Racism

[Emil Miller]

Silly me. And I thought I'd have to be black to be unsuited to intellectual pursuits.

Please don't misquote me. I did not say "unsuited to intellectual pursuits" I said "temperamentally unsuited to intellectual pursuits." Of course, it would be ridiculous to say that blacks cannot be educated, but the experience in this country is that, despite receiving the same schooling as other races, they consistently fail to achieve the same or even similar results. In my view, to blame this on poverty when they are in receipt of the same welfare provisions as others is obviously erroneous. If people, regardless of race, can't be bothered or don't want to learn, there is no way they can be forced to.

[amarna]

here is an abstract on epigenetic discordance (=environmental influences switching genes on and off) in X chromosome inactivation pattern of monozygotic (=genetically identical) twins. if some more evidence is needed in discussing the genes-or-environment-problem, it may be quite useful.

[Emil Miller]

here Here is an abstract on epigenetic discordance (=environmental influences switching genes on and off) in X chromosome inactivation pattern of monozygotic (=genetically identical) twins. if some more evidence is needed in discussing the genes-or-environment-problem, it may be quite useful.

I haven't the time to do other than peremptorily read the abstract but, although there may well be something in what it says, the introduction of genetics into a discussion of racial attitudes usually results in a complete refusal of liberals to allow it, let alone discuss it. There have been several well-known instances in the UK where very quallified practitioners in the field have been literally shouted down in order to prevent them from speaking at academic meetings held on the subject. Personally, I am in favour of any research which helps us to understand the issue but I suspect that opponents are fearful that genetic differences might prove to be the answer, thus destroying their preconceived ideas that poverty, environment etc. are the cause of racial differences and associated problems.

[The Atheist]

Personally, I am in favour of any research which helps us to understand the issue but I suspect that opponents are fearful that genetic differences might prove to be the answer, thus destroying their preconceived ideas that poverty, environment etc. are the cause of racial differences and associated problems.

This is a very good point.

I have a record of several recent instances where science has provided genetic proofs of matters on race which were held to be politically inexpedient and therefore buried faster than a dead dog in Jamaica. In each case, the newspaper reports were removed from the websites and if I didn't have the original hard copies, it would be impossible to prove the existence of the studies.

[ImaginaryFriend]

Well Brian Bean maybe you should explain your reasons for believing in something which seems so vile to most of us. You cant just say that then walk away, it almost seems like you are trying to "stir" things.

Do you have any facts to back it up?
And why would communism have any affect on this?
Are you trying to say that the west is more racist or that black people in communist countries learn better than western counterparts? If so then that would be cultural and not down to blacks being inferior as you seem to be implying.

And according to those beliefs you seem to have does that mean white people are inferior to asian and arab peoples as they perform better?

Hi Petrarch i have finally got around to reading those articles and thank you they were very interesting

I would say that maybe the reasons for disorderly conduct laws are to protect the majority of citizens from the few malcontents out there and to teach these people a lesson. Unfortunately by what i read in the second article it looks like gates is one of those people who never learn (seriously, is he living in fairyland? can he hear himself speak? i just wanted to reach through that article and slap him!).

The problem is this whole "free speech at any cost" nonsense that goes on in america. People have the right not to be insulted more than people have the right to be insulting. End of.

This was a case of testosterone gone mad and the prof went too far. If his house WAS burgled and his neighbour hadnt called the police he would still be complaining. Like i said way back in the thread he is lucky his neighbour cared enough to call.

[Emil Miller]

Well Brian Bean maybe you should explain your reasons for believing in something which seems so vile to most of us. You cant just say that then walk away, it almost seems like you are trying to "stir" things.

Do you have any facts to back it up?
And why would communism have any affect on this?
Are you trying to say that the west is more racist or that black people in communist countries learn better than western counterparts? If so then that would be cultural and not down to blacks being inferior as you seem to be implying.

And according to those beliefs you seem to have does that mean white people are inferior to asian and arab peoples as they perform better?

You are quite free to find my views vile on this or any other subject, but I think you, along with a few others, have misinterpreted my meaning. I refer you to my post #204.

