This rings true in Canada, where most black people are of West Indian descent*, beginning in the 1960s when the island colonies were getting independence and the best people started leaving. We don't have any descendants of people who were ever slaves in Canada to compare them with but I think we can say that our West Indians haven't exactly distinguished themselves as physicists, medical researchers, great thinkers, or titans of industry. Lots of solid upstanding citizens, sure, but the criminality of the underclass is distressingly high for Canada, especially as their young people started aping the gangsta culture, complete with (entirely illegal) handguns, of our neighbour to the south starting in the 1990s or so.
It's possible that you and we benefited from a "vigorous immigrant" effect in the 1960s that sent the cream of the crop to both countries, just in time for Thomas Sowell to study them. This has now regressed to the mean in subsequent generations and has been further diluted by much less selective immigration from the Islands that continues to this day.
Jamaica operates under a racial pecking order where those with the palest skin (with more white British parentage) lord it over the coal black all-African peasants and occupy higher positions in society. If those people emigrated first, worried about pogroms (à la Hutus against Tutsis) after the British colonial police left, you could expect them to do better in America than your legacy blacks were doing.
* Close enough. There are a few enclaves, particularly in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that were settled by escaped American slaves beginning with the American Revolution. For many years, Halifax, a small seaport city, had the largest black population of any city in Canada, with still-fraught relations between poor, indulged, high-criminal blacks and poor resentful whites who can't afford to live where blacks don't. The province of Nova Scotia has been called Canada's Mississippi. The more recent West Indians have done better over-all than that lot, for sure, but they settled in more prosperous Ontario, too. (Halifax was just the easiest British territory for slaves along the eastern US to reach, by boat.)
I was under the impression that most slaves on Caribbean sugar plantations were worked to death, lasting on average seven years. Maybe the survivors were the ones who showed themselves capable enough to perform other functions instead of chopping cane.
It depended on how cheap supply of new labor was. When Britain took action against transatlantic slave trade in the beginning 19th century, new supply dried up and conditions improved massively. Same thing happened in the Southern USA.
Normies tend to be entirely blind to selection bias in general--especially in immigrant groups. For example, imagine purposely selecting for immigrants willing to plan out and intentionally commit felonies with known reckless disregard for the law. Yet, this is common practice among western nations.
In the late '80's I lived/worked in Kingston, Jamaica. I will never forget what native Jamaicans told me about living/working in the USA. They couldn't get over how "un-entrepeneurish" American blacks were, in terms of making money.
One has to differentiate between individual abilities and rotten (or not rotten) instutions. The second is what makes bad or good governance. For example, the disaster of decolonization was due to replacement of good governance with bad one.
Selection effects do so much work here that the culture explanation starts to look like a just so story. One thing I would love to see quantified is how the selection gradient changed across cohorts as quotas loosened and chain migration kicked in. My hunch is the "model minority" narrative is mostly an artifact of early gatekeeping plus occupational sorting.
West Indians have roughly the same IQ, though possibly higher motivation, than us Chinese.
We live mixed together in the same neighborhoods in the US along with Latinos, Indians and Slavs. Basically all post 1980 immigrants have the same energy.
Thomas Sowell has always been delusional when it comes to the reality of Race
“Delusional” is too strong of a word choice, strongly suggesting an underlying dislike for the man.
Absolutely,read Nathan Cofnas’s critic of Sowell
But from a glass half full viewpoint, most of the West Indies are definitely better than Haiti or West Africa.
This rings true in Canada, where most black people are of West Indian descent*, beginning in the 1960s when the island colonies were getting independence and the best people started leaving. We don't have any descendants of people who were ever slaves in Canada to compare them with but I think we can say that our West Indians haven't exactly distinguished themselves as physicists, medical researchers, great thinkers, or titans of industry. Lots of solid upstanding citizens, sure, but the criminality of the underclass is distressingly high for Canada, especially as their young people started aping the gangsta culture, complete with (entirely illegal) handguns, of our neighbour to the south starting in the 1990s or so.
It's possible that you and we benefited from a "vigorous immigrant" effect in the 1960s that sent the cream of the crop to both countries, just in time for Thomas Sowell to study them. This has now regressed to the mean in subsequent generations and has been further diluted by much less selective immigration from the Islands that continues to this day.
Jamaica operates under a racial pecking order where those with the palest skin (with more white British parentage) lord it over the coal black all-African peasants and occupy higher positions in society. If those people emigrated first, worried about pogroms (à la Hutus against Tutsis) after the British colonial police left, you could expect them to do better in America than your legacy blacks were doing.
* Close enough. There are a few enclaves, particularly in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that were settled by escaped American slaves beginning with the American Revolution. For many years, Halifax, a small seaport city, had the largest black population of any city in Canada, with still-fraught relations between poor, indulged, high-criminal blacks and poor resentful whites who can't afford to live where blacks don't. The province of Nova Scotia has been called Canada's Mississippi. The more recent West Indians have done better over-all than that lot, for sure, but they settled in more prosperous Ontario, too. (Halifax was just the easiest British territory for slaves along the eastern US to reach, by boat.)
I was under the impression that most slaves on Caribbean sugar plantations were worked to death, lasting on average seven years. Maybe the survivors were the ones who showed themselves capable enough to perform other functions instead of chopping cane.
Interesting hypothesis
—NC
It depended on how cheap supply of new labor was. When Britain took action against transatlantic slave trade in the beginning 19th century, new supply dried up and conditions improved massively. Same thing happened in the Southern USA.
That makes sense. I was remembering what John Stuart Mill wrote about it.
Normies tend to be entirely blind to selection bias in general--especially in immigrant groups. For example, imagine purposely selecting for immigrants willing to plan out and intentionally commit felonies with known reckless disregard for the law. Yet, this is common practice among western nations.
In the late '80's I lived/worked in Kingston, Jamaica. I will never forget what native Jamaicans told me about living/working in the USA. They couldn't get over how "un-entrepeneurish" American blacks were, in terms of making money.
I visited Jamaica half a century ago. Per capita income then was roughly the same as it is today. Zero growth.
One has to differentiate between individual abilities and rotten (or not rotten) instutions. The second is what makes bad or good governance. For example, the disaster of decolonization was due to replacement of good governance with bad one.
Beautiful people, beautiful culture, beautiful country.
I will never forget it.
Not enough data in this to make it convincing. Plausible, sure.
Selection effects do so much work here that the culture explanation starts to look like a just so story. One thing I would love to see quantified is how the selection gradient changed across cohorts as quotas loosened and chain migration kicked in. My hunch is the "model minority" narrative is mostly an artifact of early gatekeeping plus occupational sorting.
You’re forgetting the key point that West Indians (excluding Haitians) have a superior culture in America.
Crime rates for Carribbean Americans are vastly lower than African Americans.
That in itself makes them better, regardless of work ethic.
West Indians have roughly the same IQ, though possibly higher motivation, than us Chinese.
We live mixed together in the same neighborhoods in the US along with Latinos, Indians and Slavs. Basically all post 1980 immigrants have the same energy.