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You are here: Home / That sun is gonna shine in my back door someday

That sun is gonna shine in my back door someday

by DougJ|  December 14, 20114:01 pm| 63 Comments

This post is in: Pink Himalayan Salt

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To paraphrase commenter sb, none of you are going to want to hear this. I’m not sure I even like typing it. But Megan McArdle has an excellent post about why life is different for poor black children then it is for middle-aged white men with sinecures at Forbes. It goes on forever, so there’s probably some crazy stuff in it, but it genuinely makes a lot of good points. Credit where credit is due.

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63Comments

  1. 1.

    Svensker

    December 14, 2011 at 4:03 pm

    I’m glad you said that cuz I saw her post yesterday and thought my brain must have been addled — it just didn’t seem that bad and made some good points. Was scared to mention it to anyone lest I get carted off.

  2. 2.

    The Moar You Know

    December 14, 2011 at 4:04 pm

    Stopped clock, all that.

    Good for her.

  3. 3.

    rlrr

    December 14, 2011 at 4:05 pm

    Even a blind squirrel can find a nut…

  4. 4.

    trollhattan

    December 14, 2011 at 4:06 pm

    Not getting off the boat, so here’s Paul Campos with a good smackdown of the original piece.

    http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2011/12/if-i-were-a-rich-white-guy-2

  5. 5.

    Raven

    December 14, 2011 at 4:07 pm

    A broken clock is right two times a day.

  6. 6.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    December 14, 2011 at 4:11 pm

    So someone with a sinecure at The Atlantic is writing about someone with a sinecure at Forbes. Any benefactor of a NY Times sinecure (who shall remain nameless!) weighed in on this yet?

  7. 7.

    MikeJ

    December 14, 2011 at 4:11 pm

    Dear Megan,
    It might interest you to know that somebody is posting sane columns under your byline. I assume you’ll want to stop them.

  8. 8.

    geg6

    December 14, 2011 at 4:12 pm

    Nope. Nuh-uh. Nuh gah doit, DougJ. No fucking way I’m reading anything by that asshole. Stopped clocks and all that, ya know.

  9. 9.

    BGinCHI

    December 14, 2011 at 4:13 pm

    Well then, we finally found her field of expertise: stupid privileged white guys don’t know anything about underprivileged people of color.

    I assume she’ll apply this to the GOP and her husband next.

  10. 10.

    Chuck Butcher

    December 14, 2011 at 4:13 pm

    I’ll be go to hell, McMegan does have two live brain cells that talk to each other – on occasion…

  11. 11.

    MTiffany

    December 14, 2011 at 4:14 pm

    What’s next? Bill Kristol getting something right? Stopped clocks or End Times?

  12. 12.

    DougJ

    December 14, 2011 at 4:14 pm

    @geg6:

    It was a really good post. Too long for my tastes, she needs an editor. But it was thoughtful in a way that not much else you see in establishment media is.

  13. 13.

    Schlemizel

    December 14, 2011 at 4:15 pm

    something, something blind squirrel something, something acorn

    ETA – I should have known someone would get there first, sorry for the repeat

  14. 14.

    The Moar You Know

    December 14, 2011 at 4:15 pm

    I take back the stopped clock comment. It is a reasonably well written, extremely well-thought out piece in which she honestly and intelligently acknowledges her lack of understanding of either the black or poor experience while utterly laying waste to the Forbes piece.

  15. 15.

    R Johnston

    December 14, 2011 at 4:15 pm

    A broken clock provides no information at all and is never right. Sometimes, however, through no accord of its own, a stopped clock mimics the appearance of being right and can be mistaken for a clock that’s right if you don’t know that the stopped clock is stopped.

    Megan McCardle is never, ever right. She’s completely content free. Occasionally due to random chance she manages to string random words together in an order that produces something that isn’t prima facie ridiculous, but that doesn’t make her any less content free.

  16. 16.