As for facts to back up what I said, like most other people, I have to rely on the educational pages in the press that obtains the information from the Department of Education annually.

As for communism's effect on the issue, the number of blacks in communist countries such as the former East Germany is tiny compared to other countries, such as the US and UK, so no valid comparison in relation to this thread can be made.

Richard Lynn, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at University of Ulster has discovered in the course of his work that there is a higher average IQ in East Asians than Whites, does that make Whites inferior? No, but as I have already stated,they are by temperament more likely to apply themselves to their studies.

[amarna]

, thus destroying their preconceived ideas that poverty, environment etc. are the cause of racial differences and associated problems.

An excellent opportunity to refer to up-to-date epigenetic research I already mentioned.

[Petrarch's Love]

Why?
Why do you take an absolute stand on it then? You're supported by no hard evidence and there is no more or less basis for certainty on the subject than many others. I'm sure upbringing is a major factor, but I'm equally sure it isn't the only one. We have sufficient examples of different outcomes from the same upbringing to show that it isn't just that.

Again, you could well be right, but I'm not ready to rule genes out just yet.

Atheist--I can see that you are taking the empirical scientific stance, which I respect in its motives, and I recognize that you are trying to appeal to logic and to hard evidence. I respect your appeals to logic and to empiricism as a razor for truth. The problem is that we're dealing with human beings, who have, not only logic, but emotion at play, and a double edged razor can cut both ways. One issue that I have with your responses is that there is a long history of "hard science" in respect to race that has turned out to be socially/politically biased bunk. There was a time in my own country, not so long ago, when "science" and "hard facts" suggested that all black people were incapable of being the intellectual equals of white people, and that has been disproved by the fact of social change which has, slowly, allowed minorities more privileges until we see that the "logical" assumptions of my grandmother's generation are in fact patently untrue in my own generation. This has happened elsewhere in the world as well, and for other groups of people. You look at some 19th century "science" and it claims to have "hard facts" that support the claim that women as a group are frail and basically unfit for higher level intellectual activity. Certainly there were Nazi scientists who managed to convince intelligent and apparently logical people of all sorts of things. There may even have been partial truths about differences between the sexes and the races mixed in there, but the product that emerged was a lie.

I do not mean by this that I don't have a lot of respect for the scientific method and the use of hard facts as a very valuable tools, and tools I often use and trust myself, or that I don't think that it isn't important to use logic in order to come to conclusions, I mean that even apparently empirical and supposedly logical evidence needs to be treated with a healthy degree of skepticism. In the case of scientific discoveries supporting racism, the amount of claims that have been made on the part of science and then subsequently proven wrong by the fact that the very groups who were supposedly incapable of succeeding according to these studies are now perfectly successful are so great that I think it is only logical to have a very healthy degree of skepticism regarding such discoveries when it comes to racism.

This said, I think I should express a bit more clearly where the "absolute" quality of my statement lies. I was in some haste yesterday in my reply to you and so did not go into detail as to the grounds of my objections or really address the potential merits of what I gather your stance to be. I do see the logic of your point that certain races are genetically more prone to certain physical traits, such as sickle cell anemia in dark skinned people, and I will even recognize the possibility that there may in fact be certain slight differences in genetic makeup between different groups of people, though not necessarily races: it is a very different thing to say that a group of people from a certain area of the world tend to have a trait than to say that all people of their skin colour have that trait. Thinking in terms of race and skin color may not actually be the most helpful way to approach this topic.

