I have seen this argument against African Americans made several times (mostly by asians). As an outsider , I cant stop thinking how shallow the argument is. Here is a counter argument. First, am not American. Am from Kenya. When kids join highschool in kenya, they need to sit a nationwide exam. Total score out of 500. For kids in Nairobi and other well established cities, they will need to get at least 400 marks out of the 500 to get a spot in a national highschool (which are the top of the top public schools) while kids from “rural” and marginalised areas, the cut off point for them can be as low as 350 marks. These are the kids who have pastoralists families that probably move constantly, or stay in areas where its too hot they only attend classes for 4 hrs a day. They most likely dont have electricity, no water etc. Its therefore only fair for their cutoff point to be different from a child who grew up in the city (like me) with access to all modern day life necessities including luxuries like private tuition. Now back to America, would the same argument not be made for black Americans (or any other ethnic groups or even people from other “rural” regions that are marginalised to have their cut off point be different from people from well established regions? That’s what equality is all about. Being able to identify such disparities and create solutions as permanent solutions are sort after.