Black American Culture and the Racial Wealth Gap

[ruby sparks]

We just have to get over that and move onto the actual business of helping people who need help.

To get back to this, I agree it's a good idea if it pleases us or benefits us in some other way. Is that what you meant?

 

[PyramidHead]

We just have to get over that and move onto the actual business of helping people who need help.

To get back to this, I agree it's a good idea if it pleases us or benefits us in some other way. Is that what you meant?

No, because I think helping people in need is an ethical obligation.

 

[ruby sparks]

We just have to get over that and move onto the actual business of helping people who need help.

To get back to this, I agree it's a good idea if it pleases us or benefits us in some other way. Is that what you meant?

No, because I think helping people in need is an ethical obligation.

You are usually so clinically logical, and here you are being all....... fluffy.

No but seriously, why?

 

[Jarhyn]

No, because I think helping people in need is an ethical obligation.

You are usually so clinically logical, and here you are being all....... fluffy.

No but seriously, why?

Honestly, answering that question is difficult. For a lot of philosophers, the basis for social obligation is something they never really figure out at all. Many of the major philosophers in history have such a hard time grappling with the problems that are answered by this rule that they reject the questions and the answer entirely (such as Ayn Rand), and end up in some mostly bastardized form of solipsism.

When you ask the question "why should I care about anyone else," there is the corollary "Why should anyone else care about me?"

If you answer it that "I'm more emportant because I experience myself, not others," anyone else who is other and exists would have exactly the same basis. And because these are mutually exclusive and identical positions, either the answer must be bad or the question, to have produced this contradiction. Of course there's an answer to the question that doesn't contain a contradiction: "I am only as important as anyone else."

And if one is to reject solipsism, and also expect others to come to their aid, they must accept that they must come to the aid of others, and further accept that it is not an unethical act to stop other unethical acts by persons or nature.

Without this simple rule, much or even all of ethical philosophy becomes incoherent.

 

[Mumbles]

Question: If black people in the USA today were paid reparations, would that end wealth disparity between races within a generation or two? Or could there be something to the claims of a counter-culture of learned helplessness and victimhood?

The most severe problem with the "culture" argument is that it oddly assumes a single, overwhelming culture among all African-Americans (and I use the term here to deliberately discuss black people who are born in, and have several generations in, the US - as opposed to "black American" which could mean any black person that resides long-term in the US, or just "black"). "Culture of Victimhood" means next to nothing, however - most people in the US are basically going after the same things regardless of race. You can find pockets where education is frowned on in any racial group, as well as areas where it's smiled on. Same for entrepreneurship, wealth building, and so forth. In fact, some of the most fervent voices for "economic self-determination" among African-Americans point to racism as the exact reason why such efforts are needed so desperately.

Whether reparations would or should end disparities, or even needs to be designed to do so, is questionable in and of itself - even Coates' real proposal in his essay called for a study into the issue, rather than any immediate wealth-building program. And even this has been considered to shockingly racist to get any congressional backing.

(I'd also point to the wildly increasing wealth disparities, and the decay of income relative to productivity, as their own major problems that could overwhelm the matter pretty soon - but again, there's no political will to even consider such a matter).

Yes. This explains a lot of it, though culture does as well.

A lot of these can easily be explained through external factors as well - the US considers wealth indicative of hard work, and both womanhood and dark skin indicative of laziness. It may actually make things easier for black women to have jewelry in order to combat racial/sexual discrimination. But I've seen no study into this. I pointed out the severe problem with the car measurement at the start.

Another essential point. I am sick of seeing all Asian people branded as "Asian" rather than as being from China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia, etc. There are so many Asians, yet we all get treated as a monolith of rich, privileged people. Why should a poor Filipino student be given a harder time getting into school because she is "Asian" and there are so many Chinese and Japanese students in already?

People may be shocked, but I'm not at all fond of race-based AA programs for public schools - although at elite schools I'd consider legacy admissions far more of an issue as far as "fairness" goes. Harvard has more legacy students than it has black (and I deliberately mean "black" here) students in it's undergrad program, for example, and these universities are hardly cash-strapped. And yeah, it's Asian students, as an overall group, that get the brunt of it regardless of their own family situation and so forth.

