Eh, this thread is just a rewording of the classic, old debate about Genetics-vs-Culture-vs-Discrimination. I'll explain and then give my opinion on where I stand on the issue and why.
At the end of the 19th and early 20th, intellectuals believed that genetics explained the black-white differences in outcomes. Later, during the middle of the century, intellectuals changed their minds and believed it was discriminatory practices and systems that was the true culprit, which is basically what the white-supremacist-explanation camp on coli believe.
At the heart of it, the intellectuals beliefs were just ways to stroke their egos. Arguing genetic inferiority made them be viewed as champions of the white race. And later down the road, arguing discrimination made them be viewed as warriors against racism. Personally, I think self-flattering has a lot to do with the talking-points of coli-militants just like it did with the intellectuals.
The third theory, which has stronger evidence but has gotten less attention than the alternative theories, is culture. The self-responsibility camp itt is basically equivalent to the culture camp, and is the camp that I would fall under.
The discrimination crowd fails most of the time to convince me of anything. Their evidence to explain for the lack of socio-economic success among certain groups usually consist of abstract rhetoric, disparity results in outcomes, or some emotional talking-point about the legacy of slavery. Also, their concepts never seem to fit with the results of Asians and Jews who have also faced immense discrimination from a majority population, yet somehow manage to out-perform the majority academically and economically.
Even in the case of blacks in america their logic is inconsistent. No one on in their right mind is gonna claim discrimination was weaker pre 1960s, which means that we should see worse crime rates for blacks, higher illegitimacy rates, and a much slower rate of black economic progress. However, for the most part, we see all that after the 1960s, not prior.
Once white liberals in the 60s put forth their social programs to act upon blacks, it seems what they really did for blacks is just lessen healthy, productive, societal pressures that promote productive cultural values for groups in general. This caused the black family unit to decay and black american sub-culture to retrogress, which not even slavery and Jim crow accomplished and that's a fact. And unfortunately, it seems like white liberals/intellectuals did all this to once again stroke their fakkit ass egos. Before that point a lot of the evidence suggest that blacks were on a similar trajectory to Asian Americans for socio-economical growth in this country.