I can’t remember what led me to it, but I recently found an article titled “I Posed as a White Supremacist Online” that peaked my interest. The article is by Greg Stevens, and it turned out to be very entertaining. The forum he had infiltrated was called “Skadi.” Some of y’all may be familiar with it; it’s now defunct. From what I gather, it was a lot like Stormfront and most of its members probably migrated there. Stevens was surprised by the diversity of opinions there, but put off by (among other things) the anti-Semitism.
I was able to contact Mr. Stevens and informed him that there are pro-white people/race-realists out there who are not neo-Nazi types. That we count, within our ranks, people of several races – and that some of us are Jews. Mr. Stevens (who, I believe, holds some P.H.D.s, but is too modest to use the title “Dr.”) was happy to correspond with me and he turned out to be a real mensch. To all my readers: Please do not contact Mr. Stevens directly unless he asks you to. I don’t want to be responsible for an inundation of unwanted messages. Just post your comments and questions here; he has the link.
A couple of items I’d promised to clarify were a) Why do I believe in non-superficial racial differences? and b) Have I experienced anti-white discrimination personally? I’ll add c) Why is it important to recognize racial differences? For many regular readers, none of this should be new. This essay will, for the most part, only deal with “a.” “b” and “c” will have to wait for future posts. For the sake of simplicity, I’ve focused mainly on blacks and whites. Also, for the sake of simplicity, I deal almost exclusively with intelligence here.
Why do I believe in non-superficial racial differences?
I don’t claim to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that such differences exist. Mr. Stevens writes, in a different article:
There is a possibility that someday, someone will gather enough detailed data and perform a complex enough analysis, that they will be able to demonstrate, beyond a reasonable doubt, with no apparent flaws in experimental design or methodology, that there is some difference between two groups of people that we really wish, for political reasons, we hadn’t found.
To illustrate this, I’m suggesting the hypothetical example where a group of people with genetic marker X (which is present more in white people) performs spatial rotation tasks on average 1.3 times faster than people with genetic marker Y (which is present more in black people).
In a perfect world, scientists could go about their research unhindered – and without fear of asking the “wrong” questions. In our world, however, there are grave consequences for any scientist who dares broach the topic of racial differences. James Watson, Michael Levin and Philippe Rushton are a few examples of academics who suffered for their racial research. Other scientists, such as Armand LeRoi and Steven Pinker avoided this fate by (mostly) speaking in hints and being extremely diplomatic. In 2006, Bruce Lahn claimed to have made a breakthrough in evolutionary science. According to The Wall Street Journal (the article can now be found at American Renaissance):
CHICAGO—Last September, Bruce Lahn, a professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago, stood before a packed lecture hall and reported the results of a new DNA analysis: He had found signs of recent evolution in the brains of some people, but not of others.
It was a triumphant moment for the young scientist. He was up for tenure and his research was being featured in back-to-back articles in the country’s most prestigious science journal. Yet today, Dr. Lahn says he is moving away from the research. “It’s getting too controversial,” he says.
Dr. Lahn had touched a raw nerve in science: race and intelligence.
What Dr. Lahn told his audience was that genetic changes over the past several thousand years might be linked to brain size and intelligence. He flashed maps that showed the changes had taken hold and spread widely in Europe, Asia and the Americas, but weren’t common in sub-Saharan Africa.
Professor Lahn, originally from China, did not understand that such research is not welcome in the West.
Mr. Stevens admits that we would not wish to find such differences – for “political reasons.” Stevens’ desire to not find such differences is the default position of our government at all levels, of our media at all levels, of our educational system at all levels, of every single one of our corporations – and of practically every individual in the West with any substantial clout or influence. The ENTIRE EDIFICE of Western civilization is bent on NOT finding such differences.
If they don’t want to find them, they certainly are not going to look for them. As an iconoclast (years ago, as I was forming my opinions), this made me question the motivations of all these powerful forces. It caste a shadow of doubt over their claims and made me want to investigate further.
Who makes the rules? Who sets the expectations and mores of society? It’s those with money and influence who do so. They own the media, they run the government and schools, and they control the corporations. More intelligent people tend to rise to the top. This is true regardless of race. Consequentially, those who pull the strings have little intimate contact with average people. The blacks they know in their personal lives are among the talented tenth. With the exception of their outward appearance, these blacks differ little from elite whites. Thus, when a newspaper editor thinks of blacks, it’s the well-spoken one on his staff that comes to mind. When the corporate executive reads about claims of lower black I.Q., he thinks, “How ridiculous. I play golf with a black man and he’s very intelligent!” These powerful people are not forced to use public transportation with the hoi polloi. They do not live in the inner cities, and their children do not attend ghetto schools. Therefore, it’s easy to see why the ruling class feels revulsion at the concepts people like myself advance; it conflicts with their own life experience – and everything they see in the media.
