So you take offence in anticipation?
I’m stating that it’s practically inevitable for such discussion to be derailed in this manner. If you wish to interpret this as “take offence in anticipation”… well, that speaks volumes.
To run it down very quickly: race is generally ill-defined, human being are fundamentally very much alike, individuals vary but averages of large groups tend to be very similar, and finally, people have attempted to prove various doctrines of racial superiority and inferiority since the advent of genetics. They have never done so and have exposed only their own prejudices in the process. That’s not to say everyone who asks this question is a racist, but in the attempts, a pattern emerges.
Please elaborate on your implication.
Do you disagree that blacks have sicle-cell anemia more often than people from other races?
Do you think that people that study the sickle-cell anemia rates among different types of people are racist if they produce a study that shows the above?
Dude, you are derailing it RIGHT NOW. Stop.
An anecdote:
I student-taught in a fourth grade classroom with 17 students. 7 students were black. 5 students were in AIG program. All 5 in the AIG program were white.
At least one of the black students was at least as smart as two of the AIG students (sometimes too smart for his own good–his brilliant con schemes were unfortunately not brilliant enough to fool the adults in his life sometimes). Entry into AIG had two components: aptitude and motivation.
He was great on the aptitude test, no question. But he said he didn’t want to be in AIG.
Can you blame him? He lived in a race-conscious society, was race-conscious himself. He looked at the AIG kids and saw they were all white. He looked at the black kids and saw none of them were in AIG. Which group do you think he felt he belonged in?
Nobody designed the AIG criteria to exclude him on account of race; but that was the effect it had.
I think peer culture might similarly account for some of the differences between black and white middle-class students. All of 'em live in a race-conscious society. If most of the blacks in a community are poor and lack the home advantages necessary for success in school, then they’re unlikely to succeed, and they’re likely to consider school success irrelevant to their lives. The middle-class black kids may get support at home, but when they get to school, their black peers will tell them that school is irrelevant, and that success is somehow contemptible.
I saw this with one of my peers growing up. I was in a self-contained AG class in sixth grade. There were two black kids in the class. Mark, one of them, came from an upper-middle-class family. After that class, one of them went to a different school, and I didn’t see him again until high school. At that point I met him again; he laughed and introduced me to his friends as one of the kids from his nerd school. He appeared to have dropped out of the academic track in favor of assimilating with his perceived peer group. I’m sure it drove his parents to distraction.
Daniel
People of sub-Saharan African descent are the most likely to have sickle cell anemia, that’s well understood. There are plenty of diseases with genetic components. There is no “intelligence” gene, however, which is why cultural distinctions make more sense.
No. Are you capable of telling the difference between questions about specific diseases, and a question about overall intelligence, which shade into qualitative judgments? It’s a significant distinction.
Yes.
The fact that you apparently do not indicates that you really have not been paying attention to these discussions.
I suppose there is a remote possibilty that such might be true, although I have never seen any evidence of it.
Would you care to identify a “race” that demonstrates such characteristics?
Damn it, I knew I was forgetting something. I knew sickle-cell was linked to malaria, but malaria occurs in places other than sub-Saharan Africa and sickle-cell can be found in those places, too. The link is geography, not “race.” Tomndebb posted about it here.
I can’t imagine a way one could devise a study, so I will settle for an anectdotal observation. I went to a diverse high school near Washington DC and to an equally diverse college. We had many black students, but few of them were culturally ‘black’. They had a mixed group of friends and interests. My closest friend, who I went to college with, is of mixed race and did not identify at all with hip hop culture. I observed absolutely no difference in achievement, intelligence or values among this group. They have also told me that racism was present, but of relatively minor impact in their lives.
If we could somehow define a cultural group that is the monolithic black hip-hop culture that is often imagined, and measure black achievement within that group vs. black achievement outside that group, I suspect we would see a striking difference. I guess I am saying that I think both racism and genetics are overstated as causes. Many black children who may live in relative affluence culturally identify with an inner city culture that values a different type of achievement and devalues education. You can see that in the DC area in Prince George’s County Maryland. Though the students might be affluent, they are culturally tied to the District. Other students that I grew up with in Falls Church, VA identified more with the various (mainly white) subcultures in the suburbs. These subcultures largely valued academic achievement and education.