    Liz

    December 14, 2011 at 4:16 pm

    I’m just stopping by for a Tiffany update.

  17. 17.

    EdTheRed

    December 14, 2011 at 4:16 pm

    March winds will blow all my troubles away.

  18. 18.

    wrb

    December 14, 2011 at 4:17 pm

    but her mind it just kept wandering like some wild geese in the west

  19. 19.

    DougJ

    December 14, 2011 at 4:18 pm

    @The Moar You Know:

    Very well put.

  20. 20.

    norbizness

    December 14, 2011 at 4:19 pm

    I mean, if you don’t link to her, your fucking fingers will fall off or something.

  21. 21.

    jibeaux

    December 14, 2011 at 4:19 pm

    I’m glad she was able to write about

    why life is different for poor black children then it is for middle-aged white men with sinecures at Forbes

    but frankly that seems like the soft bigotry of low expectations right there, it does.

  22. 22.

    Hill Dweller

    December 14, 2011 at 4:21 pm

    Can we get an open thread? It looks like we’re on the verge of a government shutdown, and the White House says they aren’t going to veto that awful Defense Appropriations bill.

  23. 23.

    Soonergrunt

    December 14, 2011 at 4:22 pm

    @The Moar You Know: @rlrr:
    We can close the thread now.

  24. 24.

    cathyx

    December 14, 2011 at 4:25 pm

    I always appreciate it when someone gives credit to someone they don’t like when it’s warranted. It’s a sign of maturity and fairness.

  25. 25.

    Gex

    December 14, 2011 at 4:25 pm

    What good is it to understand the disadvantages of poor black youth if you don’t feel there is anything that should be done about it?

    I get back to my brother in law, who is now convinced that there should be better care for anyone who has a stroke, even if they are poor. But if he doesn’t stop demanding tax cuts, there’s no point to having that position on health care. Might as well convince yourself that poor blacks and poor stroke victims deserve to be where they are at, rather than to admit they are where they are because you don’t give a fuck.

  26. 26.

    chrome agnomen

    December 14, 2011 at 4:25 pm

    @rlrr:

    in this case a nut found a blind squirrel.

  27. 27.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    December 14, 2011 at 4:26 pm

    BTW DougJ I am losing faith in the FSM’s ability to make us happy. If the FSM really loved us you would have a sinecure at NPR so you could write about MM, Bobo and the Moustache of Understanding. Of course part of your compensation package would have to be all the tote bags you could carry!

  28. 28.

    smintheus

    December 14, 2011 at 4:26 pm

    If I were a poor black child I don’t think I would be reading on-line commentary at The Atlantic or Forbes or much of anywhere.

  29. 29.

    Brachiator

    December 14, 2011 at 4:28 pm

    I find it interesting how many Balloon Juicers think of poor people of all races as though they were a species from another planet with ideas and values intrinsically different from Real Middle Class White Peoples(tm).

    McCardle is fool.

    Their payoff matrix is different. Middle class kids can make $75,000 out of school if they get a solid degree in engineering, or a job at an investment bank. But most poor kids who study hard and go to college are not going to get one of those jobs. Realistically, dealing drugs probably offers many of them a more certain chance of making good money in their twenties than staying in high school.

    How many middle class kids graduate each year with an engineering degree? How many each year become, or marry, or become the mistress or boy toy of, investment bankers?

    And does anyone, short of dopes who are overly impressed with “The Wire,” believe that drug dealing is the typical job that poor kids get when they are old enough to run in the strets?

    Are all you Balloon Juicers engineers and investment bankers?

    And here’s another gem

    Criminal records make it very, very hard to get a good job. A middle class kid who joy rides in a car or gets a DUI gets the benefit of the doubt when he claims that this was just youthful hijinks. Poor black kids with recognizeably “black” names–or poor white kids with recognizeably “poor” names–mostly don’t. Once you’re in that place, what’s the point of trying?

    Note how she rather swiftly elides from middle class kids who can get favorable treatment to something more pernicious, how the privileged class does all it can to identify and to stigmatize those who they do not want to be among them.

