A recent email by Harvard law student Stephanie Grace allegedly asserts, "I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent." According to the Harvard Crimson newspaper's blog, this email was forwarded to black law student associations across the country.
Our outrage over the student's political incorrectness aside, are African-Americans less intelligent than whites? As an African-American who graduated summa cum laude in mathematics with the second-highest grade point average in his class at Harvard, I would have to say, Yes. Because the hypocrisy on the part of black Americans is stunning and self-defeating: Black Harvard economics professor Roland Fryer has written a research paper stating that African-Americans are less intelligent than whites.
In "Testing for Racial Differences in the Mental Ability of Young Children," Fryer writes that "the results of our analysis do not preclude a possible role for a genetic contribution to racial differences in intelligence for a number of reasons." He goes on to give three arguments in favor of the "genetic story" that the difference in IQ between blacks and whites comes down to A, C, T, and G.
Instead of being excoriated by blacks, Fryer is celebrated, with black Harvard alumna Soledad O'Brien even interviewing Fryer for her CNN series, Black in America; she calls Fryer a "great guy." Fryer's family sold crack, and he personally sold marijuana, stole money from McDonald's, and nearly murdered a white man. At a meeting organized by Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree about reducing the number of young black men in prison, the 1,000-person, mostly black audience convulsed with laughter when Fryer joked that he once thought of going into the pharmaceutical industry, street-side.
Imagine the uproar by blacks if a white professor had made a joke about having once poisoned black children.
This is not the only area where African-Americans exhibit an appalling tolerance when the offending individual is black:
A black former peddler of crack cocaine gets rewarded by becoming the driver and then the "gatekeeper" of the black governor of New York―who also used cocaine "a couple of times".
Another former Harvard law student writes, "Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man," and freely admits to using "blow". But it's okay because he is the first African-American president of the United States. Black siren Beyoncé Knowles even glamorizes gangsters in song: I need a soldier: Gotta know to get dough, and he betta be street.
Imagine if a white man, an aide of the governor of Maine or Vermont, had choked a black woman, or shot and killed a black Harvard student. Black preacher Al Sharpton would have been hosting press conferences in Harvard Yard within hours. Sharpton, whose clout in the African-American community is such that he can convene "black leadership summits," despite having been caught on videotape discussing a major cocaine deal with a man he did not realize was an undercover cop.
In Sharpton's defense, he may have been considering a run for mayor of D.C.
Should the Harvard law student be expelled for her stupid, offensive, and easily refuted views? Certainly. But more harmful than the email is the contemporary African-American community's customary cowardice―the Harvard Black Law Students Association "has not taken an official stance" on the email that implies blacks are Untermenschen―and its propensity to elevate monsters and call them heroes. That's simply "precious."
I realize one should not throw stones, particularly when the glass housing market is in a slump. The Black Panthers sold marijuana to fund their early escapades, and Malcolm Little was a lost soul. But the point remains: When African-Americans blame whites for the destruction of black America, while extolling blacks who embody, or participated in, that destruction, one can only question their intelligence.
Dr. Farley, does your stellar accomplishments in a field that many human beings fear or are intimidated by regardless of ethnicity make you an exception to the rule that blacks are less intelligent than other groups. I'm just as cautious about "exceptional people of color" speaking on the behalf of those who think of us as less than human. Having said that there is some truth in what you say that we need to stop glorifying the "Superfly Syndrome". Since we can't all walk around with signs stating our educational backgrounds and careers so we're not mistaken as part of that "less than intelligent group"; we have to continue to repudiate those who make blanket statements about a pretty sizable population in this country. Don't you think?
–noun
1.American History.
a.a member of the patriotic party during the Revolutionary period; supporter of the Revolution.
b.a member of a political party (c1834–1855) that was formed in opposition to the Democratic party, and favored economic expansion and a high protective tariff, while opposing the strength of the presidency in relation to the legislature.
2.British Politics.
a.a member of a major political party (1679–1832) in Great Britain that held liberal principles and favored reforms: later called the Liberal party.
b.(in later use) one of the more conservative members of the Liberal party.
With exception to the "high protection tariff" platform, I don't mind at all being associated with those original ideas generally. Obviously our political parties have morphed to the extent that the Democratic one now is more attuned to original views of the Whigs, and our federal legislature has become corrupted by unrestrained lobbying and massive funding from special interests, e.g. megabanks.
So, whoever said that, in general: thank you. I'm content to be considered somewhat "whiggish."