What do we mean by “intelligence?” I’ll quote “The Affirmative Action Hoax” (first edition) by Steven Farron (Appendix IV):
The reason why the scores on all these tests correlate closely with each other is that they all require analyzing, synthesizing, and manipulation information; distinguishing relevant from irrelevant information; and other types of abilities that are commonly called “intelligent.” For the same reason, they have a low correlation with scores on tests of spelling or simple arithmetic computation…
Assumptions can be very expensive. The assumption that all races are equal in average intellect has cost the United States many billions of dollars, and untold ruined lives. If we assume, as the government/corporations/media/educational system does, that there are no innate differences in intelligence between the races, then the consistent disparities we observe MUST be the result of systematic discrimination – or the legacy of slavery/Jim Crow. This assumption forces us to cast whites in a negative light. It taints us all with some sort of original sin. A sin we are forever obliged to atone for. It means, ultimately, that public schools will not teach white children to be proud of their heritage as whites; in contrast to the way those schools teach blacks to be proud of their heritage as blacks.
When various populations obviously vary in average height, hair texture, skull shape, muscle type, bone density, disease resistance and overall bodily strength, why should we assume that these populations, having evolved in vastly different environments, would miraculously end up with exactly the same mental capabilities. Such a belief, in my opinion, requires faith in a god who would perform such a wondrous feat. I’ll quote James Watson:
“A priori, there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.”
On the face of it, the burden of proof lies with race-denialists. They are the ones whose position is at odds with science. The default position should be that of race-realists – and public policy should be determined accordingly: That each individual should be judged on his own merit, and let the chips fall where they may – and that our right of freedom of association be honored. If there are no black physicists, and only a handful of female engineers, then so be it. If neighborhoods and schools end up being racially, religiously, or gender, segregated, then so be it.
But enough beating around the bush. Here are the reasons I believe in innate racial differences:
1) Race realists/hereditarians do not ignore the impact of environment. Most of us claim that our genes account for some 50% of our mental capabilities, with environmental factors (such as nutrition, cultural upbringing and health making up the rest). But race-denialists ignore/deny the importance of genetics on intelligence (however we define it). They accept the “blank slate” (tabula rasa) dogma, which claims that our mental capabilities are shaped entirely by environment. Though the concept of tabula rasa had existed long before the genetics of race became a contentious issue, race-denialists have forced themselves into ascribing to this archaic and discredited notion. They have locked themselves into a sinking ship.
While it’s true that race CAN BE a social construct, as Stevens points out, when race-realists speak of “race,” we’re referring to one’s actual genetic/geographical origins. A person who chooses to call himself “Native American” because his great great grandmother was pure-blooded whatever, is NOT a Native American. If the rest of his ancestry is European, then he’s “white”. Most of us don’t give much credence to “pure races.”
Geographical origins correspond closely with what we call “race” for the simple reason that humans have, until recently, bred almost exclusively with those from the same area. As long as we accept that genes play a role in intelligence, which is all but undeniable (considering numerous twin/adoption studies), then it’s reasonable to assume that different regions will produce people of different aptitudes. These difference may be small, or they may be large; without research, no assumptions should be made.
2) I.Q. tests, though they may have been culturally biased early on, are no longer so. The fact that Asians consistently score higher than whites, even in tests that were devised by whites, should tell us as much.
There have been numerous claims of modern police/fire department entrance tests (proxies for I.Q. tests) being “racist,” nobody has been able to identify specific questions, within those tests, that are culturally biased. Were we so inclined, we could use this phenomenon to help us define “intelligence.” Intelligence would then be “the talent required for any academic task where blacks perform worse than whites.” At any rate, this makes about as much sense as claiming that all black deficiencies are the result of bias.
Has anybody come up with an academic test where blacks consistently score higher than whites? Where whites score higher than Asians? If there were such a test, we would never hear the end of it. The news would be splashed all over the front pages of newspapers, television shows would feature the story at prime time for months on end, and billboards would announce it for all to see. If it’s cultural bias that’s behind low black scores, then it should be easy to devise a test that favors blacks – and the political will is certainly there. Yet this has not been done. In light of this fact, any unbiased person would conclude that lower black scores are the result of lower innate mental capabilities.
