Seattle's social services Mafia are terribly enamored of "disproportionality" junk science, and usually the local print media falls for it, hard. You know the scam: blacks are X percent of the local population but comprise some significantly higher percentage of those busted for street drug buys; those incarcerated; those failing to pass standardized tests in public schools; those with asthma; those fatally shot by police while threatening the lives of police; and so on.
Selectively insert Native Americans, Hispanics, maybe Asian Pacific Islanders; into some of those scenarios, lather, and rinse again. What usually washes out from the "findings" of "disproportionality" is a guilty-until-proven-innocent indictment of "the system," and dark intimations of "institutional racism." Guilty white liberals in Seattle just love to atone, this way. "There's still work to do," they tell each other somberly, over soy lattes and seitan cutlets.
And so it goes again, with the issuance this week of a "study" by a shadowy "coalition" with only the most obscure Web presence; and no contact person or phone number given on its press release. They're called the King County Coalition on Racial Disproportionality. That a well known local non-profit, foundation and judge lend their names to the publicity effort makes the lack of contact information on the press release even more curious. Did no one want to field calls on this?
Perhaps so, given how stale the refrain is getting.
"Children of Color Over-Represented in Child Welfare System in King County: African American and Native American Youth Disproportionately Represented" is the headline.
A county-wide coalition of child welfare and human services organizations today announced findings from its study indicating that children of color in King County are over-represented in the child welfare system and fare worse by all measures than their Caucasian counterparts. Although children of color are one-third of the child population in King County, they make up more than one-half of all children in foster care in the county.
..The study found that in King County a disproportionate number of African American and Native American families are referred for investigation, resulting in a disproportionate number of these youth being removed from their homes and placed in foster care; and they stay in foster care longer than their Caucasian counterparts.
African American and Native American children together make up eight percent of the child population in King County, but account for: 25 percent of the children accepted for investigation once they are referred to Child Protective Services; 33 percent of all children removed from their homes and placed in foster care; 50 percent of the children still in out-of-home care four years after placement.
Well, Jumped-Up Jesus In A Sidecar! Why might all that be? And whose responsibility is it to correct the "disproportionality?" It wouldn't have anything to do with absent or addled PARENTS would it? Naah.
I suppose it's tempting for small government types to say we should just do away with state-sponsored foster care. Well, I dunno, but let's see now....what sort of reactions would that set off? If the state wasn't paying foster parents, the ah, absenteee parents would have to pay them. Or find family members, or church-based institutions, or charities to shoulder the burdens of child-rearing. Or just buck up and do the job themselves, kinda like they're s'posed to.
Hmmmn.
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at March 11, 2005 09:39 AM | Email ThisDespite the fact that it actually worked for hundreds of years.
PC-ness is the social services equivalent of the foxes guarding the hen house.
If you know anything about foxes, that's a bigger insult than most people would realize.
Posted by: scott158 on March 11, 2005 09:55 AMBill, I think you've hit on the union-sponsored solution. More WHITE kids in state-sponsored foster care. After all, due to the cultural biases of the investigators, they are probably overlooking just how poor a job many white parents are doing.
Posted by: Matt Rosenberg on March 11, 2005 09:58 AMAt any rate, feel free to add any comments to this string you would like. We welcome dissenting views here.
Posted by: Matt Rosenberg on March 11, 2005 10:30 AMwho's wasting my money to find out about the problem when we already know it exists?
sidenote: they should've compared the proportions to the national average instead of the city. isn't child welfare a national thing? or heck, even if it's a state thing I'd like to see the state numbers. I'd bet money that washington "fits in"
Posted by: Eric on March 11, 2005 10:46 AM(/sarcasm off)
Posted by: Dishman on March 11, 2005 10:56 AMHere are some minor things that might throw off the numbers.... geniuses.
Who might have a..
- Higher % of children that come from a single parent family?
- Higher % of abandonment/removal from imprisoned/dead/high-risk action parents?
- Higher % of children born to women who used children to raise their welfare payments?
- Higher % of women that are careless with sexual relationships, birth control are careless with providing a stable family for their children?
so lets say the numbers of white kids vs non-white kids are remotely 50/50 from the above descrepancy.
now lets go adopt the children.. you have 80% of white families adopting most of the white kids and 20% of the non-white kids adopting most of the non-white kids.
wow... hey look what the numbers find. the non-white kids are left behind. color me surprised.
Posted by: David on March 11, 2005 11:31 AMI really don't understand your post, Matt. You're arguing that disproportionality is junk science, but you don't seem to be arguing that disproportionality exists. Or are you? What's the stale refrain?
If you're arguing that people are drawing the wrong conclusions and taking the wrong approach, what do you suggest?
I happen to think that the idea that the cause is crappy parenting is a tired refrain and more a symptom than a cause. Yes, most people have power to better their situations if they put their minds to it, but I think it's wrong to ignore historical events when addressing these issues.
Should individuals shoulder the blame and guilt for racism? No, not unless they're racist. Should government try it's best to address the social ills created by centuries of overt racism and what amounted to "affirmative action" for whites (i.e., good old boy network)? Absolutely!
Not so long ago, people here were praising Wayne Perryman for attacking the historical atrocities that Democrats committed against blacks. What do you think those things did?
If government is powerful enough to do horrible things like contribute to the creation of ghettoes, etc., why shouldn't we be pressing it do something good--and not just write off past mistakes?