"Whigg history" often means making transhistorical moral judgements, where the future is good and the past is evil. My point is that you have to put things in context. For example, we don't judge Roman slavery the same way we do American slavery. And they were equally brutal. Or if Africans had the same type of slavery (so called "cattle slavery") it would not be equivalent to Western slavery -- because moral expectations generally increase with societal development. The more luxury you have to not need to engage in a problematic behavior the more perverse it is.
In addition to the points raised by Dr. Farley, it's important to remember that --unless I've been misinformed-- Romans and Africans didn't promote forced breedings among their slaves, then routinely disrupt families and/or would-be families by selling or murdering the bucks, does, or their spawn; neither did they forbid the formal education of their slaves.
The point about contextualizing information is understood, but in aligning Roman, African, and American systems of slavery, an apples and oranges comparison is made. Being the property of another human is (almost) nobody's idea of a good time, but those systems were not the same.
I'll get back to watching "When Harry Met Sally", now.
Oh, and I hope all mothers are enjoying their day.
On idea is that at a certain point in expansion and technology patriarchal societes are needed. Basically, if you have a small community you can be matriarchal. If you have an empire with limited technology you are going to have a patriarchy -- as, to some extent, it needs to be ruled by force. When you develop enough technology, then things shift back, because brute force, which on average men can display more, is less advantageous and organization is more so.
What I don't understand is how we came to value genetic intelligence over integrity, compassion for one's fellow man, a solid work ethic and all the other attributes that make living with other human beings a tolerable experience. History is full of brilliant sadists psychopaths. What have any of them contributed beyond an excellent example of how not to act?
You can easily refute it right now and here! What are you waiting for?
"Black behavior, like building the pyramids when there was no civilization in Europe?"
If I had some doubts about your intelligence, they now became certainty. "One of 15 people who have shaped the global conversation about science”? "The second-highest grade point average in his graduating class"? Seriously, you don't think that I would believe it?
"And what about white behavior worldwide during the last several centuries, exterminating entire races in North America, South America, Europe, and having a good go in Africa, not to mention dropping atomic bombs in Asia."
A very interesting interpretation of history. Were you so keen on math that you routinely missed history lessons in basic school?
Take, for example, the argument over whether the Egyptians were or were not black. This is a funny argument because both sides are both right and wrong. The question of the role of the blacks in spreading the Egyptian language is a far more interesting one, and my initial (uneducated) suspicion is that, given what I know of the African branches of the Afro-Asiatic languages, it seems most likely that in fact that the blacks were the ones who spread the language to Egypt.
2) I don't think Ms. Grace's wonderings are much different from most people's. Do I like them? No, but at least she's not posturing (well, maybe she was before her e-mail was leaked) like way too many of the pseudo-liberals traipsin' around our good planet Earth (California, included). If she enters the legal profession, she'll be among friends.
3) Whatever the chicken wing guy, Fryer (or whatever his name is), did when he was a kid is irrelevant. I'm not a smoker, but I don't give two hoots about anybody soliciting weed. Judging him for his family's deeds is cheap, to say the least. Unless you have convincing evidence that he's using the students at P.S. 70 as guinea pigs in a study titled "How to Effectively Hit the Pipe Without Burning Both Labia", references to the shady part of his life shouldn't have been included.
4) I didn't read Fryer's entire paper. What I did read suggested that he was on a fence.
5) Yes, black folks have the wrong people on pedestals.
6) Kudos to those of you who understand the ramifications of historical influence, shame on those who use them as excuses (instead of reasons), and "Wake up!" to those still chained inside the cave.
I would generally agree with the caveat that the performance must be real-world. Many people with minor or even moderate to severe neurological disorders perform as well or better than non-handicapped individuals as well (Richard Branson's dyslexia being a good example). The problem here though is that we don't entirely know what the IQ tests in fact test, so AFAICS, projecting any meaning onto the gap is a bit premature.
In fact some of what you quote undermines your accusation. Quote:
Fryer writes that "the results of our analysis do not preclude a possible role for a genetic contribution to racial differences in intelligence for a number of reasons."
Well, this means that his results don't support but cannot totally debunk the genetic explanations.
You are also mistaken when you claim that Fryer supports "three arguments in favor of the 'genetic story'". If you actually read the paper he is simply laying out what the arguments are. Nowhere does he declare his support of the arguments. In fact his findings point to an "environmental" (or cultural) explanation, not a genetic argument.
Again, I am very skeptical of this sort of research, but I think you have grossly misrepresented Fryer's study. You should seriously consider publishing a retraction. kzs
In scientific papers, it's generally considered quite unscientific to answer the arguments made by junk science. The black inferiority theory is an archaic idea developed through a primitive understanding of evolution and the environmental advantages that benefited whites through the last 10,000 years. For Fryer to answer this archaic question when no serious researcher today does is very strange.