    I will give her this one though:

    The knowledge that employers do not trust members of your ethnic group changes the payoff of investments in human capital. We can argue about whether such statistical discrimination is rational for employers, or whether it’s less powerful than poor black kids may think. But it still changes the calculation.

    And it’s not just employers who engage in this vile practice. I’ve seen workers who disparage or sabotage the efforts and contributions on nonwhites, women, anyone who they don’t think are part of the tribe.

    I’ll give McMegan an E for Effort, and for usefully exposing a nasty can of worms than she may understand.

  30. 30.

    DougJ

    December 14, 2011 at 4:30 pm

    @jibeaux:

    True, but I thought she honestly did a very good job with it.

  31. 31.

    Makewi

    December 14, 2011 at 4:36 pm

    Does adding black to the description of poor help or hurt the basic understanding of the difficulties of achieving financial security among the poor. Is it going to be different for poor whites than it is for poor blacks than it is for poor hispanics, etc.?

  32. 32.

    dogwood

    December 14, 2011 at 4:37 pm

    @smintheus:

    If I were a poor black child I don’t think I would be reading on-line commentary at The Atlantic or Forbes or much of anywhere.

    That was her point.

  33. 33.

    FormerSwingVoter

    December 14, 2011 at 4:40 pm

    Well, yeah. Now that I think about it, McArdle being coherent every once in a while probably makes sense.

    All of her arguments are based on what makes sense in her head. That’s a terrible way to make decisions on anything measurable or concerning the smallest amount of data or research, but a thought experiment like this? This is right in her wheelhouse.

  34. 34.

    Midnight Marauder

    December 14, 2011 at 4:40 pm

    It is certainly a better piece of writing than we typically see from McMegan, but it absolutely still needs to be said that the people who populate her comment section are atrocious.

  35. 35.

    The Moar You Know

    December 14, 2011 at 4:41 pm

    Is it going to be different for poor whites than it is for poor blacks than it is for poor hispanics, etc.?

    @Makewi: It is different for all three groups, thanks to a slew of variables far too long to list.

    I grew up poor white for the later half of my childhood. While that was pretty bad, I know for a fact it beat the shit out of growing up black and poor.

  36. 36.

    pragmatism

    December 14, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    i miss jerry

  37. 37.

    Amir Khalid

    December 14, 2011 at 4:44 pm

    This is a damn sight better then recommending US$1,500 kitchen appliances and fancy pink(ish) salt in goofy containers. Why doesn’t Megan McArdle write like this more often?

    Okay, her writing here could use some tightening up; I think I could have made that piece a third shorter and still kept everything she wanted to say. But it does show that she’s well capable of human empathy and insight, when she wants to be, and can write intelligently if the subject at hand doesn’t require numeracy. Maybe she should be writing about something other than business and economics.

  38. 38.

    Godlesssailor

    December 14, 2011 at 4:45 pm

    I wish I was a headlight on a North bound train.

  39. 39.

    AdamK

    December 14, 2011 at 4:45 pm

    Even a stopped clock can find a squirrel’s nuts.

  40. 40.

    TooManyJens

    December 14, 2011 at 4:47 pm

    Sum it all up and the answer is: if you grew up as a poor black kid, you’d be making decisions under the same constraints, which probably means you’d make the same decisions.

    Yes. This is what TNC was getting at in his “Muscular Empathy” post, too. People want to think that we’re exceptional, that we would never get caught in the traps other people do. But for the most part, we’re not and we would.

  41. 41.

    eemom

    December 14, 2011 at 4:51 pm

    I never read her when you hate her. Therefore I don’t have to read her when you like her either.

    Also too, there are probably a few hundred people who ALWAYS think about poor black children, are NOT clueless emmessemm assholes with $1,500 blenders, and DON’T write stupid shit all the rest of the time, who wrote fine worthy articles today that are much better worth reading.