If anything, I'd consider it to mostly aid white Americans, both the young women that it worked for, and the institutions that can point to statistics and say "Look at how diverse we alee!", without grappling with some far more pressing issues. Even Harvard's black alumni group got tossed out of a club that they had reserved a few years back...

But if we learned anything from the explosion of violent crime and single motherhood following welfare expansion in the late 1960s, it was that cash transfers cannot solve a problem that the absence of cash didn’t cause.

Possibly. Single motherhood isn't exactly exploding, so much as married motherhood nosediving - and there's strong reason to believe that environmental toxins play a much stronger role in violence than any welfare program (particularly since both are international trends - putting both on anything involving African-Americans is very questionable).

The false dichotomy between "culture" (something thought to be the full responsibility of all people who are part of it) and "circumstances" (only these causes of misfortune should be redressed by public policy) has been a rallying cry of conservatives for a generation or more. The left needs to call their bluff. So what if 'Asian culture' has some effect on the well-being of Asians relative to other minorities? Doesn't that just make blacks and Hispanics unlucky to have been born non-Asian, and thus in greater need of assistance? Culture is not something planned out ahead of time by members of a race or ethnicity. It evolves in response to hardships, downplaying certain priorities and reinforcing others in a slapdash way that can't be predicted from first principles. Of all the people in a position to influence the future of a culture, those living in it are perhaps worst equipped to do so, especially if they are still responding to the same hardships that moulded the culture of their parents' parents in the first place. Cultures change when social and economic conditions change, and we live in an interconnected world where such complexities can be handled through legislation better than through bottom-up revolution.

A lot of this, in reality, is just hostility to providing aid to African-Americans in a costume that...well, it's not even "new", really. Like most stereotypes, it's pretty easy to trace back well over a century, so by US standards it's pretty old, even compared to the "superstrong black rapist criminal" stereotype. And in any event, articles like the one in the OP cherrypick what few studies it actually uses (the multiple references to Sowell - who as far as I know does little in the way of actual published studies - and the highly questionable use of a "spending power of black American women" study that I mentioned before are both very bad signs), so it's really of little value*. I agree with what you say about "culture", but I also think it's best to get to the heart of the issue.

And no, I have little to offer to prove that on my own Just something I get a hunch about by looking to various points in US history. But in any case, my main point wasn't a detailed look into what would be most effective, so much as simply pointing out how badly done the OP's article was.

*: I'm going to say "don't trust Quillette" here - it's developed a reputation for hosting this sort of fluff piece pretending to be academic in a remarkably short amount of time.

 

[fast]

We just have to get over that and move onto the actual business of helping people who need help.

To get back to this, I agree it's a good idea if it pleases us or benefits us in some other way. Is that what you meant?

No, because I think helping people in need is an ethical obligation.

If someone comes to me for help, and if I'm able to help, then is it your view that I'm a bad person for making the choice not to help?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Still, there is no reason to first scrap the programs that help disadvantaged minorities before implementing policies to help disadvantaged people generally.

Change the one into the other. Racial discrimination is racial discrimination. And there is no justifiable reason for it in helping those who need help.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem with the Japanese-got-reparations argument is that the Chinese also do very well and they never got a handout after they were discriminated against.

Culture makes a big difference. Not everyone shares the culture but it doesn't take that for the effect to be obvious.

It's the situation in one's home and neighborhood that matters, not the color of one's skin.

 

[ruby sparks]

No, because I think helping people in need is an ethical obligation.

You are usually so clinically logical, and here you are being all....... fluffy.

No but seriously, why?

Honestly, answering that question is difficult. For a lot of philosophers, the basis for social obligation is something they never really figure out at all. Many of the major philosophers in history have such a hard time grappling with the problems that are answered by this rule that they reject the questions and the answer entirely (such as Ayn Rand), and end up in some mostly bastardized form of solipsism.

When you ask the question "why should I care about anyone else," there is the corollary "Why should anyone else care about me?"

If you answer it that "I'm more emportant because I experience myself, not others," anyone else who is other and exists would have exactly the same basis. And because these are mutually exclusive and identical positions, either the answer must be bad or the question, to have produced this contradiction. Of course there's an answer to the question that doesn't contain a contradiction: "I am only as important as anyone else."

And if one is to reject solipsism, and also expect others to come to their aid, they must accept that they must come to the aid of others, and further accept that it is not an unethical act to stop other unethical acts by persons or nature.

