USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Food for thought!

Corrected:

Only addressing a tiny aspect of the article:

Although I have not read the book, I can testify to the efficacy of the Chinese mothers' upbringing of their 1.5  billion children, since we have one such mother in the first cousin Swedish section of my family (the father is a Swedish professor of Engineering at The  Royal Institute of Technology, the mother , a Chinese genius and a high grade electronics engineer herself – so what super achievements should one not expect of the children?  And I can also testify to the efficacy of the Chinese mothers among my friends, all the more so since I was indoctrinated about the great future of China firstly by my very British English teacher in the forth form, Major Von Bradshaw   - good old " British Imperialism" at work – and  before him it was Mr. Chapman ( M.A. Cantab). Major Von  Bradshaw , who rode on a bicycle  to school,  would usually start each English lesson by writing a Chinese proverb on what was then called a blackboard) and much later, I was indoctrinated about China by my late best friend and mentor,  Dr. Mikhail Tunkel  who admired Mao so much - he repeatedly told me that Mao united China (he also loved Chopin, played Chinese piano)  was/ is  Jewish -  an ardent  disciple of Jabotinsky , parents from Lithuania , born and bred in Harbin, before  at the age of thirty-four, he finally emigrated to Israel in 1953  - a few years after the Communists took over in China – and may I add that what  China and Chinese mothers ( and fathers too) have going for them is/are  the teachings of Confucius which  applied, roughly corresponds to what's called "The protestant ethic" of hard work  and discipline.  And so we witness the meteoric advancement of China and anticipate even greater advancements in the future. (Of course, in Nigeria what we need is W.A.I.)

 I'll leave Elder Brother Soyinka and younger Brother  Professor Falola  to extol the virtues of Yoruba mothers  and  Yoruba womanhood in their autobiographies  and other writings, whilst I get on with mine.  This evening I was telling Emmanuel, my Brother from Edo that I was rocked on my mother's back  to which I was attached by an Ohjah ( which partly accounts for the riddim)  - but leaving our great Yoruba mothers aside for a moment ( May the Almighty bless them all) I once asked a Chechen mother ( I know her name, and have her telephone number)  I asked her  how come their sons are such brave men  and she told me that this is because they are very self-confident and that they are very self-confident and brave because they were never intimated  or oppressed as children – no "spare the rod and spoil the child " for them – and I have a theory  (amateur psychologist) that accounts for the as yet unending brutality in some of our African societies : I think that the extreme discipline that some have suffered in childhood  - childhood traumas, accounts for  the tendency of  over-using brute force instead of dialogue/ consultation/ consensus  as a solution to some of our problems.

Yes indeed I sure know a lot of rabbis, and their names too...

 Must get cracking with updating

We Sweden

Amy Chua, the self-proclaimed "Tiger Mom" who, in 2011, published a book arguing
that Chinese women are superior mothers — thus their offspring superior children
— has even more to say.

In "The Triple Package," Chua and her husband, co-author Jed Rubenfeld, gather
some specious stats and anecdotal evidence to argue that some groups are just
superior to others and everyone else is contributing to the downfall of America.

Unsurprisingly, the Chinese Chua and the Jewish Rubenfeld belong to two of the
eight groups they deem exceptional. In no seeming order of importance, they are:

    Jewish
    Indian
    Chinese
    Iranian
    Lebanese-Americans
    Nigerians
    Cuban exiles
    Mormons

These groups — "cultural," mind you, never "ethnic" or "racial" or "religious"—
all possess, in the authors' estimation, three qualities that they've identified
as guarantors of wealth and power: superiority, insecurity and impulse control.

"That certain groups do much better in America than others — as measured by
income, occupational status, test scores and so on — is difficult to talk
about," the authors write. "In large part, this is because the topic feels so
racially charged."

And so begins their cat-and-mouse polemic, in which they claim they're
courageously agitating for a greater good: the revival of America itself as a
"Triple Package Culture." It's a series of shock-arguments wrapped in self-help
tropes, and it's meant to do what racist arguments do: scare people.

Chua, a law professor at Yale, became a media sensation in 2011, when The Wall
Street Journal published an extract from her book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger
Mother." She herself is an American, raised in the Midwest, but she used her
heritage and all the worst stereotypes of Chinese women — cold, rigid Dragon
Ladies, hostile towards their own children — to criticize the Western way of
parenting, which she also said would be the downfall of America.

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Her book really can be reduced to a simple argument: Chinese mothers are better
than those of any other race, and these parenting methods are going to result in
the West's big fear — the continued rise and ultimate supremacy of China. Chua's
book was a best-seller, so it's little surprise she's back with an even more
incendiary thesis, one so well timed to deep economic anxiety, to the collective
fear that the American middle class is about to disappear, for good, and the
misguided belief that immigration reform will result in even less opportunity
for Americans than there is now.

She and Rubenfeld stoke those fears. "Although rarely mentioned in media
reports," they write, "the studies said to show the demise in upward mobility
largely exclude immigrants and their children."

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Chua with her husband and co-author Jed Rubenfeld pose with their two
daughters.Photo: Peter Z. Mahakian

Yet the authors do not mention whether these immigrants are low-wage workers who
have a greater chance at upward mobility, and the Pew study they cite is from
2007 — one year before the global financial collapse, resulting in an American
economy that may be structurally altered for decades to come.