This discussion reminded me of this series of articles, written by William Saletan in Slate magazine a few years back:

http://www.slate.com/id/2178122/entry/2178123/

I've just tracked it down online and re-read it because I remembered being struck with his effort to remain logical and unbiased in assessing the different possibilities regarding science and racism, and also with his clear expression, in the third installment that suggest ways that, even it were true that there are different average IQ's among the races, it would not necessarily mean that we can make judgments about individuals based on race, make generalizations about racial groups, or that some sub groups within a race don't follow the pattern of the racial group as a whole. The possibilities he suggests of different kinds of intelligence and skills attributable to different groups of people is an idea that I am at least open to entertaining, that I will not make an absolute statement about (as I said, I am really not someone prone to absolute statements). I am still not convinced that I agree with the idea that there is such a genetically predisposed difference, but it is one that I am willing to entertain on a certain level, to assess as evidence is provided and with certain social understandings about interpretation of data well in place. Saletan seems to be on the fence in a lot of places too, indicating that there are studies that suggest environment and nutrition affect IQ etc. I'm also not convinced that IQ is the way to define a person's potential for social, economic, and spiritual and even, to a certain extent, academic success in this world...but that's another debate. Still in the context of the way he is handling the issue, it is one that I am open to thinking over on a hypothetical level as I would most intellectual ideas. I do note, however, that even an article like Saletan's, which is attempting to responsibly present a balanced view of the possibility that race affects IQ, ends with him offering an apology because he has mistakenly cited a study that looked sound and reasonable to him, but which turned out to have been sponsored by a blatantly racial supremacist group. This is where the human factor comes in and where my statement above about being highly skeptical and unusually vigorous about statements regarding science and race is, I think, justified.

Frankly, though I understand the desire to pursue scientific truth, I think this is an area in which it is not unreasonable to be extremely cautious. To begin with, the motives of both organizations and individual scientists for starting such an inquiry are in some (I do not say all) cases justifiably suspect. To end with, the interpretations of the results of even the most admirably clean and balanced study could be easily spun into erroneous social constructs and have very ugly social consequences. The problem with such studies is that people do not usually respond to them in anything like a logical way and the door is very quickly flung wide open, sometimes or even often perhaps unintentionally, to admit very problematic real world ideas. We can see this in the example of the statement that I absolutely rejected, which was that of Brian's suggesting that poor black students (with maybe a few exceptions) are temperamentally unfit for intellectual pursuits due to their race. That statement, as it stands, is generalizing and does not come across as a valid and nuanced expression of reactions to a hypothesis based on empirical scientific findings. It is also a very old chestnut that has been used many times in human history to suggest that it is impossible for a group of people to better themselves or, one very easy step further, that they are an inferior group. This sort of judgment about a group of people being temperamentally unfit for this that or the other sends a message to society that we should give up on this group and a message to the group in question to give up on themselves. It can also very rapidly lead to even more dangerous conclusions about racial superiority. Not to mention, even if one were to fully concede the hypothesis that there is some disparity in average IQ based on genetic group (which I am not yet convinced enough to do) that does not mean that many individuals in that group do not have the potential for very high performance or that those of any race who do indeed have low IQs are not in any way suited for intellectual activity. They may, in fact be highly suited for a particular type of intellectual activity but not for others. Such a statement is, I will always maintain, both morally and factually wrong.

As for inquiry into the more delicate grey area of perhaps not absolutely wrong genetic studies, there are lots of directions that we can put our energies into when it comes to genetic research, and I think that we need some very compelling reasons for the potential for positive results from such inquiries and the way to properly address such results before placing our energies in the direction of race studies rather than another because mishandling such a topic could have very real and possibly terrible effects on the lives of many people.

Please don't misquote me. I did not say "unsuited to intellectual pursuits" I said "temperamentally unsuited to intellectual pursuits." Of course, it would be ridiculous to say that blacks cannot be educated, but the experience in this country is that, despite receiving the same schooling as other races, they consistently fail to achieve the same or even similar results. In my view, to blame this on poverty when they are in receipt of the same welfare provisions as others is obviously erroneous. If people, regardless of race, can't be bothered or don't want to learn, there is no way they can be forced to.