Without this simple rule, much or even all of ethical philosophy becomes incoherent.

Of course, yes, and very well put.

Though I was, even though it might not have been clear, curious (without being cynical) what pyramidhead's particular thoughts were, not least since he seems to me to think most things through more rigorously than most. It's my impression, and he can correct me if I'm wrong, that he would say that even to continue living is to necessarily do harm and (I think) that he argues that suicide is (probably with some important caveats about the pain one might cause to loved ones or dependents) the best one can do if one wants to minimise harm, and (I'm guessing) the next best thing that one can do is choose to live but mitigate the harm as much as possible and it was my guess that this was what might have informed his normative/imperative about helping others. But I'm only guessing.

I'm not denying my question wasn't slightly loaded. I admit that if (if) my guess was right, I was going to ask pyramidhead how he justified opting for the second-best option rather than the best one (assuming I understand him correctly about his prior position). I was not, incidentally, going to ask him that in order to trap him or 'win the internet', but to try to tackle something which seemed especially tricky.

My own view is that the key word and the bottom line is 'success'. One can probably take selfish behaviour too far and ditto for unselfish behaviour. Some sort of situation-dependent mix is probably the best recipe for a social species like ours. The proof is in the pudding, most of the time. Did the pudding replicators manage to get into the next pudding, or not? The rest is commentary. That sort of thing. Not exactly pretty, but the truth (if my view is accurate and true) very often isn't.

This view would, I think, it seems to me, be at least somewhat at odds with one which suggested....what pyramidhead said, at least while it is unelaborated upon.

 

[Toni]

The problem with the Japanese-got-reparations argument is that the Chinese also do very well and they never got a handout after they were discriminated against.

Culture makes a big difference. Not everyone shares the culture but it doesn't take that for the effect to be obvious.

It's the situation in one's home and neighborhood that matters, not the color of one's skin.

Culture DOES indeed make a big difference. For instance, in white American culture, plenty of white people look to minorities who are non-white and who have been allowed to be successful as evidence that white American culture does not discriminate (any more) against persons of color. They even marry non-whites, usually Asian women. I have family members who belong in this group: ultra conservative, Stars and Bars loving white boys (never mind that they're pushing social security age) who married Asian women (typically after their marriages to white women fell apart. Yes, I mean ALL those stereotypes.).

Japanese Americans have faced plenty of discrimination and no, reparations did not make them whole after the internment camps. There is still plenty of discrimination, largely rendering Japanese Americans invisible to most of America, George Takei nonetheless.

Chinese Americans were only intended as temporary slaves and they were not beaten for speaking their own language and it was assumed, largely that after we were done with them, that they simply go home.

Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, and Korean Americans (and non-Americans) are all perceived largely as monolithically "Asian." More recent Asian immigrants such as Vietnamese and Hmong immigrants have been treated with a great deal of discrimination. My part of the country is home to large numbers of immigrants from this part of the world and I've seen some pretty ugly stuff. But the past 30 years or so that I've lived in my current part of the US has undergone some substantial changes in attitude about these Asian groups and individuals. My Asian friends still report and sometimes suspect racism directed towards them, particularly in the school systems where their kids are assumed to be 'behind' (they are not) and treated to all sorts of interventions they don't actually need but allow the nice white people to feel better about themselves. Another generation and that will change even more. There are a lot of SE Asian restaurants all over and they are wildly popular. Food is key.

In my extremely white part of the US, there is also a more recent diaspora from Somalia, and to a lesser extent, other African nations. I am always simply stunned by the amount of help and sympathy and understanding that is offered these individuals and groups while at the same time, the raw racism directed against black Americans whose ancestors have largely lived in the US since before the slaves were freed.

Brown immigrants from Asia and the Middle east are mostly discriminated against by people who conflate brown skin/Asian heritage with 9/11. It's ugly and hateful and terrible but on the scale of what has been done to blacks, and Native Americans, it's peanuts. It doesn't even rise to the level of (horrible) discrimination against Chinese and Japanese.

I think that helping immigrants, especially immigrants from nations that are particularly torn by war, makes my neighbors (by neighbors, I mean all of my state) feel good about themselves, and to allow themselves to believe that they don't dislike black people, just the 'culture' of black Americans who have failed to make the most of the many opportunities offered them in the good ole U S of A.

