Not race but class and culture. And maybe more class than culture?

An interesting read from one of greatest of our great academcis, now passed, James Q. Wilson. This essay is from late in his career and probably could not be written today. From Slavery and the black family by James Q. Wilson.

It sheds light on a curious phenomenon. Jamaican emigrants to the US tend to do way better than African Americans and even to some extant than native born white, even when controlling for education and the like. The fact of superior economic performance suggests that claims about racism in the US are to some degree misplaced.

On the other hand, their success also raises interesting questions. Jamaicans gained their freedom (slavery being abolished) in 1807, nearly sixty years before African-Americans. Does the sixty extra years of freedom for Jamaicans explain the difference in outcomes between native born African-Americans versus Jamaican emigres?

That sure seems unlikely. Possible, perhaps, but not likely.

Was it simply something distinct about Jamaican culture versus African-American culture. That is what I have long ascribed it to as a working hypothesis.

Wilson supports that hypothesis but with a twist. In this essay, he is exploring the relationship between slavery and single-parenthood families.

The ease of the West Indies

In many nations in the Western Hemisphere--in Barbados, Jamaica, Antigua, Martinique, Suriname, Trinidad, as well asin the United States--black children are likely to grow up in a single-parent family. Most of these places acquired independence from an imperial ruler many decades ago (in Haiti, two centuries ago). In almost every West Indian nation, black leaders responsive to black electorates came to power. Yet the out-of-wedlock birth rate in these places is very high. In Barbados, at the time of its 1990 census, only 30 percent of mothers between the ages of 15 and 49 were married. Of the unmarried mothers, a few--roughly 3 percent--were divorced, but the vast majority had never been married. Much the same story exists in every West Indian nation where the illegitimacy rate ranges from 35 to 72 percent.

There is, of course, a convenient way to minimize the tragedy behind these statistics. Americans, especially white ones, may think marriage is decisive, but critics point out that other cultures have a different view. Some people have argued that a child can as easily be raised by an unwed mother or by a man and woman living together in a common-law union as by a married pair. A common-law marriage provides all of the benefits of a lawful marriage while being as stable as a formal one. But none of those who make this argument can demonstrate that a common-law union has the same effect as a formal marriage, and none deal with the fact that many children are raised by mothers who lack not only a husband but any consensual mate. Judith Blake, who has studied Jamaican family life in great detail, has noted that one-third of all mothers had no male partner at all, married or unmarried. In a nation as poor as Jamaica, this lack of a father must surely have produced grave child-rearing problems. There would be little money or help.

There is a lot more discussion but the broad point is that it seems broadly that the social patterns of behavior (such as single parenthood) within Jamaica and among African-Americans are quite similar. If you were to bring a random Jamaican to America, they would fit right in with the African-American community.

What that means is that the US is not getting a representative group of Jamaicans. Instead we are getting the cream of the Jamaican crop, those with middle class values.

At which point, the focus shifts from slavery and history to cultural values which underpin success. Not a welcome conversation in many quarters but probably the most valuable one we could be having. Inferred racism drops away as an explainer and the old bugbear of class behaviors resurrects.