Brian--I have responded rather extensively to Atheist above in a way that I hope will help to explain my objections to your initial post. I do agree with your assessment that some people, race aside, are not interested in learning, especially in their youth, and that some don't have the talents in the direction of intellectual skills. I disagree with the line that you draw with regard to race. The thing I really don't understand about the post I quote above, however, is the difference between saying that people are genetically "unsuited to intellectual pursuits" and that they are genetically "temperamentally unsuited to intellectual pursuits." Isn't the upshot either way that their genes predispose them to be bad in school? I really don't get the difference, apart from the fact that the first statement means they are dumb and the second statement means that they may or may not be dumb, but are certainly incurably lazy. The charge that a group is one or both of these things has been foundational for any number of racist groups for a long time. It is the first step toward degrading and dehumanizing a group of people as worthless. As I tried to say in an earlier post, I realize this may not be the kind of statement you meant to make, but it is the way I and many others will interpret it. Again, if I am misunderstanding, if there is some more nuanced idea that you were trying to convey, please let me know.

As contrary as my thinking may be on this subject, and yes, I have tortured myself over it long before any incidents make themselves topics of international discussions, I would be very wary about making any generalized statements about human intelligence on the basis of broad physical (or genetic) traits, or even in contextualized circumstances: I might be able to wade through Petrarch's dissertation with more verbal acuity than a drug dealer working Huntington Ave--but put me on that corner five minutes before a turf dispute, and then ask who has the better survival capacity--the stout middle aged and half cocked http://www.online-literature.com/for...=45837disabled woman, or the dealer?

Intelligence in and of itself is a dicey metric, and it gets explosive with the social fiction of race thrown into it.

Jozanny--I think you bring up a very good point. Re-evaluating the way we judge and value different kinds of intelligence and skills could, indeed, go a long way toward more tolerance and harmony in our society. If one were to work toward an ideal world, surely part of that would be to recognize each person for the best talents that person possesses and to value those talents and the potential they have for contributing to society. Alas, as you know, we live in a rather far from ideal world and there doesn't seem to be large level system that addresses such an issue with any success (didn't someone on this thread predict that communism would come into it eventually? ), but that's no reason our individual attitudes can't be both accepting and encouraging of the best talents in each person we encounter. I'm with you that the issue of race, society, potential for success, intelligence, status etc. all form a very complex and often vexing web...not surprising when exploring any single person can mean excavating a maze of complexity and society is nothing but a group made up of people. One would think each of us hade enough on our plates worrying about the flaws and graces of the individuals we know without having to try to figure out the problems with whole groups of people, but apparently not.

Bill--Thank you also for your very thoughtful and considered posts. Wanted to let you know that I read and appreciated your contribution.

Hi Petrarch i have finally got around to reading those articles and thank you they were very interesting

I would say that maybe the reasons for disorderly conduct laws are to protect the majority of citizens from the few malcontents out there and to teach these people a lesson. Unfortunately by what i read in the second article it looks like gates is one of those people who never learn (seriously, is he living in fairyland? can he hear himself speak? i just wanted to reach through that article and slap him!).

The problem is this whole "free speech at any cost" nonsense that goes on in america. People have the right not to be insulted more than people have the right to be insulting. End of.

This was a case of testosterone gone mad and the prof went too far. If his house WAS burgled and his neighbour hadnt called the police he would still be complaining. Like i said way back in the thread he is lucky his neighbour cared enough to call.

Hi Imaginary Friend (didn't think I'd have call to use that phrase again post grade school )--First of all, as I think I posted elsewhere, I agree with you in that I think the Gates incident was not an instance of racial prejudice on the part of the officer and that it was an incident based on misunderstanding and tempers getting out of hand. As I said before, I can also see why this is a grey area and how the police might sometimes be justified in arresting a person for disorderly conduct. If I thought that every single officer on the police force was as honest as Prof. Crowley seems to be, and if I thought every incident was as free of problem as this one, and if I had the sense that the things Prof. Gates was shouting were truly disruptive and uncalled for in any case, then I might be in greater agreement with you on this issue.