No serious journal accepts a research paper answering the question, "Did the Holocaust really happen?"
To the contrary, Fryer begins his paper by saying: "Blacks in the United States have consistently scored worse than Whites on tests of IQ and academic achievement... Among teenagers and adults, the Black-White test score gap is as much as one standard deviation in magnitude. Large racial gaps in test scores have been found in children as young as two years old...and the full racial gap observed later in life is present by age three".
2) You write: "you claim that Fryer supports 'three arguments in favor of the "genetic story" '." In fact, what I actually wrote was that Fryer "goes on to give three arguments in favor of the 'genetic story' ".
3) You write that Fryer's "findings point to an 'environmental' (or cultural) explanation, not a genetic argument." In fact, Fryer says: "A simple calibration exercise suggests that many of the basic facts in the data can be generated from a model in which there are small mean differences in intelligence across races". He then goes on to say, "I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent."
Actually, those were Stephanie Grace's words. Fryer's words were: "the results of our analysis do not preclude a possible role for a genetic contribution to racial differences in intelligence".
But Fryer's words are quite different. Ms Grace's words consider only two possibilities: equality or white superiority, and they preclude a linear measurement of intelligence where comparison is always possible. Fryer makes no such assumption. I think you are reading the statement as quantitative when it could just as easily be qualitative.
I'm not interested in quantitative questions of this sort because I see no reason why such differences should exist. However, I would be genuinely surprised if there regional qualitative differences (both within and among continents) regarding cognitive capabilities. If such were the case, however, it would force us to abandon a simple uni-directional view of intelligence. That, to me, is the more interesting question.
Only if you see intelligence as a quantitative thing does Fryer's statement pose problems.
I just posted a response to my white editor who "loves" my book. He wrote, " Brochures don't sell books. Why don't you place them in black businesses, hairdressers, etc. " It is hopeless, when a writer who read and edited my manuscript thinks I write FOR black people. I write accurate multi-cultural history, with black-white-indigenous, domestic and foreign characters and stories. The divide is impossible to cross. If there were an island on the planet where I could find non-ignorance--and human acceptance I'd sell everything. including my sweet Protege5, to go there. permanently.
I asked him: "ok, if we (racial minorities) are intellectually equal to Europeans, why were they able to come and dominate us? Why weren't WE dominating Europe? Why did they have technology that we didn't have?"
You know what? Instead of calling me a self hater, he went to the library, photocopied some mainstream historical references (no "wiki" in those days! :-) ) and gave me a detailed answer to my question.
Bottom line: when questions such as these are "shouted down", there is a tendency to think "oh, it must be true but "impolite" to say". It is much better to boldly address it, as my friend did.
2. If someone spits in my face, my response is not to say, "Pardon me, but will you please allow me to explain why you should not have spat in my face?"
No. The proper response is to spit back and *then* say, "See why you shouldn't have spit in my face?"
2) Again you're conflating two very different things: a direct, intended insult, and a private communication.
As I understand it, even in Austria, an individual is free to advocate that the Nazis were right, but that such advocacy is circumscribed by various time/place/manner restrictions (i.e. telling your friend you think Hitler was right and the Jews should be exterminated is fine, but publishing a book arguing the same is not). It seems to me that even under European hate speech standards, a private email forwarded to a friend after a dinner party would be protected under the European treaties on human rights.
There is a level of scientific inquiry at which students and researchers are encouraged and instructed to be *completely objective*. (Whether that is actually possible for them, or for journalists or writers of non-fiction, is another field of inquiry and controversy, similar to that addressing the validity of "intelligence tests" in accurately and significantly measuring those attributes we do *not* all agree constitute "intelligence.")
If Ms. Grace would note, with equal equanimity and objectivity, ""I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that [Gentiles, Chinese, East Indians, Native Americans, Hawaiians, Serbs, Africans, Arabs, Jews .... etc.] are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent [than the median norm across groups]," we would accept her statement as intending complete objectivity in the interest of attempting to determine truth, the veracity of a theorum, postulate, or premise.
I would note one other thing: Some time ago, IQ tests were rewritten so that scores for men and women would be directly comparable. It seems before that point, men were scoring higher than women. After taking into account different scoring profiles, and rewriting the test, the scores are now comparable.
Is it possible that something similar explains the current IQ test score gap between various ethnic groups? Is it possible that our tests (and even our understanding of intelligence) is skewed towards asserting that blacks are somehow less than fully intelligent? With more study, might we be able to fix this problem and arrive at a test which scores fairly across racial groups?
To me these are the interesting questions. But Ms Grace, by virtue of bad analysis ends up framing the question as if intelligence is a scalar. But we know it's more like a vector.