Never mind that none of these groups were actually enslaved, kept enslaved, forbidden to marry, to read or write, to own property, were considered property, to even maintain control over their children, were forbidden to speak their own language, practice their own religion, keep their own cultures! for hundreds of years. Nor after, were any forbidden to marry white people, drink from certain water fountains, go to certain schools or hospitals, be in certain professions, live in certain neighborhoods, use certain beaches, libraries, etc. Or register to vote. I'm not old enough for SS, but I remember black people being murdered for the crime of registering or attempting to register to vote. Let that sink in. In other words: they weren't really free. But white people always like to pretend that they are much nicer than they are so we all believed they were free and it was their own damn fault for not 'making it' in the US, except in the entertainment industry--including sports (and we all know the story of how sports were integrated).

Native Americans in my part of the country are also largely discriminated against. I have been stunned to hear some language come out of the mouths of some white people I had considered to be perfectly nice. It's bad enough that a couple of my friends specifically did not apply for tribal membership until relatively recently, not for themselves nor for their children. They tried to erase those ties and mostly pass although they would tell you of their heritage once they knew you well enough. People around here take hunting and fishing very seriously and there is always a threat of violence whenever the tribes assert their tribal rights, however symbolically.

Hispanic people are the other group that still faces serious discrimination, although not nearly what is directed towards blacks and Native Americans. They are blamed for a host of societal ills I won't describe here. Just listen to one of Trump's stump speeches and you'll get the gist.

I believe that the level of ingrained, systemic hatred and discrimination leveled against black Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic people is based upon guilt and also against a strong need to see some people as being not quite as human or as good as white folks and therefor the past (and present) behaviors of enslaving them, stripping them from their lands, their families, their homes, their languages, their religions, their culture is somehow justified. It makes us feel better about how badly we treated other human beings when we consider them to be not quite human. Or at least not as human as we white folks are.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem with the Japanese-got-reparations argument is that the Chinese also do very well and they never got a handout after they were discriminated against.

Culture makes a big difference. Not everyone shares the culture but it doesn't take that for the effect to be obvious.

It's the situation in one's home and neighborhood that matters, not the color of one's skin.

Culture DOES indeed make a big difference. For instance, in white American culture, plenty of white people look to minorities who are non-white and who have been allowed to be successful as evidence that white American culture does not discriminate (any more) against persons of color. They even marry non-whites, usually Asian women. I have family members who belong in this group: ultra conservative, Stars and Bars loving white boys (never mind that they're pushing social security age) who married Asian women (typically after their marriages to white women fell apart. Yes, I mean ALL those stereotypes.).

Japanese Americans have faced plenty of discrimination and no, reparations did not make them whole after the internment camps. There is still plenty of discrimination, largely rendering Japanese Americans invisible to most of America, George Takei nonetheless.

Chinese Americans were only intended as temporary slaves and they were not beaten for speaking their own language and it was assumed, largely that after we were done with them, that they simply go home.

What you seem to be missing is that they are doing better than the whites. No handout from the government, it's just their own culture that's doing it.

 

[Toni]

The problem with the Japanese-got-reparations argument is that the Chinese also do very well and they never got a handout after they were discriminated against.

Culture makes a big difference. Not everyone shares the culture but it doesn't take that for the effect to be obvious.

It's the situation in one's home and neighborhood that matters, not the color of one's skin.

Culture DOES indeed make a big difference. For instance, in white American culture, plenty of white people look to minorities who are non-white and who have been allowed to be successful as evidence that white American culture does not discriminate (any more) against persons of color. They even marry non-whites, usually Asian women. I have family members who belong in this group: ultra conservative, Stars and Bars loving white boys (never mind that they're pushing social security age) who married Asian women (typically after their marriages to white women fell apart. Yes, I mean ALL those stereotypes.).

Japanese Americans have faced plenty of discrimination and no, reparations did not make them whole after the internment camps. There is still plenty of discrimination, largely rendering Japanese Americans invisible to most of America, George Takei nonetheless.

Chinese Americans were only intended as temporary slaves and they were not beaten for speaking their own language and it was assumed, largely that after we were done with them, that they simply go home.

What you seem to be missing is that they are doing better than the whites. No handout from the government, it's just their own culture that's doing it.

What ‘own culture’ would that be?