However, having read the transcript of the police report available here: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive...092gates1.html which I presume presents the side most in favor of the officer's point of view, I am struck by the fact that Gates is not anywhere accused of using foul or unusually insulting language. The one vaguely insulting thing he says (which Gates claims he didn't say anyway, but which it is possible he could have) is "ya, I'll speak with yo mama outside" which, if you are not familiar with American vernacular, is a pretty tame, even dated, comment that I doubt would really get most people that upset, and in a lot of situations isn't even really used as an insult but a mild form of protest, or a kind of joke or game. (To give it some context, kids in the schoolyard play "yo mama" games, also known as "the dozens" where they make up hyperbolic insults--"yo mama so fat she sat down and crushed a house"--with the idea that they try to one up the other with creative and humorous insults. It's a phrase associated with a black way of talking, though I remember white kids at my school doing the "yo mama" thing sometimes too. In short, I can't imagine anyone finding it that offensive). Apart from this phrase, the vast majority of what Gates is accused of shouting is that the officer is being racist; that he wants the officer's name and badge number; that the officer doesn't realize how important he is. The last of these is an egotistical failing, but hardly so lewd or insulting (or unusual in police work, I would assume) that it merits arrest. As for accusing the officer of being racist and demanding his name, I can certainly understand how Officer Crowley could find that insulting and get angry about it, but I think is absolutely essential to protect the rights of all people to make such claims. If a cop can arrest anyone just for saying (or shouting, most people don't make claims of injustice, valid or not, in a quiet fashion) that the police are behaving in an unjust or prejudiced manner, then we're opening ourselves up to some scary potential for abuse of power. It is not unreasonable to suppose this might happen. It was not very long ago (within the living memory of Professor Gates and of my parents and grandparents) that in areas of the United States the police were treating black people differently, were both driven by and used as the tools of racial segregation and prejudice. The dramatic images of police letting lose power hoses and dogs on peaceful protesters in the south during the civil rights movement symbolize and indicate a very deeply problematic attitude of some (I am sure not all) police toward black people, and part of the problem was that no one could question the judgment of the police in making arrests that, I am sure were sometimes justified but sometimes not.

We have come a long way since that time, and I do think that the majority of our societal attitudes and those of the police are not tainted with this kind of prejudice. However, in order to maintain this level of justice it is important that the right to verbally question the motives of the police remains intact. This is important, not just for the people who perceive prejudice against themselves, but for the many officers who are upright and doing an honest job because it keeps everything above board and free from the possible taint or appearance of covering something up. In the Gates case it turned out that the accusations of racism were baseless and mistaken, but if someone were making such accusations in a situation where they were well founded then I would not want there to be precedent wide open to not only conveniently shut that person up but to make the police seem perfectly justified in doing so. As a citizen, I'm far less concerned about being protected from an old man who makes some mistaken accusations in a fit of temper than I am about being protected from being unable to shout out about an injustice should I ever find myself the victim of one.

Edit: A little article I came across that I thought was an interesting historical reflection on this case in regard to the opening example he cites of a different case of mistaken assumptions about the motives of the police:

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=78&aid=167612

[The Atheist]

One issue that I have with your responses is that there is a long history of "hard science" in respect to race that has turned out to be socially/politically biased bunk. There was a time in my own country, not so long ago, when "science" and "hard facts" suggested that all black people were incapable of being the intellectual equals of white people, and that has been disproved by the fact of social change which has, slowly, allowed minorities more privileges until we see that the "logical" assumptions of my grandmother's generation are in fact patently untrue in my own generation.

I guess it all depends on how you qualify the science.

To me, unless it's peer-reviewed and published, it's not science, as any number of pseudoscientists will show you. I think you're confusing the two as the examples you give don't conform to that. What you describe are theories advanced by scientists which have later been shown to be wrong.

A classic example is Darwin's contention that Turks were somehow less evolved than white people - it's simple racism disguised as fact. Naive racism, but racism nonetheless. That's why it's important to separate the fact from the fallacy, which is bloody difficult.

You even note that here:

I mean that even apparently empirical and supposedly logical evidence needs to be treated with a healthy degree of skepticism.

....it is a very different thing to say that a group of people from a certain area of the world tend to have a trait than to say that all people of their skin colour have that trait. Thinking in terms of race and skin color may not actually be the most helpful way to approach this topic.

Yep, that's a good point. Maybe we need a new terminology? We could get quite Orwellian about that!

... even it were true that there are different average IQ's among the races, it would not necessarily mean that we can make judgments about individuals based on race, make generalizations about racial groups, or that some sub groups within a race don't follow the pattern of the racial group as a whole.