  42. 42.

    trollhattan

    December 14, 2011 at 4:53 pm

    @chrome agnomen:

    in this case a nut found a blind squirrel.

    Me likie!

  43. 43.

    Makewi

    December 14, 2011 at 4:54 pm

    @The Moar You Know:

    In terms of identifying possible solutions it’s probably a good idea to try to separate out financial stumbling blocks that are attributable to race vs those due to household income. For example, if it is true that most poor kids that go to college don’t get high paying engineering degrees then it is it likely due to race?

  44. 44.

    carpeduum

    December 14, 2011 at 5:09 pm

    Megan fucking McArdle? Seriously?! Are all the BJ bloggers on crack today?

  45. 45.

    Samara Morgan

    December 14, 2011 at 5:29 pm

    Do you know who McMegan actually is? She is the RL version of conservative male pinup girls….she is as close as these poor troglodytes will ever get to the conservative fantasized ideals of Vichy Fournier, Hot Abercrombie Chick, Libertarian Girl, Gay Girl in Damascus, and Courtney Messerschmidt.
    All those fantasy women turned out to be oldish white conservative males.
    McMegan is as close as they will ever get in RL– only she isnt nearly as smoking hawt as all those imaginary conservative females.

  46. 46.

    DougJ

    December 14, 2011 at 5:40 pm

    @Samara Morgan:

    Do you really think that’s it? I don’t like her blogging, but I don’t think she got there by being “hot”. I think she’s just a female Robert Samuelson.

    Anyway, this was an excellent post on her part.

  47. 47.

    gaz

    December 14, 2011 at 5:43 pm

    Squirrel, Blind

    meet

    Nut…

    /yawn

  48. 48.

    GeneJockey

    December 14, 2011 at 5:53 pm

    @TooManyJens:

    People want to think that we’re exceptional, that we would never get caught in the traps other people do. But for the most part, we’re not and we would.

    Very true, and conversely if they are successful, they overestimate their own contribution to that success.

    A good example was an acquaintance on another forum. He bristled at the idea that he’d been ‘fortunate’, and that this had played any part in his success. When pressed, it turned out his parents had paid for him to go to college, and helped out financially with law school. But he didn’t see this as privilege, or good fortune. No, he’d got there all on his own!

  49. 49.

    Gex

    December 14, 2011 at 5:56 pm

    @GeneJockey: Now why don’t those poor black kids go get better parents? They lack the initiative he showed when he picked his.

  50. 50.

    GeneJockey

    December 14, 2011 at 6:01 pm

    @Gex:

    Silly Gex – don’t you know that No One Is More Discriminated Against In Modern America Than White Male Christians?

  51. 51.

    ornery

    December 14, 2011 at 6:02 pm

    Thank you for this very important information, DougJ. glad you’re on it.

  52. 52.

    Sebastian Dangerfield

    December 14, 2011 at 6:15 pm

    Seeing as the Forbes piece basically demolishes itself by reason of its thoroughgoing un-self-aware stupidity, I would classify it as the broad side of a barn that could contain a herd of Babe the Blue Oxen. That McCardle managed not to miss it is hardly a cause for amazement. And if the excerpted quotes upthread — I refuse to give her hits — are any indication, there’s still plenty of idiocy on display (WTF, for instance, is a “recognizeably [sic] ‘poor’ name[]” for a “poor white kid”?).

  53. 53.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    December 14, 2011 at 6:31 pm

    @Brachiator: Bullshit on $75K. Engineers in my neck of the woods start out in the range of $25 an hour, which is ~$50K a year, which isn’t bad for a 22-year old.

    $75K is what a PE with a couple of years makes, say 10 years after the BS degree.

  54. 54.

    whetstone

    December 14, 2011 at 6:42 pm

    has an excellent post about why life is different for poor black children

    It’s not excellent. It’s an overlong mess that manages to jump off of two anecdotes to state the obvious (“being poor isn’t just about stuff”), and then warps that into an argument against anti-poverty programs with some wildly condescending strawmen about progressives (i.e. that they think the poor are more socioeconomically “pliable”).

