First time to your blog. But I am feeling it. Sounds like you like hip hop. My boys are having a show at the Mighty on Saturday with Tribe Called Quest Ali Shaheed Muhammad. You can go to digunderground.com if you are interested.

Way to go and ruin all my street cred.

btw… the feline looks a wee bit portly. my mom’s was and became diabetic. now she has to give it two insuline shots a day. but josie the cat is all svelt now!

We’re simply the new American voice. We understand certain fundamentals:

Polyglots are our friends. Assimilation isn’t a dirty word. Nationalism is counter-productive. Partying until 6:00am is ok. Universal health care is crucial. Equality is a good thing. Money isn’t everything. Smaller cars are cooler. Gay rights mean everyone is happy. “Liberty and Justice for all” extends beyond this nation. etc.

Anyway, I don’t mind it when people tell me I don’t “act American” when I’m abroad. I know exactly WHO they’re talking about and I’d rather be in a league of my own. Honestly, I’d rather start a new American identity anyway. Hope all is well, homie. Over and out vato.

-a

In fact there’s an enormous literature in cognitive psychology which says that people can be good intuitive statisticians when forming categories and that their prototypes for conceptual categories track the statistics of the natural world pretty well. For example, there is a stereotype that basketball players are taller on average than jockeys. But that does not mean that basketball players grow tall, and jockeys shrink, because we expect them to have certain heights! Likewise, Alice Eagly and Jussim and Eccles have shown that most of people’s gender stereotypes are in fact pretty accurate. Indeed the error people make is in the direction of underpredicting sex differences.

Pinker isn’t the only one either, Stereotype Accuracy : Toward Appreciating Group Differences, is especially insightful. Another useful resources is Do We Stereotype Stereotyping?

I am not saying that all ’stereotypes’ (when talking to libies, especially libies from the Sociology, Anthropology, or chicano studies background, I tend to use the word ‘generalities’, or even ’statistical discrimination’, as they have been indoctrinated since birth that all ’stereotypes’ are bad, so it always elicits a negative reaction and stiffles productive conversation) are accurate, but they certainly are more accurate than many people give them credit for. The key to remember is that they are statistical inferences, so they need not be 100% accurate to be valid, only likely.

For example, when I was growing up in Compton, white people were in such short supply (i have never met one white person that lived in Compton) that when we saw one driving around, we always assumed they were there to buy drugs. Granted, it wasn’t always true, but in the vast majority of cases it was. Or, a more recent example, I wash my car after I get out of work in a very uppity city. The city and especially the area is full of engineering buildings, banks, expensive hotels, and large corporations, and has little to no Mexicans – except of course the Mexicans that wash cars, cut grass, and work in the restaurants. Occasionally when I go wash my car I am mistaken for one of the workers there – who, aside from the owner, are all Mexican. They complain to me about the quality of the car wash, or the price, or if I can ring them up. I tell them that I don’t work there and sometimes they feel embarrassed, sometimes they don’t. But if I am there with another Mexican, my Mexican friend almost always feels offended by the mistake, claiming it was racist to assume I worked there. I am like, ‘look around, isn’t it easy to make the same mistake if you didn’t know me’? They eventually see my point, but only after I bring in the statistics of the situation (on a side note, I never understood the claim that being confused for a gardener, mechanic, janitor, or car wash employee is somehow disrespectful in itself, I have family that still do that work today, and consider it a very respectful profession).

This is understandable as far as it goes, but change the circumstances a little bit and people go ballistic. For example, take a common example given in ethnic studies classes, the example of the black student (or any ‘underrepresented minority’) in an ivy league college who gets confused as a benefactor of affirmative action or a sports scholarship, instead of stellar academic achievements. Is this ‘racism’? Many would say so, but statistics show that in more cases than not (except where the person is a black african immigrant), that would have been the case.

This is the fundamental premise of statistical discrimination – in a world of costly information people sensibly rely on a lot of statistical generalizations.

Of course chicano studies professors and their ilk will have none of it, and claim that statistical discrimination or not, it should stop. But this is far easier said than done. Sure, for those college professors teaching classes behind the security of college walls, it is easy. But when you take on the costs of ignoring statistical discrimination directly it is far less likely you will do so. This is why, for example, in every ghetto you will find a larger than normal amount of negative stereotypes – making the wrong statistical conclusion really could lead to life or death. Assuming that a group of bald mexican-american teenagers in LA poses the same threat as a group of bald black teenagers could lead to serious problems, especially if you are a bald mexican-american yourself. It may be easy to pontificate on the immorality of the ‘evil’ taxi cab driver (many of them black african immigrants) who refuses to pick up young, black males in NY, but I bet you that taxi cab driver is a lot safer because of it.

Don’t get the wrong idea though, I am not defending statistical discrimination in the sense that it is good. My point here is not that statistical discrimination is good – my point here is that it is human. I personally have been on the other side of statistical discrimination, and I can tell you that it is painful. But the best way to stop it is not to get others to work against their nature, it is to get those in your own group (ie mexican-americans that join gangs, commit crimes, drop out of high school, take bs chicano studies classes…okay, that last one was a joke, but you get the idea), to stop doing things that lead to the likelihood of those making the statistical inference correct.

In short, foreigners shock that you were not like ‘the typical yankee’ says little about the validity of their statistical experience, but more that you, as everybody who reads your blog would certainly testify, are really not like the ‘typical yankee’.

However I have to admit a soft spot for “Cat” (still to be named) even though he is, technically, another’s. I foresee a custody battle ahead. And of course I’d only be fighting on behalf of the dog, who loves him and would be sad without him.

Bill. That’s quite a good name.

Bill’s a pretty good looking creature, but of course, he already knows this and is anything but camera shy (some soft porn shots will be on flickr soon).

Derek,

I should be more specific. First of all, you’re right, my problem was indeed unfamiliarity. My only two experiences with cats were the above-stated Midnight when I was a kid and then a roommate’s cat when I was 18 who had a fixation with sticking his anus in my face.

It wasn’t exactly that I disliked cats. It’s more like Karl Pilkington’s argument against the pineapple – is it really worth it? Cats were OK, but not worth the smelly rugs. There are still times when I come home and discover vomit on the blanket and I face my feline friend as ask, “why?” But I’ve come to understand, Bill is worth it.