This review offers a good account of the common answers people give to the question "why do racial disparities exist?":
1. Contemporary racism.
2. The historical legacy of racism.
3. Bad culture.
4. Not smart enough.
But that list is missing a very important reason that doesn't get enough attention (because it isn't toxoplasmic enough?): preferential clustering. Demographic minorities often cluster in specific industries and institutions, for mostly obvious reasons:
- To exploit social networks.
- As an outgrowth of cultural norms.
- Due to accidents of geography related to initial immigration patterns.
Therefore it should not be surprising that Emory, Georgia Tech, and Georgia State University all have lower percentages of black students than Atlanta (~47%), Georgia (~31%), or the USA (~14%), given that Georgia (and Atlanta specifically) has eight popular historically black colleges and universities (more, depending on how you count them).
Clearly these preferences can be a consequence of past discrimination, but they also have a life of their own and deserve separate consideration. Absent discrimination, we'd still see significant demographic clustering, though it would likely be less negatively biased.
This review offers a good account of the common answers people give to the question "why do racial disparities exist?":
1. Contemporary racism.
2. The historical legacy of racism.
3. Bad culture.
4. Not smart enough.
But that list is missing a very important reason that doesn't get enough attention (because it isn't toxoplasmic enough?): preferential clustering. Demographic minorities often cluster in specific industries and institutions, for mostly obvious reasons:
- To exploit social networks.
- As an outgrowth of cultural norms.
- Due to accidents of geography related to initial immigration patterns.
Therefore it should not be surprising that Emory, Georgia Tech, and Georgia State University all have lower percentages of black students than Atlanta (~47%), Georgia (~31%), or the USA (~14%), given that Georgia (and Atlanta specifically) has eight popular historically black colleges and universities (more, depending on how you count them).
Clearly these preferences can be a consequence of past discrimination, but they also have a life of their own and deserve separate consideration. Absent discrimination, we'd still see significant demographic clustering, though it would likely be less negatively biased.