Does the perception that Asian Americans are good at computers/math/science play any role or? Does the pressure put on Asian America can kids to excel in academics and to pursue studies and careers only in STEM play a role? Are there any negative effects onAsian American children?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Are there any negative effects onAsian American children?

The short answer is definitely. The long answer depends on what you mean by "Asian". I know a Chinese student who was beaten by his father for not getting As. Suicide for low grades isn't unheard of in Japan. That would be the most common example given. Filipino kids on the other hand don't have that pressure, but get all of the same racism other brown people get, tend to be poor (Philippines is a borderline 3rd world country), and get lumped in with the Japanese and Chinese as "Asian" when applying for assistance or to get into schools.... Wherever race is used as a proxy, many Filipinos get screwed. The Filipinos get told "too many Asians" and that there can't be discrimination against Asians because there are so many Japanese and Chinese admitted or assisted already. I've seen this first hand many times. The Viet, Thai, Cambodians and Indonesians get similar treatment.

Filipinos also have a social pressure within their communities to support their entire extended families back home (who live in poverty), so that Filipina nurse or cleaning lady, and that Filipino mailman who is making not a whole lot in America, is often sending most of it home to support people she/he rarely sees or much cares about. We're not talking just her own kids. We're talking the kids of her cousins, etc. It creates a social pressure in many Filipino families to not get higher education because that is time they could be working and sending money back home.

Chinese Americans were only intended as temporary slaves and they were not beaten for speaking their own language and it was assumed, largely that after we were done with them, that they simply go home.

You say this as if they weren't set back to an extreme, as if there was no head tax and no Exclusion Act against them.

No they were not property as black slaves were, but they did go through a hell of a lot of oppression: http://www.mhso.ca/tiesthatbind/BuildingCPR.php

Yet today many of their descendants are outperforming white people. Why do you think that is?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What you seem to be missing is that they are doing better than the whites. No handout from the government, it's just their own culture that's doing it.

What ‘own culture’ would that be?

Does the perception that Asian Americans are good at computers/math/science play any role or? Does the pressure put on Asian America can kids to excel in academics and to pursue studies and careers only in STEM play a role? Are there any negative effects onAsian American children?

Sticking your head in the sand about it doesn't change the situation.

Why do the Chinese do better than average?

 

[PyramidHead]

No, because I think helping people in need is an ethical obligation.

If someone comes to me for help, and if I'm able to help, then is it your view that I'm a bad person for making the choice not to help?

There are no bad people, at least not in the sense that some are bad and some are good. But if you can help and you choose not to, then whatever your reasons for making that choice, they were not ethical ones. All that can be said is, in that particular scenario, you had other interests that overrided moral considerations.

 

[laughing dog]

No they were not property as black slaves were, but they did go through a hell of a lot of oppression: http://www.mhso.ca/tiesthatbind/BuildingCPR.php

It is vapid thinking to think the experience of the Chinese in the US is very similar to that of black people. The Chinese were not slaves, they were not bought and sold, and they were allowed to learn to read and write. Nor was their experience as a group for as long. Nor where they targeted for lynching in the 1900s as were black people.

Yet today many of their descendants are outperforming white people. Why do you think that is?

Many descendants of black slaves outperform white people. Would you be more specific?

 

[PyramidHead]

The problem with the Japanese-got-reparations argument is that the Chinese also do very well and they never got a handout after they were discriminated against.

Culture makes a big difference. Not everyone shares the culture but it doesn't take that for the effect to be obvious.

It's the situation in one's home and neighborhood that matters, not the color of one's skin.

This is immaterial to the OP's attempted point, because one's home/neighborhood situation is under no more individual control than past discrimination. Black people born in a bad neighborhood to bad parents inherited that culture just as unfairly as they inherited the larger system of institutionalized racial discrimination that set back their great-grandparents' generation. There is no reason to highlight culture as something that absolves society of the responsibility to provide aid and assistance to those in need of it. There are no "acceptable" roots of racial disparity (like culture) that we can tsk-tsk at and move on from, in contrast with "real" racial disparity (literally the Ku Klux Klan) that requires actual attention.