As far as IQ goes, I'm pretty comfortable with the idea that all we know is that some people are better at doing IQ tests than others.

However, while we can't make judgemental calls on either individuals or cultures from the results of scientific enquiry, we can (and do) make statements that certain races/cultures are more likely to display a trait than another race.

There's an interesting contrast between sociology and medicine when it comes to race - sociology is ****-scared of making conclusions, while medicine does so because of the clear evidence that certain racial types are susceptible to certain diseases and medical weaknesses.

The possibilities he suggests of different kinds of intelligence and skills attributable to different groups of people is an idea that I am at least open to entertaining, that I will not make an absolute statement about (as I said, I am really not someone prone to absolute statements).

Fully agree.

I doubt we'll ever be able to make definitive statements, but it shouldn't stop us looking.

To begin with, the motives of both organizations and individual scientists for starting such an inquiry are in some (I do not say all) cases justifiably suspect.

yes, and it's not as though there's much evidence to show that science has been perverted throughout history to give the desired results. I think we've Godwinned this thread already, haven't we?

This sort of judgment about a group of people being temperamentally unfit for this that or the other sends a message to society that we should give up on this group and a message to the group in question to give up on themselves.

It's the thinking which carried Apartheid in South Africa for decades.

As for inquiry into the more delicate grey area of perhaps not absolutely wrong genetic studies, there are lots of directions that we can put our energies into when it comes to genetic research, and I think that we need some very compelling reasons for the potential for positive results from such inquiries and the way to properly address such results before placing our energies in the direction of race studies rather than another because mishandling such a topic could have very real and possibly terrible effects on the lives of many people.

Well put.

[Emil Miller]

Brian--I have responded rather extensively to Atheist above in a way that I hope will help to explain my objections to your initial post. I do agree with your assessment that some people, race aside, are not interested in learning, especially in their youth, and that some don't have the talents in the direction of intellectual skills. I disagree with the line that you draw with regard to race. The thing I really don't understand about the post I quote above, however, is the difference between saying that people are genetically "unsuited to intellectual pursuits" and that they are genetically "temperamentally unsuited to intellectual pursuits." Isn't the upshot either way that their genes predispose them to be bad in school? I really don't get the difference, apart from the fact that the first statement means they are dumb and the second statement means that they may or may not be dumb, but are certainly incurably lazy. ]

I must again refer to my post #204. If nobody is able to adequately explain the disparity, we must all draw our own conclusions.

[amarna]

I must again refer to my post #204. If nobody is able to adequately explain the disparity, we must all draw our own conclusions.

Yeah, why to bother with epigenetic research explaining disparity. Uh, oh, it's so complicated and boring. Silly egghead stuff.

[Emil Miller]

Yeah, why to bother with epigenetic research explaining disparity. Uh, oh, it's so complicated and boring. Silly egghead stuff.

I have already said the there may be something in it, but the idea that genetic changes take place because of environmental factors remains unproven. Especially as the example of the identical twins used in your abstract was taken from a very small sample. No doubt the research will continue but until it produces more conclusive results,it will not alter many people's opinion.

[MarkBastable]

As for facts to back up what I said, like most other people, I have to rely on the educational pages in the press that obtains the information from the Department of Education annually.

Ah - the statistics. Surely you don't set any store by those?

As I have had cause to mention on these forums before, Disraeli's statement that there are lies,damned lies and statistics needs to be born in mind.... I prefer to believe what my own eyes tell me and will continue to do so.

[Emil Miller]

Ah - the statistics. Surely you don't set any store by those?

Unfortunately, in relation to the figures concerned it is a question of 'faute de mieux' and, yes, I wouldn't mind betting that they have had a good polishing before being presented to the public.

[MarkBastable]

Unfortunately, in relation to the figures concerned it is a question of 'faute de mieux' and, yes, I wouldn't mind betting that they have had a good polishing before being presented to the public.

And, of course, these statistics broadly support your argument, so you allow them (even faute de mieux) whereas those I cited contradicted your argument, so you dismissed them.