All of the groups profiled by Chua and Rubenfeld are done so only as American
immigrants, with the exceptions of Mormons and Jews, who are superior to
Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, atheists and Muslims — the latter group, it
seems, too controversial to warrant a mention.

On to the distinguishing factors that make these eight groups the best in America:

1. A superiority complex

Any group that collectively believes they are inherently better than any other,
say the authors, has an advantage. They do not note that this is perhaps
humanity's oldest and ugliest flaw, the bottom-line cause of wars and genocide.
In their estimation, it's not nearly common enough in America, where "the
Superiority Complex . . . is antithetical to mainstream liberal thinking . . .
the stuff of racism, colonialism, imperialism, Nazism." This way of thinking,
they write, has been a big boon to Mormons and Jews, though they also fail to
note that believing in the superiority of a belief system is the driving force
behind almost all organized religion. (Except the Amish. The authors freely note
that the Amish are losers for this very reason.)

2. Insecurity

Here are the authors sounding most like Malcolm Gladwell: Posit something, make
a solid case for it, then immediately refute it with equal fervor. The result:
Readers are so confused that they can only conclude that this book is so much
smarter than they are.

The authors are very impressed with their boldness in juxtaposing insecurity
with superiority. "That insecurity should be a critical lever of success is
another anathema, flouting the entire orthodoxy of contemporary popular and
therapeutic psychology," they write. In fact, insecurity has long been known as
a prime motivator among actors, artists, CEOs, despots. "Imposter syndrome," the
term used to describe highly successful individuals who believe, deep down, they
are frauds, was identified back in 1978.

"Note that there's a deep tension between insecurity and a superiority complex,"
the authors continue. "It's odd to think of people being simultaneously insecure
but also convinced of their divine election or superiority." Really? Just ask
anyone who's ever met a narcissist, or read a profile of A-Rod.

3. Impulse Control

Yet another hallmark of self-help, impulse control is considered to be a key
factor in personal success — the ability to delay instant gratification in the
service of a greater goal. But this isn't really what the authors have in mind:
"As we'll use the term," they write, "impulse control refers to the ability to
resist temptation, especially the temptation to give up in the face of hardship
or quit instead of persevering at a difficult task."

You know who's bad at this? Americans not among their eight groups. "Because all
three elements of the Triple Package run so counter to modern American culture,
it makes sense that America's successful groups are all outsiders in one way or
another," they write. "Paradoxically, in modern America, a group has an edge if
it doesn't buy into — or hasn't yet bought into — mainstream, post-1960s,
liberal American principles."

As curious as the groups that Chua and Rubenfeld elevate are the absence of ones
they denigrate. Aside from the Amish (not big book-buyers), the only other group
the authors take aim at are the Appalachian poor, noting, without irony, that
"it's far more socially acceptable today to insult and look down on 'white
trash' than the poor of any other racial group.'"

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Even though he lost the election to Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and his family
somehow prove the superiority of Mormons.Photo: Getty Images

As for why African-Americans don't make the list, the authors believe that the
Civil Rights Movement took away any hope for a superiority narrative, and so the
black community is screwed — even as they cite Mitt Romney's loss to Barack
Obama as evidence of Mormon ascendancy.

"In this paradoxical sense, equality isn't fair to African-Americans," they
write. "Superiority is the one narrative that America has relentlessly denied or
ground out of its black population."

Nigerian immigrants, they argue, are bolstered by the belief that they are
better than other West Africans — much as the Lebanese believe, as descendants
of Phoenicians, that they are superior, or that the Chinese believe that their
5,000-year-old civilization makes them superior. But feeling superior to other
nations, races or religions is nothing more than that — a feeling.

The authors have such dubious data — "getting a statistical fix on Mormon income
and wealth is notoriously difficult"; "hard numbers, however, are surprisingly
hard to come by"— that they undermine every assertion of so-called "cultural"
supremacy.

Modal
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Chua and her co-author husband Jed Rubenfeld rely on flimsy evidence to make
their argument in "The Triple Package."

The real story here — the less controversial one, the more interesting and
possibly instructive one — is that historically, immigrant groups tend to
experience upward mobility in America until the third generation, and then, for
reasons unknown, tend to level off. It's interesting, too, that the authors
either dismiss or outright ignore the large swaths of immigrant groups who built
up this country — the English, Irish, Italians, Germans, Eastern Europeans. They
ignore two very basic explanations for the success of immigrant groups in
America: Anyone who leaves their homeland for parts unknown, no matter how
desperate, is, by definition, bold; America's uniqueness as a nation founded by
immigrants.

Once we were a Triple Package nation, say the authors, but no more. We have been
done in by our superiority complex, our poor, Western-style "self-esteem
parenting" and lack of impulse control.

The question they finally pose — Should America be a Triple Package country
again? Can it? — is followed by a paragraph-long, yes-no-maybe answer that will
give you whiplash.

"The real promise of a Triple Package America," they conclude, "is the promise
of a day when there are no longer any successful groups in the United States —
only successful individuals."

Today, the demographic predicted to have the greatest impact economically,
politically and culturally, by the year 2042, are Hispanics. Just don't tell the
Mormons or the Jews.

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Ike Udogu

P/s this was sent me by a friend