BLACK INCOME DISPARITIES

First we read this in USA Today:

Black and Asian women with bachelor's degrees earn slightly more than similarly educated white women, and white men with four-year degrees make more than anyone else.

So how come blacks are tops among women and whites are tops among men? About the women we read that they do well because of:

the tendency of minority women, especially blacks, to more often hold more than one job or work more than 40 hours a week, and the tendency of black professional women who take time off to have a child to return to the work force sooner than others.

So black women do well because they work harder. But for black men we read:

Workplace discrimination and the continuing difficulties of minorities to get into higher-paying management positions could help explain the disparities among men, experts say.

So black women do well because they work harder but black men do badly because of "discrimination". But if discrimination holds black men back, why does it not hold black women back? Is the writer implying that black women sleep their way to the top? I think that's more offensive than anything I would dare to say and I don't think it is true. Could the real explanation for black men lagging be -- horror! -- that black men don't work as hard as black women? Back in Africa the men mostly sit around while the women work. That couldn't happen in America, could it? No! It is wicked white discrimination that must be trotted out like a kneejerk reflex.

And I guess it would be vastly incorrect for me to mention another obvious reason for low average black male achievement: About a third of them either are in prison or have been there. Prison is an excellent college for crime but a very poor college for everything else.

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