    If by “excellent” you mean “less callous than usual” I’m not even sure if I agree: it reads like she’s trying to sneak her usual hostility towards the poor under a veneer of centrism (“sure, EITC, why not, but I don’t really see the point”).

  55. 55.

    dave

    December 14, 2011 at 6:56 pm

    meh, not for nothing, but i notice that when mcardle considers The Poor Black Kid as a rational actor, she’s thinking of something akin to data printouts and computer models. The Poor Black Kid is just inputs and outputs to her. whatever.

  56. 56.

    smintheus

    December 14, 2011 at 7:06 pm

    ‘The poor have only themselves to blame for not investing their money more wisely.’

    Almost 40 years ago a girlfriend from my youth told me that in all seriousness. She was kind, considerate, well traveled, and very smart. But she got all her social/economic opinions from the WSJ or daddy (which was the same thing), and could not budge more than a step or two away from that received wisdom. Her response when I pointed out that the poor have no money at all to invest was ‘Because they made bad investments.’ She wasn’t being dismissive or deliberately obtuse, she just thought that made sense to her.

    Those who grew up privileged cannot even begin to conceive of how little they understand about the underprivileged. It would be like our comprehension of 19th century Chinese culture if the only info we had available came from missionary newsletters full of empty pieties and second hand misunderstandings.

  57. 57.

    p mac

    December 14, 2011 at 7:07 pm

    I agree, it is a good post.
    As usual, the biggest obstruction to starting a new enterprise with existing competitors is the opportunity cost for newcomers. No one is surprised when this applies to startup companies vs existing large firms. It’s crazy to think it doesn’t apply at the individual level as well.

  58. 58.

    Downpuppy

    December 14, 2011 at 7:20 pm

    If you just read TBogg first, everything is much clearer.

  59. 59.

    slag

    December 14, 2011 at 11:42 pm

    Well, if it makes you feel better, here’s a really stupid point in said post:

    The more you have, the more you have to share. This erodes the incentive to get more.

    Yes. There is more of that dreaded soci.alism in poor communities than in wealthy ones. But no, that dreaded soci.alism does not erode the “incentive to get more”. Often, members of poor communities actually–as hard as it may be for McMegan to understand–WANT to help their communities more. So, that dreaded soci.alism can actually serve as an incentive to get more. In fact, said ability to help your community actually becomes (gasp!) a status symbol. Shocking, I know.

  60. 60.

    The Spy Who Loved Me

    December 15, 2011 at 12:30 am

    @Sebastian Dangerfield:

    Krystal, Kristal, Crystal or Cristal: any way you spell it, it screams poor white trash, if you’re looking for an example.

  61. 61.

    Samara Morgan

    December 15, 2011 at 1:05 am

    @DougJ: she is the best approximation of Courtney Messerschmidt that RL can offer.
    True, she’s not very hawt….by liberal standards.

    Its like Newt is a crude approximation of an intellectual, and Palin is a crude approximation of a presidential candidate.
    Its the best they have.
    McMegan is a crude approximation of a smart hawt chick.
    Its like Bizarro World.
    ;)

  62. 62.

    Barry

    December 15, 2011 at 9:35 am

    @MikeJ: “Dear Megan,
    It might interest you to know that somebody is posting sane columns under your byline. I assume you’ll want to stop them.”

    It is a good column and possibly the most self-aware column Megan will ever write.

    But don’t worry, the commenters are making up for it.

  63. 63.

    Barry

    December 15, 2011 at 9:37 am

    @slag: “Yes. There is more of that dreaded soci.alism in poor communities than in wealthy ones.”

    I’d bet on the other way. It’s just that in wealthy communities, it’s not giving somebody some money to buy food with, it’s talking to somebody who arranges for a (good) job, or a college admission, or for a prosecutor to drop charges.

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