There is another, often overlooked, aspect to this matter: Blacks do not all share a single culture. There are thousands of cultures in Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas that blacks belong to. Culture is NOT a common denominator among blacks. Neither is religion or socio-economic status. The only trait that unites all blacks is that their ancestors came from sub-Saharan Africa. If we filter out the more intelligent ones (through selective migration, wealth or attendance at exclusive schools), then naturally we’ll see higher scores. This same trick can be done with with any other group. Controlling for S.E. status is thus not a valid counter-argument – unless we do the same with other races when we compare them. In this case, the gap would persist and nothing would be gained.
3) On average, blacks have smaller brains than whites and whites have smaller brains than Asians (taking into account body mass). While it’s true that brain-size is only moderately correlated with intelligence, the correlation is still there and should be taken into account. Here I’ll quote myself, from my critique of Joseph Graves’ “The Emperor’s New Clothes”:
Graves can’t quite make up his mind in the matter of brain size. He repeatedly references (pg. 3, 46 and 86) Stephen Jay Gould’s research, which supposedly exposed Samuel Morton’s research (which showed negro skulls to be, on average, of lower capacity than Caucasian and Asian ones). He writes:
Many assertions and assumptions about race and racial relations that were taken for granted during the Enlightenment have subsequently been proven false (such as the incorrect assertion that Negroes’ brains are smaller than those of white Europeans) (pg. 3).
But he also writes:
However, when unbiased measurements of human brains were made, there was no evidence for differences in brain size. In 1838, Friedrich Tiedemann… measured the brains from fifty cadavars (both Negro and European) and found no weight differences… The twentieth-century anthropologist Ashley Montagu concluded that the average cranial capacity difference between blacks and whites was about 50 cubic centimeters (pg. 87 and bold mine).
Surely that last study, by Montagu, warrants further study – but Graves does not seem interested in such a study. Does he believe that 50 cubic centimeters is not meaningful – even when taken together with other evidence? How many neurons can fit into 50 cubic centimeters? In any event, how unfortunate for Graves that it was Gould’s study that proved to be fraudulent, not Morton’s. From Science Fair of June, 2011:
The late scientific icon, Stephen Jay Gould, botched and perhaps faked his critique of a racist 19th-Century scientist’s skull collection, suggests a second look at his efforts. In a 1978 Science paper, Gould (1941 – 2002) , reported that the Samuel George Morton (1799-1851), “a prominent Philadelphia physician,” had mis-measured the cranial capacities of his 1,000-skull “American Golgotha” collection gathered from around the world, to suit his racist beliefs. The finding led to one of Gould’s best-known books, The Mismeasure of Man, a critique of scientific racism. Overall, they find, Morton did make mistakes in measuring skull capacity (he first stuffed them with seeds, and later lead shot to measure their brain size). But the mistakes were random. The random mistakes didn’t favor any racial theory of larger brain sizes for white people over others…
Morton neither manipulated his skull samples, unfairly selected which data to report, skewed results by gender, or ignored his mistakes to favor racist interpretations of his skulls, the PLoS Biology study authors conclude — all charges made by Gould against the long-dead physician.
What’s more, the researchers found Gould made some mistakes in his re-analysis of Morton. “Our analysis of Gould’s claims reveals that most of Gould’s criticisms are poorly supported or falsified,” they conclude:
Samuel George Morton, in the hands of Stephen Jay Gould, has served for 30 years as a textbook example of scientific misconduct. The Morton case was used by Gould as the main support for his contention that ”unconscious or dimly perceived finagling is probably endemic in science, since scientists are human beings rooted in cultural contexts, not automatons directed toward external truth”. This view has since achieved substantial popularity in ”science studies”. But our results falsify Gould’s hypothesis that Morton manipulated his data to conform with his a priori views. The data on cranial capacity gathered by Morton are generally reliable, and he reported them fully. Overall, we find that Morton’s initial reputation as the objectivist of his era was well-deserved.
4) If we read the aforementioned article in Science Fair, we’ll see that the author, Dan Vergano, dismisses any serious implications of this brain-size disparity with these words:
Today, researchers know that larger average skull size is largely a function of cold weather…
How convenient. Even if larger skulls, and the brains within them, are a result of colder weather – how, exactly, would this preclude any impact on overall intelligence? No explanation is given.
