Charles Murray s Facing Reality A Review Quillette

In New York City, the elite Stuyvesant public high school illustrates the discrepancy between the quality of our discussions of systemic racism and how race, class, and education actually interact in the real world. Admission to the school is based on a standardized test. The current student body is 73 percent Asian American and 19 percent white. New York City is about 15 percent Asian American and 30 percent white. In other words, white kids are under-represented in the student body (though far less so than blacks and Latinos). Forty-three percent of the students at Stuyvesant come from poor families. Upper-middle-class New Yorkers will not be surprised by these numbers. They know that connected white families with kids cognitively able enough to qualify for Stuyvesant send their children to private schools. They also know that these private schools lure minorities with scholarships in order to diversify their student body. The Dalton School costs $55,000 per year, and its student body is 68 percent white, 11 percent black, and eight percent Asian American. For Asian American children from poor families, on the other hand, Stuyvesant offers a golden opportunity for excellence, as they are not diverse nor affluent enough for private schools. This is their reality.

Upper-middle-class liberal whites also live the facts in Facing Reality tacitly, even if only subconsciously. Even liberal scolds like Samantha Bee ensure that their children attend de facto segregated public schools. Unsurprisingly, New York City remains heavily residentially segregated in 2021, just as it was 50 years ago. But the proportion of whites in the city stabilized in the 21st century, due to massive declines in crime. The simplest explanation for the reduction in white flight is not that whites are now far less racist, but that urban crime has declined precipitously over the past 30 years.

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