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Comment by wavefunction | Hacker News Reader

>no excuse for a native born American

Racial disparities along with systemic racism could provide an explanation. Attained education levels as well. Just some thoughts.

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A friend of mine's grandparents retired quite comfortably after selling the Chinese food restaurant they ran for many years. They were farmers in China but after the second time an invading army took everything they decided not to stick around for the third strike. They showed up in a dying rust belt city without the ability to read and write English, say nothing of cultural differences and they did just fine.

The point of this anecdote is to point out what we often take for granted. Even if a sizable minority of Americans are subject to systemic racism native born Americans at least have the ability to transact business in English which gives them a pretty good head start and I think that on average that more than make up for a systemic disadvantage applied to a fraction of the population.

Immigrants' racial makeup would, on average, predispose them to more systematic racism (in the negative direction) than native-born Americans, no? Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say.

The comment is vague, but I interpreted systemic racism as a function of slavery > failed reconstruction > black codes > sharecropping > 100-year effort to legislate the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments > Civil Rights Act of 1965 > manipulating property titles/deeds to circumvent legal protections around right to own property > mass incarceration... small points debatable, but clear historical and empirical through line since late 18th century.

EDIT: All of these things affect immigrants of color (who may come from worst circumstance) but they have a “blank slate”, not fighting a legacy.

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