Letter to the Fairfax County School Board
By • 4/15/08In response to yesterday’s action alert on efforts by Fairfax County School Board members to reject a report that revealed racial disparities in behavior, one of my readers sent a powerful original letter to the school board, which I reprint in slightly edited form below.
I was dismayed to learn of the School Board’s ideologically motivated refusal to accept the factual results of a recent study of moral character, simply because the results fail to be precisely mathematically equal across racial groups and in fact follow a very predictable pattern.
Does anyone worry about males consistently being shown, overall and on average, to be more violent than females? There’s precious little hand-wringing about “pernicious stereotypes,” biased justice/educational systems, and what not, because we allow ourselves to acknowledge the common sense, real-world reality of genetically influenced differences in behavior, owing to many factors, such as far higher testosterone levels among males.
Similarly, few worry about young people being considered, overall and on average, more impulsive, unreliable, and, again, violent than the elderly. The mountain of evidence about psychology, brain function, and hormones is accepted in this case as well.
If we can calmly and rationally accept reality about sex and age, why not race? If we can understand that, in the case of age and sex, a generalization is not a universalization, and, unlike a universalization, is not disproved by relatively rare exceptions, why can’t we do so for race?
We all know that aggressive, violent females, or impatient thoughtless older people certainly do exist, but we also know that they do not erase the reality of greater average male aggression or youthful impulsiveness.
Why wouldn’t groups of humans existing in genetic isolation from each other for tens of thousands of years, in environments with wildly different climates, disease profiles, food availability levels, and degrees of reward for social cooperation, end up not only with different physical structures, but also tendencies toward different behavior patterns?
When school boards exert so much energy to defend evolution, and especially human evolution, from creationist attacks, it’s bizarre to see a crippling fear, a pervasive, superstitious taboo that homo sapiens is the sole species, or the human brain the sole organ, that is somehow magically immune to natural selection, stoutly resisting all pressures to adapt to its environment.
Apparently, humans in areas with freezing winters would never, after tens of thousands of years, be more likely to save and plan ahead for the future, defer gratification, and cooperate socially than people in the lush tropics, where food is available year round and shelter arrangements are less necessary for survival.
In any event, regardless of whether the extremely unsurprising racial differences revealed by the study are influenced by genes or not, it is still important to respect the importance of facts instead of lashing out at the bearers of “bad” news. Even the Communist dictator Deng Xiaoping broke with his more radical predecessor Mao Tse-tung, by saying that one should “seek truth from facts” instead of egalitarian dogma—surely the Fairfax County School Board can do no less.
It would all be amusing if it weren’t for the human consequences. Many people in my family are teachers, and it is outrageous to see teachers being blamed and used as scapegoats to explain away ideologically inconvenient realities that dare intrude upon egalitarian myths.
Males and young people have not been emotionally crippled by the widespread recognition that they belong to groups that are, on average, more violent than females and the elderly. Maybe blacks and Hispanics can handle the truth, too.
Treating blacks and Hispanics with kid gloves and telling them that only a monstrous hateful conspiracy or its endlessly lingering after-effects could explain racial differences in intelligence and behavior is not only condescending, but it corrodes our integrity, scientific standards, racial harmony, and your educational mission.
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South Africa’s Eugene Valberg is of the opinion, stated in more than one American Renaissance Conference speech, that black Africans take for granted that they are substantially less intelligent than whites, for obvious reasons, and react with skepticism and even indignation when told otherwise, aside from a minority that has learned it can exploit white guilt.
He further says that American blacks are fascinated when he discusses racial differences in IQ with them, and that he does so frankly and openly with them on public transit etc., usually prompted by their curiously inquiring about his conspicuously reading books about racial differences in IQ and the like. Once it is crystal clear that the issue is one of averages, which permits individual blacks to be highly intelligent, they become intrigued and eager to learn more about an explanation that so clearly fits the facts. Most of all, he says, they are grateful for a first-ever real discussion with a white about race and racial differences, free of fear based baloney and coddling and which respects their ability to handle the truth. He has even been invited to blacks’ homes for dinner based on the relationships he has struck up from these talks.
Hard to believe, but he insists it’s true.
By on 4/16/08 at 10:16 pm
“Males and young people have not been emotionally crippled by the widespread recognition that they belong to groups that are, on average, more violent than females and the elderly. Maybe blacks and Hispanics can handle the truth, too.”
Blacks are very cogniscent of the fact they are, on average, more violent than whites. However, the category of truth they can’t handle is that they, as a race, on average, are one standard deviation point lower lower on the IQ scale than whites. The biological basis for the difference in black/white IQ is causing the rabid-leftist-inteligencia — out of desperation — to concoct an endless list of preposterous excuses/reasons for the gap. Will it ever end?
http://www.eugenics.net/papers/mssel.html
By Taryton on 4/16/08 at 5:00 pm