Several posts below I argued (“Whining in the Times”) that the New York Times has been publishing a number of articles lately that can fairly be described as whining about one thing or another. Now they’ve struck again.
Today there is a long article, “Why Are Black Students Lagging,” that at first appears to be a discussion of the upcoming book by Berkeley Anthropology professor John Ogbu, a Nigerian immigrant who coined the term “acting white” in the 1980s to describe the behavior and attitudes of black students who disdain high achievement. His new book, due next year, studies the black achievement gap in Shaker Heights, an affluent Cleveland suburb, argues that “African-Americans’ own cultural attitudes are a serious problem that is too often neglected.”
“No matter how you reform schools, it’s not going to solve the problem,” he said in an interview. “There are two parts of the problem, society and schools on the one hand and the black community on the other hand.”
The reason I gave in to the temptation to lump this article with the whiners is that, after a very brief discussion of Ogbu and his argument, the remainder of what is a quite long article is given over to criticisms, sometimes lengthy, from one after another of Ogbu’s critics. No supporters are quoted.
Sometimes the criticisms seem to make little sense. For example, Peggy Caldwell, identified as a spokeswoman for the Shaker Heights School district, “noted that while Professor Ogbu called most of the black families middle class, 10 to 12 percent live in poverty.” Her point?
Or consider these comments from the extensively quoted Ronald F. Ferguson, a senior research associate at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard:
Mr. Ferguson said that while minorities lag behind whites in things like homework completion, it is wrong to infer that they aren’t interested in school. “High achievers are more often accused of acting white than low achievers, but it’s because the low achievers suspect the high achievers believe they are superior.”
“It’s things like talking too properly when you’re in informal social settings,” he continued. “It’s hanging around white friends and acting like you don’t want to be with your black friends. It’s really about behavior patterns and not achievement.”
Mr. Ferguson speculated that what Professor Ogbu saw was a clumsy attempt by black students to search for a comfortable racial identity. “What does it mean to be black?” he said. “What does it mean to be white? The community needs to help kids make sense of their own identity.”
Hmm. Minorities lag behind whites “in things like homework completion” and high achievers are accused of acting white, but Ogbu is wrong because what’s really going on is “a clumsy attempt by black students to search for a comfortable racial identity.”
Actually, with critics like that Ogbu doesn’t really need any supporters.
UPDATE – Erin O’Connor discusses the same NYT article, and its bias, on her nicely redesigned Movable Type site.
“…the term “acting white” in the 1980s to describe the behavior
and attitudes of black students who disdain high achievement.”
Disdain, or persue?
Jerry – Well, I was a bit sloppy there. “Acting white,” of course, is a term of derision black students who disdain high achievement level against those who pursue it.
In defense of Caldwell–I don’t think the poverty line is a reasonable cutoff for the middle class. Even someone just above the poverty line isn’t making much money.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty line for a two-parent, two-child family appears to be $17,960. Yet two adults making $20,000 a year are what I would call working-class rather than middle-class; they’re certainly not doctors and lawyers.
Matt – Good points. In any event, Ms. Caldwell emailed to defend herself:
—
Dear Mr. Rosenberg:
Someone pointed out to me that you picked up my quote from The New York Times in your website. Just wanted you to know I was not making a “point,” but answering a question from the reporter about the demographics of the school district — nothing more and nothing less. It’s my job.
You inferred, on the basis of a single bit of information solicited and provided during the course of a wide-ranging, 45-minute conversation with a reporter, that I am a “critic” of Dr. Ogbu. The fact is, you have no idea what my opinion of his work is. I would hope that, as someone professing an interest in discrimination and prejudice, you would refrain from making snap judgments about people on the basis of tiny snippets of information.
Thank you for your time, and best wishes with your dissertation.
Peggy Caldwell
Director of Communications
Shaker Heights City School District
15600 Parkland Drive
Shaker Heights, Ohio 44120
—
I replied:
—
Dear Ms. Caldwell:
I appreciate your reply. I don’t appreciate people (incorrectly) attributing
opinions to me, either. The NYT article certainly did make it seem as though
you were taking issue with Dr. Ogbu.
If you have no objection, I will post your email in the “Comments” section
of my blog entry on the NYT article.
Best wishes,
John Rosenberg
—
Astute readers will note that Ms. Caldwell never said what her opinion of Dr. Ogbu’s work, or of the contours of the middle class in Shaker Heights, is. But her email is a useful reminder of the risks of relying too heavily on New York Times articles these days.
But Ms. Caldwell’s additional information isn’t very informative. She didn’t refute the main point: that the majority of kids are middle-class or affluent. She’s a bureaucrat, and she dodged the question. I didn’t notice her letter in the NYTimes, taking issue with how the piece portrayed her views.
The reporter seems to have asked Ms. Caldwell a not-quite-germane question and presented her answer as if it were a criticism. This is sloppy reporting, but I’m not sure it reflects media bias or is unique to the Times.
Kevin Drum of calpundit has an amusing account of how these stories should be written (scroll to “Media Bias”):
“WASHINGTON — The Cato Institute issued a press release today about blah, and I got assigned the story at 11:00. So I called them up and spent a few minutes on the phone with Mr. A, who said blah blah.
…Then I got on the Web and looked up some stuff on this subject, and it turned out that nobody’s really telling the whole story. I’m not allowed to say that myself, so instead I called Ms. E and she provided the same information I found on the Web but gave me someone I could quote saying it.”
The bias is toward printing things you can quote someone as saying.
As for Ms. Caldwell dodging the question, I don’t think she’s been asked a clear question. We don’t know what the reporter asked her, and we haven’t asked her anything well-defined, especially since “middle class” isn’t well-defined.
African-American cultural attitudes are indeed, often neglected when studying issues of academic achievement gaps. Ogbu’s consistent solution to this challenge, however is to exaggerate them.
Even in his own work (see Ogbu and Simmons, 1998, for example), very few Black students identify “acting white” as an issue. It will be interesting to see how many students do so in the new study. We can be sure,however that Ogbu will continue to report this as a major component of Black attitudes towards education.
Ogbu’s history is of studying Black students in situations that are not really typical or representative of most Blacks. And methodologically,it is not proper to make generalizations to large groups when studying small, non-representative samples (the recent study actually attends to that). Further, it is clear that Ogbu does not have a deep understanding of Black culture.
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