Where a segment of the population is desperate, poor, and uneducated, whether it's because of their culture or because of the attitudes of others toward their race, in neither case is it their fault, and even if it could somehow be shown to be their fault after all, everybody benefits when society helps people who make mistakes. Point your brain in that direction instead of rushing to excuse every accusation of racism as if it makes a DIFFERENCE why these people are poor. You remind me of that comic about global warming where all the world leaders are at a convention and one says: "What if it's all a big hoax and we improve the environment, the economy, our energy independence, and the health of our citizens for nothing??" Why is it so important to you to monotonously note that something other than racism may be making black people struggle? Are you afraid that if racism turns out to be the wrong explanation, we will have empowered a generation of potential workers, consumers, artists, and scientists to participate in society instead of running after drugs on its fringes, for NOTHING?? The horror!

 

[lpetrich]

"Culture of Victimhood" means next to nothing, however - most people in the US are basically going after the same things regardless of race.

I note that movement conservatives are *very* loud about what victims they are -- victims of lib-buh-ruhl perfidy.

You can find pockets where education is frowned on in any racial group, as well as areas where it's smiled on. Same for entrepreneurship, wealth building, and so forth. In fact, some of the most fervent voices for "economic self-determination" among African-Americans point to racism as the exact reason why such efforts are needed so desperately.

Interesting about the black community -- there is a lot more about it than common stereotypes of it, especially on the Right.

Single motherhood isn't exactly exploding, so much as married motherhood nosediving - and there's strong reason to believe that environmental toxins play a much stronger role in violence than any welfare program (particularly since both are international trends - putting both on anything involving African-Americans is very questionable).

Like lead. Especially tetraethyl lead as a gasoline additive.

As to welfarism, a common criticism from the Right is that it allegedly destroys families. But the "no man in the house" rule seems like something intended to prevent cheating rather than some antifamily plot. As to discouraging work, not being allowed to keep one's earnings without being kicked off the system seems like something else intended to discourage cheating, rather than a plot against paid employment. I've discovered Why Doesn’t the United States Have a European-Style Welfare State? (also https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/g..._u.s._have_a_european-style_welfare_state.pdf). Figure 4.4 toward the bottom of the file is very revealing. The states with hardly any black people were more generous than those with sizable fractions of black people.

A lot of this, in reality, is just hostility to providing aid to African-Americans in a costume that...well, it's not even "new", really. Like most stereotypes, it's pretty easy to trace back well over a century, so by US standards it's pretty old, even compared to the "superstrong black rapist criminal" stereotype.

Combined with being much more willing to assist white people and such minorities as Cuban-Americans.

(the multiple references to Sowell - who as far as I know does little in the way of actual published studies - and the highly questionable use of a "spending power of black American women" study that I mentioned before are both very bad signs),

So Thomas Sowell is more of an ideological bullshitter than a serious researcher?

 

[ruby sparks]

No, because I think helping people in need is an ethical obligation.

If someone comes to me for help, and if I'm able to help, then is it your view that I'm a bad person for making the choice not to help?

There are no bad people, at least not in the sense that some are bad and some are good. But if you can help and you choose not to, then whatever your reasons for making that choice, they were not ethical ones. All that can be said is, in that particular scenario, you had other interests that overrided moral considerations.

This would exclude, for example, selfishness from being ethical. That is certainly one way to limit the definition.

Also, there's the issue of competing unselfish interests ('I didn't pitch in to help the person being attacked by the burly man on the train for fear of being badly injured or killed and because I feel I have greater responsibilities to my partner and children by getting home in one piece....' etc) but I'd highlight the one above because including selfishness in morality seems more difficult to argue for and is therefore potentially more interesting.

 

[PyramidHead]

There are no bad people, at least not in the sense that some are bad and some are good. But if you can help and you choose not to, then whatever your reasons for making that choice, they were not ethical ones. All that can be said is, in that particular scenario, you had other interests that overrided moral considerations.

This would exclude, for example, selfishness from being ethical. That is certainly one way to limit the definition.

Also, there's the issue of competing unselfish interests ('I didn't pitch in to help the person being attacked by the burly man on the train for fear of being badly injured or killed and because I feel I have greater responsibilities to my partner and children by getting home in one piece....' etc) but I'd highlight the one above because including selfishness in morality seems more difficult to argue for and is therefore potentially more interesting.

Yes, by my definition moral behavior starts where self-interest is suspended. Which is why, as you pointed out, it's basically untenable to be moral most of the time, but we can make an effort.