II, there was a shortage of white male workers. Black workers were excluded from all but menial jobs. So the government, with the help of advertising agencies, gave factory jobs a makeover. And then the light bulb went off: The iconic Rosie the Riveter was a STEM worker!
One of the most popular versions of “Rosie the Riveter” was recorded by the Four Vagabonds. Popular culture was used to encourage women to pursue “man-size” jobs.
-----------
*Shrugs* Of course, it clearly didn't work, but the reasoning was sound.
Andrew,
ReplyDeleteThose stories are very interesting but do you recall anything similar about STEM? Was a lack of blacks in STEM even discussed as an issue before the rise of Silicon Valley (and its many millionaires)?
As I stated, the first and only such discussions I recall (though I admit I did not pay attention to such things in the 80s, which ended when I was 16) happened after Silicon Valley became a thing.
When they did happen the universal acknowledgement was that the problem was blacks were choosing to not major in the relevant fields. Discussions were not about why are scientists or tech companies racist or what have you, but what could be done to close the gap.
Here's a 2012 Washington Post blog (I presume it qualifies as a white publication :) ) which pointed the finger squarely at blacks.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/therootdc/post/growing-more-black-science-and-math-majors/2012/10/10/d906d23c-1261-11e2-a16b-2c110031514a_blog.html
African American students are on the brink of missing out on these prime opportunities. Meanwhile, the public and private sector alike is trying to help — with no significant change. For instance, the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering has partnered with more than 50 universities around the nation to recruit, retain and produce African American STEM graduates. They have garnered substantial collaboration with the corporate community to focus on providing resources and financial support to minority students to persuade them to consider STEM.
Indeed, as far back as the 1970s educators, politicians, universities and business leaders have been engaged in a national full-court press to spark black kids’ interest in mathematical and scientific degrees. Yet the needle has barely budged. According to Project Step-Up (STEM Trends in Enrollment and Persistence for Underrepresented Populations), there has only been a 2 percent to 3 percent increase of African Americans in STEM professions over the past 30 years.
Andrew, et al -
ReplyDeleteKinda sorta relevant. I've been looking for a certain SNL sketch for a while and it was right under my nose. All I could remember was Tim Meadows playing a black power type blaming everything on white people. (And I actually confused it with a different sketch altogether.)
Here's the sketch.
Sadly, it's still relevant despite airing 20 years ago. I'd love to see them try this today.
This is my take - African Americans (as opposed to actual Africans) just do not have a culture that values achievement through education like many Caucasians, Jews or Asian cultures. Those who do achieve are not valued much and are most often harassed and accused of "acting white".
ReplyDeleteOT: This would be interesting. Apparently, Obama is considering Republican Governor Sandoval of Nevada for the Supreme Court. That would be chaos. The Republicans would need to support him and the Democrats would need to oppose him. Weird. I doubt it would happen.
ReplyDeleteBev, I'm going to slice it a little finer and say that ghetto culture, like white trash culture, disdains education. Basically, both groups are into over-the-top machismo and machismo no lern gud.
ReplyDeleteI don't see the same thing among the black middle class... or the white middle class.
Scott, The race issue turned ugly in the 1980s and 1990s, but I think you could do something similar today. It would be considered "edgy" but you wouldn't be burned at the stake anymore.
ReplyDeletePatriot, I think it's been the death of a thousand cuts. For about a decade, not only was everyone and everything falsely called racist, but unlucky people were basically put through show trials and institutions people liked were attacked. This triggered the boy who cried wolf syndrome writ large and people discounted the charge of racism and ultimately the public decided to ignore the charge.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Karma always has a sense of humor... and it never forgets.
ReplyDeleteAnthony, The WashPo article is from 2012, which was already well into the period of change. I honestly don't think this would have been published in 1997 or 1992.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of discussions of STEM, yes and no. First, I don't recall the term STEM being used until a few years ago. But I recall as far back as the 1970s, people lamenting the lack of "minorities," specifically blacks and women, in science and math. However, the focus was almost always on women. And the assumption was that women were "excluded" from science by (1) the lack of female role models in science (because women don't want to enter "male dominated fields,") (2) sexism on the part of male scientists who created a hostile environment to keep yucky women out, and (3) sexist teachers (later "institutional sexism") who "subtly discouraged" young women from wanting to study math and science. There was also talk about teaching methods discouraging women from going into "hard" fields like science and math (with "hard" meaning "with precise answers"), so there was talk about fuzzying it up to make it female friendly.
Then of course, when Silicon Valley came along, they were accused of sexist employment practices which excluded women.
Yes, Andrew, the middle class in every culture values education. But the pervasive overarching hip-hop/rap culture oerpetuated by the entertainment industry that saturates African-American culture does not.
ReplyDeleteAnecdotally speaking, in all the years I worked in the theatre, I worked with only 1 African-American technician/stagehand/designer/stage manager. Not that they were not allowed, but no one ever tried. Lots of entertainers, but no backstage. ANd that includes time in college. Even in NYC.
Oh, and since you mentioned Miss Saigon . That was going on when I first moved to NYC and I was still a member of Actor's Equity Association (AEA). I know the issue intimately. The reason it died out so fast was the producer said "Fine, if I can't have Jonathon Pryce play the role of a mixed race character, I don't really need to produce the show in NYC. So instead of one English actor doing the role, 40 Asian actors will be out of a job. If that's what you want, then so be it." Well, you know the rest. At the time I thought it was brilliant way to handle an otherwise stupid issue. Still do...
And about the purported wage gap, I just read a study that concludes that the wage gap is because women don't ask for more pay. In interviews where men will negotiate higher wages, women just don't. THey accept what is offered. Interesting.
ReplyDeleteI can say the only time I demanded a raise was when I worked at Juilliard and the production manager for some reason told us that the guys were paid more because they learned carpentry and electrics from the their fathers. We women learned to sew by our mothers in the living room. Imagine how that went over. I told him that my Grandmother was a professional seamstress who worked in sweatshops and high fashion, so why was what she taught me worth less that learned what some guy who learned to build stuff in a garage....we got all got a raise. Still don't know why he said any of that and thought it was a legitimate reason.
Bev, I watched the Miss Saigon debacle from a distance.
ReplyDeleteI am a firm believer that almost every disparity you can find is the result of the choices made by the groups involved. I'm sure that every once in a while you run into a sexist or racist, but I think they are within the margin of error these days. I just don't encounter those people anymore (outside of the lowest classes in West Virginia).
What a stupid thing to say about father and mothers! LOL! I'm glad you got your raise.
You worked at Juilliard? Cool. :)
BTW, I agree about Hip Hop, but let's not excuse modern country music either. It's very much preaching the same substance, only it does so under the veneer of claiming to be a "hard working man" who just happens not to really hold a job.
ReplyDeleteSmall wonder that people have had enough after decades of being called racist and beaten down. I dont want trump to win but I understand why he gets so much love. Anyone else in his position would have apologized and suspended his campaign by now for all the things he's said.
ReplyDeleteAnthony, don't get me wrong. I am not at all against pop culture figures encouraging kids to pursue good careers. I just think that if the lure of a large salary isn't glamorous enough, then what is? And the BIT article still rides on the premise that STEM is just too white...whatever that means.
ReplyDelete