NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/alt/feminism/4624

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-17 | 3.4 KB

Xref: sparky alt.feminism:4624 soc.culture.african.american:11227
Path: sparky!uunet!gumby!destroyer!cs.ubc.ca!unixg.ubc.ca!schultz
From: [e-mail] (Stewart Schultz)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Are Whites Worse Off in the Deep South?
Followup-To: soc.culture.african.american
Date: 18 Nov 1992 02:28:47 GMT
Organization: University of British Columbia
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Distribution: usa
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
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[e-mail] (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>| >My observations of the pre-Civil Rights South were that
>| >the white people were psychologically worse off than the
>| >black people; this was consistent with many other observers
>| >I spoke to at that time, although I don't know of a
>| >quantified study.
>
>[e-mail] (Stewart Schultz):
>| As it happens a large body of research has addressed this question,
>| and the indisputable conclusion is that the black population suffers
>| from higher rates of total psychopathology and general negative
>| well-being.  In fact, the issue is not and never has been whether, or
>| even why, but rather what can and should be done to mitigate these
>| inevitable consequences of racism. ...

Gordon Fitch:
>I'm well aware of such
>studies, and in general I don't trust them.

Do you mean to imply here that your own casual assessment that white
people are worse off is less biased and more valid than the independent
consensus of over 20 research labs across the continent, and over 100
professional psychologists and sociologists, in careful peer-reviewed
research?

Perhaps you're suggesting that all these people are independently biased
in the same direction, towards finding pretty much the same array of
psychological disorders.  Do you consider relevant to this question the
fact that black/white differences in psychopathology disappear when
socioeconomic status is controlled in blind studies?

>My problem with these studies lies in their immateriality
>and the necessity of interpreting them with a preexisting
>theory which is likely to dominate the outcome of the
>interpretation.  If more women than men get the services of
>therapists, what does this prove?

I'm afraid this is a serious misunderstanding of the methodology of the
research in question.  There's not a single study using such dubious
methods to report the differences I mentioned.

>Even the most materialistic epidemiology can be suspect.

And the higher mortality rates in blacks?  Infant mortality?  What
exactly is suspect here?

>...even if a slave-owner were relatively less happy
>than his slaves, it would not make slavery right.

I'm afraid that this particular ethical question is not relevant to your
assertion that white people in the Deep South are worse off than black
people.

>By the way, the follow-up line, at least on the article
>that arrived here, was set to soc.culture.african-
>american exclusively.  How come?  Did you think we had
>wandered away from feminism entirely?

I'm not discussing feminism or gender, but rather your assessment that
whites are generally, globally, worse off.  Cross-posted again and
followups set to soc.culture.african.american (if readers there are not
interested in this subject, I'm happy to desist).

-S. Schultz