How Does the Success Sequence Help People to Achieve the American Dream?

In the 2007 Parents Involved decision, Chief Justice John Roberts shared a “simple and elegant logic” when he wrote, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

A recent Supreme Court decision ended discrimination on the basis of race in college admissions. In writing about this topic, Mike Gonzalez discussed why discrimination is not necessary. 

The view that disparities, in educational attainment and elsewhere, are prima facie evidence of something called “systemic racism” – another ide virtually signaled without factual support – stands behind this idea of getting a quick fix on results. It runs counter to the actual data.

What does the data say? According to Gonzalez, there are several “underserved” or “marginalized” groups of Americans who do better than the average American.

·         52% of U.S.-born Venezuelan Americans have at least graduated from a four-year university, a much higher rate than the 23.5% of all Americans.

·         Other “Latinos” … also have high levels of educational attainment.

·         73.5% of U.S.-born Nigerian Americans are college graduates … compared to 32.9% of U.S. whites.

·         Ghanaian and West Indian Americans also do well across a number of indicators

The question we should be asking is, why do some groups of Blacks or Hispanics do better than other groups? Why do some minority groups become “very much represented in colleges and universities” and achieve the American dream, while other groups do not?

Gonzalez shared an idea that may be helpful in bringing better understanding. He suggested that the United States “needs to drop our current monolithic census racial categories.” He used the term synthetic categories to describe “Hispanics” and “Asian Americans” and said that those categories “throw off more heat than light.”

Gonzalez also indicated that lumping all Black Americans into one group is not helpful. He said that there should be cross-referencing with the “nation of origin and family intactness” to better “address the causes of the disparities.”

The bottom line, according to Gonzalez, is to “go back to teaching the success sequence” for school and life in general. The success sequence is to graduate from high school, get a job, get married, have a baby – in that order – and to stay married. The success sequence is a formula that can help Americans of all races to become prosperous and happy.