Nigerian immigrants outperform most domestic US groups. So clearly "skin color" isn't the main factor (if at all).
Would your retort be "but Jamaicans who've won multiple gold medals in sprinting are wealthier than most Americans?"
People who smoke are more likely to get lung cancer.
Would your retort be "13 year olds who smoke have less incidents of lung cancer than the non-smoking population?"
If you subsample enough, you'll find outliers. That doesn't invalidate general trends/statistics.
E.g. age is important for lung cancer as well as smoking. Only when controlling for age do you get correct estimate about the danger of smoking.
What other variables does "Nigerian immigrants" introduce besides skin color and culture? The latter is eliminated by most US sociologists that keep screaming "it's not about culture!" so only race remains...
When you say "outperform most domestic US groups", are you normalising for the same skillset and education levels?
Perhaps a source to accompany your statement will help shed some light.
- Wealth upon entry (If all Nigerian immigrants come from millionaire families, then it doesn't matter if they're underpaid; they'll be far wealthier than most Americans)
- Location (If all Nigerian immigrants live in New York City, then the effect size of being underpaid can be masked by the higher income (and cost of living) in New York City)
- Profession/Job Title (if all Nigerian immigrants are neurosurgeons, then it doesn't matter if they're underpaid; they'll be way above average income)
- Age (if all Nigerian immigrants are older, then they'll have had more time to generate skills/wealth, which could mask the effect of being underpaid)
- Health (if all Nigerian immigrants are healthy, then the effect of being underpaid could be masked by the fact that many Americans are less productive due to health issues)
There are obviously more confounders, but doing an analysis using these would be a good place to start to actually answer the question.
I read it as the types of hardships and barriers that, say, a US descendant of slaves faces can be very different from a Nigerian immigrant, and that's one problem with lumping everyone with the same skin color together as "Black" when calculating diversity metrics.
This is very true. Most of the time when people think they're talking about race, they're actually talking about culture, which happens to be a much trickier concept. The Nigeria example, for instance, is an inconvenient truth that doesn't mesh well with the dominant race-essentialist narrative right now, so it typically gets ignored or outright dismissed.
I don't understand how this is still such a difficult concept for people.