The importance of culture is, ironically, a value often expressed by progressives.
When presented with arguments that point to genetic influences on human behavior, many on the Left respond by emphasizing the importance of culture over genetics, that is, nurture over nature.
Moreover, cultures differ from one another. This is true by definition.
It’s unclear what the “multi” in “multi-culturalism” could possibly mean if cultures were all the same.
Put these two premises together, and you arrive at what should be an equally banal conclusion: if culture matters enormously, and cultures differ from one another, then differences between cultures matter.
But the denial of cultural explanations for disparity has become the received view among progressives. Coates, for instance, has dubbed cultural explanations of disparity “lazy.”
Others believe such arguments to be intrinsically racist when applied to Blacks. Sociologist Michael Dyson has argued that cultural explanations of disparities are “heroic battles against Black deficiency.”
Intuitive examples of the importance of culture are all around us.
Disparities in athletic achievement, for instance, are inexplicable without reference to culture.
- Although Blacks make up 14 percent of the U.S. population, they account for only 8 percent of MLB players. This relatively small disparity has been enough to prompt articles that blame the decline in Black baseball representation on everything from "mass incarceration" to "racial bias" to "a generic sense among whites that baseball should stay white,” as a Vox piece summarized it.
- Meanwhile, Blacks account for three-fourths of all NBA players, while whites account for a mere 18 percent. Curiously, progressives have not seen the under-representation of whites in basketball as requiring any explanation whatsoever. When whites are under-represented somewhere, it is assumed to be a choice or a cultural preference.
When Blacks are under-represented, progressives consider every possible explanation except for the “lazy” one. For example, they refuse to see that in contemporary Black culture, basketball is more popular than baseball.
https://quillette.com/2018/05/14/the-racism-treadmill/
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