Steve Sailer on surnames and social mobility

Steve Sailer writes:

In the Wikipedia Age, it’s easy to look up celebrities’ family backgrounds, which are often eye-opening. Consider the British entertainment industry, which once featured numerous Cockneys like Michael Caine and working-class Scots like former coffin-polisher Sean Connery.

Recently, though, London show biz has been taken over by the People of Quality.

On that point, here’s Julie Burchill:

Similarly, other jobs that previously provided bright, working-class kids with escape routes – from modelling to journalism – have been colonised by the middle and upper classes and by the spawn of those who already hold sway in those professions.

The spectacle of some smug, mediocre columnista who would definitely not have their job if their mummy or daddy hadn’t been in the newspaper racket advising working-class kids to study hard at school, get a “proper” job and not place their faith in TV talent shows is one of the more repulsive minor crimes of our time.

Anyway, back to Sailer:

For example, Clark still finds the same pattern of relatively low performance among Americans with French Canadian surnames, even though most of these families arrived from Quebec at least a century ago. And this weak achievement at becoming doctors or lawyers isn’t restricted just to Louisiana Cajuns, but is found in New England and Oregon as well.

[T]he below average outcomes of French Canadian-Americans represent a best-case scenario for the Mexican-American masses.

And, Clark’s data implies, it would take into the next century (if ever) for Mexican-Americans to reach the low levels of French-American accomplishment.

Having “worked” with French Canadians for a number of years, I can assure you that they are the white collar Mexicans of Canada. Doing actual work interferes with their four-hour lunchbreaks (with wine).

Quebeckers used to call themselves “the white niggers of America.”

“White Hispanics” would have been more accurate.

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