I knew I'd get this reply from people who don't live in a ghetto, because only them think the stink of these shitholes isn't that bad. So here I go Takayanagi:

>Who decides what 'normal' is?

Common sense. Saying "I don't know nobody" isn't normal. Imagine you lived in a ghetto with your kid, and there's a billionaire who proposes to offer him a good education, wouldn't you want your kid to get out of that place ASAP.

The most probable outcome for a child who grew up in a ghetto isn't that bright, and refusing to acknowledge the benefit of the above plans just for the sake of political correctness and free choice isn't

>What makes your upbringing better than 'ghetto people'?

Everything. Growing up in a ghetto, you start in life with a handicap:

- They are stereotyped (for good reasons, because they probably fit that stereotype).
- They have to deal with things children don't have to deal with.
- They are, most probably, less educated than children who grew up in normal neighborhoods. Again, let's leave political correctness aside for a minute, this is a fact.

{
You're walking a very, very fine line between what is best for children, and what is just cultural indoctrination. Do you see how easy it is to slip between the two?
}

The line is so thick, it's not even funny. It's not cultural indoctrination, these are facts. There's a reason why ghettos suck, and why no one in his right mind would make a conscious choice of living there. Let alone with a kid.

{
What you're operating under is called cultural relativism. Melville Herskovits said it best, "Judgements are based on experience, and experience is interpreted by each individual in terms of his own enculturation."
}

Oh really, where did he live? And where did his children grow up and study? I bet he didn't send them to a slum just to be philosophical.

Try telling this to people living in those places. Anyone who says he lives there and is "proud" is full of shit. The minute they make it, they get out there. Only mobsters choose to keep living there because they'd be a nobody if they ever left.

Ghettos suck. This sentence would get an "Amen" from China to South Africa, and it doesn't even need to be translated.

>In other words, while you may believe that a 'ghetto' upbringing is worse than what you had, you came to that conclusion under a >biased observation.

Biased by numbers, yes. Criminality, illiteracy rate, rate of single moms, murder, poverty, health. Ghettos suck. If they didn't, we'd have no problems actively making a choice of moving there with our families. But we don't. Nobody who can afford to live elsewhere makes an active decision to live in a ghetto.

>Yes, there is a higher crime rate in 'ghetto' areas, but that has less to do with culture, and more to do with opportunity.

Isn't opportunity closely tied with culture?

How many startups have been started by a guy named Maleeek (with 3 'e' s) who grew up in a ghetto? If not none, then very few. Why? Because they didn't have the opportunity to drop out of MIT, Harvard, or Stanford or to get there in the first place for that matter.

Yeah, there are few people who "hustle". A very few. And these apples don't fall really far from the Hip-Hop tree. There are of course outliers, but they're that: Outliers. We need something consistent. Something we can see on a graph and say "Holy shit, the correlation!".

>And yes, there are parents who would prefer that their children not simply be 'white washed' into cultural conformity based on someone >else's standards.

Maybe. But I also think that most parents would prefer that to the most likely outcome of their kid. Any parent can choose to ignore the realities of the world just to make a point, or make the best out of the situation he's in.