[mytailorisrich]

I don't know if it's a general cultural trait, but my feeling is that Indians in Western countries tend to invest massively in education and point their children towards 'practical subjects: tech, medicine, law, business.

I think that they are over-represented in all these subjects compared to their demographic weight in the general population.

On top of that, there is a significant migration of Indian engineers to the US/UK/etc.

[brainless]

Right, but do you think we would have continued that if, like other commenters here are sharing, Indians could not succeed - if they were systematically stopped from succeeding?

[mytailorisrich]

Black people are not systematically stopped from succeeding.

Here in the UK Indians 'succeed' because, as I mentioned, they invest massively in education. If you look at the grammar schools (selective state schools) exam, quite often the majority of children in the room are Asians.

The same route is open to black people, to white people, to anyone. The issue is much more complex than claiming that a specific group is victimised.

People are, in the vast majority, hired on merit. If you have an opening for a software engineer you can only hire someone who applied for that job. Few black people in tech starts at 6 years old.

[Ancapistani]

I think this is a difference of language.

It’s clear that Blacks are less likely to succeed in the US than Whites. One can phrase that as “Blacks are disadvantaged” or “Whites are advantaged”. Both are true statements, but one leads to positive actions and the other to negative.

As a society, our goal should not be to eliminate the advantages of one group above another. We should be trying to provide more advantages to everyone, both as a population and individual groups.

[athms]

Being black isn't the determining factor. Consider that black immigrants tend to be more successful than black Americans. They earn more than black natives and are more likely to be employed. Likewise, white immigrant groups outperform their native cohorts. The children of black immigrants are more likely to go to and complete college than native blacks (and whites) and are less likely to drop out of high school. The children of black immigrants also earn more than native blacks or first generation immigrants.

[mytailorisrich]

We can't provide "advantages" to everyone. We can provide opportunities (maybe that's what you mean) by investing in education from an early age, including services related to education like nurseries and extended hours.

Then, people take the opportunity, or their don't.

Race should not be relevant. My problem with current climate is that it perpetuates race as something to notice and to treat specifically when we should aim for the opposite.

[charlesu]

The current climate perpetuates race as something to notice? I'm sorry but was the previous climate different?

[Takharsec]

This is key. If we could wipe the slate clean and provide equal opportunity, then we would have a strong blueprint to do so.

But we are fighting close to 400 years of systematic oppression to turn those opportunities into tangible results. That history requires some type of direct action to advance the current state of Black Americans.