Posted by: ChrisW on March 11, 2005 11:49 AMAfter conception, the father has absolutely NO choice in what happens to the kid, even if he wanted to he is not legally entitled to any role in the childs life. In fact the welfare system REWARDS single moms for not getting married and continuing to have children out of wedlock.
Maybe we're supposed to make these places Better than home, (but not Actually home---family is such a loaded concept these days.)
Are these stats saying that all these many decades (over 4) of funding specialty programs for minorities hasn't worked?--that there is still a higher incidence of problems despite TWO GENERATIONS of teaching both non-whites and whites?
Perhaps I should infer from this that no one can ever change--whites are ever powerful and prejudiced, non-whites are ever victims of white oppression. (If change can never happen, then let's stop the useless flow of money now.)
Perhaps the system is a failure and needs to be re-vamped--(I'm all for that!)
Or maybe, as Matt radically suggested, we should concentrate on strengthening family and religious ties, seein' how it's worked so well since time immemorial.
Posted by: singer on March 11, 2005 01:52 PMThe freemarket of ideas in academia are called theories. They remain theory until proven fact. If you don't know the difference between theory and fact, please allow me to explain.
In theory, Washington State held an election that was a "model to the world." But facts show that there were thousands of errors that so muddled the results that no one can be declared a winner by an margin greater than the rate errors.
Posted by: Ken on March 11, 2005 03:50 PMSeriously, I'm persistently bothered by the rote conservative line that racial disproportionality in education, wealth, and prison populations simply has to do with poor individual decision making.
I don't think the problem in our country can be solved just by the police, the judicial system, the education system, the social services system, or individuals making better choices. I think it requires a coordinated effort by all these, which we don't have right now.
Most of what I hear from conservatives is that the problems seems to be 100% resolvable by individuals making better choices. Or another favorite line is why don't they have better leaders who can define what blacks want? As if whites have a coherent leadership on what whites want...
Posted by: ChrisW on March 11, 2005 08:55 PMSeriously, I'm persistently bothered by the rote conservative line that racial disproportionality in education, wealth, and prison populations simply has to do with poor individual decision making.
I don't think the problem in our country can be solved just by the police, the judicial system, the education system, the social services system, or individuals making better choices. I think it requires a coordinated effort by all these, which we don't have right now.
Most of what I hear from conservatives is that the problems seems to be 100% resolvable by individuals making better choices. Or another favorite line is why don't they have better leaders who can define what blacks want? As if whites have a coherent leadership on what whites want...
Posted by: ChrisW on March 11, 2005 08:55 PMSeitan cutlets? Yechhh
Posted by: Michele on March 11, 2005 10:06 PMI've never quite understood the logic behind biting the hand that feeds you. What exactly are these people complaining about, anyway? That white Seattle liberals are willing to pay to keep children off the streets?
Clearly, they are blaming the wrong people for all of this "disproportionality." If they aren't going to appreciate the work done on their behalf, I would be more than happy to see it stop.
Posted by: DeadManVoting (aka Iguana) on March 11, 2005 10:31 PMJeez! Another White Hater! Why are there so few whites in the NBA Chris? Is it discrimination? Racism?
Why don't you genuine racists ever answer questions like that?
You assign collective guilt for all the evils of the world to Whites. They are not only personally responsible for their own actions but collectively responsible for slavery and "institutional racism." BUT... You will treat NO OTHER race collectively! "Blacks as a group aren't responsible for their station in life." AND you white haters won't even hold Blacks PERSONALLY responsible for bad behavior because of "institutional racism." We see you for what you are........RACIST
Academia stops being an economic free market when professors are granted tenure and when the only consumers in the marketplace are of an age where their decision-making skills ("which elective shall I take this semester?") are still being formed.
As for academia being a free market of ideas, I don't buy that one either. In any given week, I can cite at least one case of conservatives somewhere on a campus, peacably and legally assembled, being run off campus through physical threats and violence from lefty-liberals.
In many years of watching, I have yet to see the opposite take place (conservatives violently opposing the right of liberals to peacably assemble). Why is that, Lucy? And given that, can you truly call that a free marketplace of ideas? Or of just YOUR ideas?
Posted by: Jeff Brazill on March 13, 2005 12:11 AM"Jeez! Another White Hater! Why are there so few whites in the NBA Chris? Is it discrimination? Racism?
Why don't you genuine racists ever answer questions like that? [...and so on...]"
Did you even read my post before responding? I didn't use the word hate or racist to refer to anyone on this blog. In fact I said I don't believe whites should feel collective guilt--quite the opposite. I simply placed the role of FIXING some of these issues on the government. You may not like the solutions proposed, but simply suggesting that the only reason that African Americans have not had more success is because of personal issues is a big mistake. I do throw better personal decisions by individuals as ONE piece of the problem--I don't, like you, suggest that it's the 100% key defining cause. Forgive me if I misrepresented your thinking on this, but for cryin' out loud, you used quotes to respond to me that weren't MY quotes.
As for the NBA analogy: I haven't heard any credible complaints from white players that they have been systematically denied positions or playtime because they're white. In basketball there's a public and pretty objective way to tell who the good players are. They score X points, get X rebounds, etc. in a PUBLIC arena. We don't have the benefit of a public display of talent in most workplaces. We simply have to trust that CEOs and executives are behind their closed doors truly considering skills and talents and being fair about who gets the opportunity.
When there's evidence that some of these folks aren't fair or very smart--perhaps they're caught referring to people as "black jellybeans" or something worse--then it's time to slap them a bit.