A disparity

Why do black African immigrants do better than American-born blacks?

Posted on June 4, 2021

Millions of sub-Saharan blacks seek to immigrate to America. They apparently haven’t gotten the memo that this is a wretched land of systemic anti-black racism.

When they get here, they’re strangers in a strange land. English is usually not their first language. Their skin color tends to be very black, not the lighter color of American blacks who have an average of about 25% white blood in them.

Despite those handicaps, they do better than American-born blacks. Compared to American-born blacks, their income is about a third higher, their poverty rates are significantly lower, their educational achievement is higher, and their marriage rate is double.

Here’s the most intriguing statistic. Although black immigrants are more successful than American-born blacks, their relative success does not get passed on to their children. Compared to the immigrant parents, their grown children work less, are impoverished more, obtain less education and are less-often married.

Why is this? Does the notorious systemic racism of America somehow target the children of black immigrants while leaving the immigrant parents unscathed?

Maybe. But It’s hard to imagine the mechanism for such selective racism targeting.

It’s more likely that the children of black immigrants assimilate into American black culture — a culture where the murder rate is seven times the white murder rate and the illegitimacy rate is 78%. The data suggest that’s a bad thing.