This leaves us without an answer though. How do you change a culture? Especially one with many good and dynamic aspects. You can work on the schools until you have run out of money, but if you don’t change the attitudes of parents and the neighborhood I don’t thnk you can ever succeed.
Oh, it was just a matter of time when this came up. Let’s d=not get mired down in the argument of whether “race” exists as a meaningful categorization. I am aware of the problem with it, but it really isn’t important to this thread whether we are talking about “race” in a technical aspect or populations that share common traits at a greater incidence than seen in the general population.
But why do you hold that there is a “remote” possibility to the question being true. There are populations that have black skin, and that is usually accompanied by kinky hair. Various subsets of that population excel in sprinting and long-distance running. Scandinavians and others from similar climes pretty much dominate strongman competitions. The group we refer to as Asians are largely categorized by a differently shaped eye. These are real world distinctions that are either visible through direct observation (skin color and hair texture) or looking at things like Sports records. Why do you claim a “remote possibility” and not simply accept it as true?
But if race does exist as classification, wouldn’t one expect that through adapting to one’s environment, that race would be in large part a function of geography?
I’m saying that the scenario that the OP was disagreeing with cannot be rule out-of-hand, as people often do due to the hot-button nature of this topic. I wasn’t the one who brought up the subject of whether any studies can show black to be inferior. You can disagree with me if you wish, but this is not “derailing” by any means.
And lest anyone forget, I am NOT saying that blacks are intellectually inferior. I merely emphasized that they could have a genetic disadvantage in this regard, but only in the sense that ANY race can have a genetic disadvantage.
Yes, that is indeed how some people feel that these topics should be handled.
Sorry. There is no way to avoid getting “mired down” in such a discussion if it is to be carried out in an honest fashion. If the argument is that we can identify trends in capabilities based on “race,” then it behooves us to know exactly what “race” might be. If you claim that being really good in sports is a characteristic of the “black race,” then you need to explain why no one has ever recruited members of this group to join the NBA or compete in the Olympics. If you then want to claim special pleading to exclude them, I suggest that you are lumping far too many people into your c;laim of “race,” making the original discussion pointless.
Why have you changed the subject from race to populations?
(Hint: that is the point I was making, so I thank you for your support.)
I am sure that it does “ring true” among some people holding a particular world view. However, I would note that such comments are an inevitable part of these discussion–in fact they prompted this thread–so that I can point ot a 1:1 ratio of these discussions bearing out my statement as true while spike404’s has not actually been established as true.
Because we have been down this road before and the debate about “race” derails that actual discussion, that’s why. As far as the picture you linked to, I’m disappointed. I’m sure you know full well that just because Group A may contain a subgroup that has the greatest tendency to have Attribute X, that does not mean that all subgroups of Group A will share Attribute X in either incidence or degree. Or did you skip Set Theory 00.5?
It surprises me that black attitudes to education are speculated by some as negative even in the black middle class.
After all, it wouldn’t be easy in US history to become a middle-class person if one were Black, in most cases. Previous generations must have had to develop a strong work ethic and desire to do better (and, yes, they must have had luck). To escape the ghetto/endemic racism/inferior educational provision- that takes a lot of grit. You’d think they’d pass it on to their children. Like the stereotypical immigrant that travels halfway round the world and wants their child to work hard and take advantage of the opportunities they worked so hard for them to have. Perhaps peer pressure is too strong a factor regardless, as Left Hand of Dorkness suggests.
I’m not saying it’s untrue - as I said I have no idea - it just doesn’t make a lot of sense.
spike404, JTThunder, the original discussion that inspired this thread didn’t involve gratituitous accusations of racism.
magellan01 - don’t the genetic qualities of certain ethnicities as you listed suggest that it is not race that is biological - something as simple as whites vs blacks vs Asians - but the more precise category of ethnicity?
And since the US is so ethnically mixed can we really expect the differences we find between the races in US society to be grounded in biology to a remotely significant degree?
Your logic here has one more twist or two that prevents me from unravelling it. Can you explain this more simply?
Peer pressure is tremendous: I’ve read (in Stephen Pinker’s book The Blank Slate) the idea that it may shape children more than their parents ever can. At least in the US, most kids spend more time interacting with peers at school than they do interacting with their parents, I think.
Daniel