Many have pointed out that it takes more intelligence, foresight and future time-orientation to survive the cold winters of the North than it does to survive in the tropics. Game is plentiful in tropical Africa. Yes, it takes cunning and planning to capture a wildebeest – but these clearly are not part of the same mental tool-kit that is required to survive the winter in Europe. I’ll quote Brian Fagan, from his book “Cro Magnon – How the ice age gave birth to the first modern humans” (pg. 170. Read my review here):
Infinite patience and persistence were also qualities common to tropical and cold-climate hunters alike. Everywhere, mental attitudes were important, but they were particularly central to survival in environments where strong winds and the bitter cold of subzero temperatures for days on end sapped human energy. Successful hunting and survival depended on deeply ingrained attitudes of self-assurance and competence, on mental attitudes that were part of the Cro-Magnon personality.
The natives of Europe had to store up food during the warm months so that they’d have something to eat during the winter. This was not necessary in Africa. Today, black Americans don’t save nearly as much of their earnings as white Americans. Are we to believe that these phenomena are not related in any way? If we do note the parallels, are we to be condemned as “racists” for doing so? The worn-out “legacy of slavery” excuse doesn’t hold much water when we consider that black Africans are in even worse shape than black Americans economically.
Some scientists claim that, even though certain advantageous traits developed in specific areas, they gradually dispersed throughout human populations. This might make sense for higher intelligence if we assume that it is, indeed, an advantage throughout the world. But this is not the case. Higher intelligence is often an evolutionary disadvantage. For example, it’s an evolutionary disadvantage in modern Western society; more intelligent people tend to have fewer children. Furthermore, the brain is an expensive organ.
5) The higher a black’s proportion of white ancestry, the more intelligent he tends to be. The late Philippe Rushton, in his seminal work “Race, Evolution and Behavior” writes (pg. 30,31):
Trans-racial Adoption StudiesThe best evidence for the genetic basis of race-IQ differences comes from trans-racial adoption studies of Oriental children, Black children, and Mixed- race children. All these children have been adopted by White parents at an early age and have grown up in middle-class White homes.
One well known trans-racial adoption study is Sandra Scarr’s Minnesota project. The adopted children were either White, Black, or Mixed- race (Black-White) babies. The children took IQ tests when they were seven years old and again when they were 17.
In their initial report, the authors thought that their study proved that a good home could raise the IQs of Black children. At age 7, their IQ was 97, well above the Black average of 85 and almost equal to the White average of 100. However, when the children were retested at age 17, the results told another story (reported in the 1992 issue of Intelligence).
At age seven, Black, Mixed- race, and White adopted children all had higher IQ scores than average for their group. Growing up in a good home helped all the children. Even so, the racial pattern was exactly as predicted by genetic theory, not by culture theory. Black children reared in these good homes had an average IQ of 97, but the Mixed- race children averaged an IQ of 109, and the White children an IQ of 112.
The evidence for genetic theory got stronger as the children grew older. By age 17, the IQs of the adopted children moved closer to the expected average for their race. At age 17 adopted White children had an IQ of about 106, Mixed- race adoptees an IQ of about 99, and adopted Blacks had an IQ of about 89. IQ scores are not the only evidence in this study. School grades, class ranks, and aptitude tests show the same pattern.
Similarly, if we examine lists of famous black inventors and statesmen, we find that most of them are of largely white ancestry. Radishmag has a good article on this that he calls “Mulatto History Month.” Here’s a segment:
What do almost all successful “black” Americans have in common? Below, from left to right: the first “black” president; the first “black” attorney general; the first “black” secretary of state; the first “black” female secretary of state; and the first “black” cabinet member.
The first “black” Supreme Court justice; the first “black” elected congressman; the first “black” governor; Booker T. Washington, the famous “black” writer; and W.E.B. Du Bois, another famous “black” writer:
Charles Drew, the famous “black” surgeon; Daniel Hale Williams, the first “black” cardiologist; the first “black” man to earn a B.A.; the first “black” man to earn a Ph.D.; and the first “black” general:
If ever there was a case of “socially-constructed race,” it would be the list of notable black statesmen and scholars.
6) All races have some archaic features. Caucasians have large brow-ridges and hairy bodies. Many Asians have noticeable prognathism and sloped foreheads. Morphologically speaking, the most archaic living human population is Australian Aborigines. Is it coincidence that they also happen to score among the lowest in I.Q. tests? Here’s an illustration from the above article in Radishmag:
Can we point to specific individuals, who happen to sport archaic features, and conclude that they must be stupid? Obviously not. My contention is that there seems to be a correlation between a preponderance of archaic features in a population and that same population’s average I.Q. Blacks have many more archaic features than whites. Asians have less than whites. Is it coincidence that we find the same hierarchy in I.Q. scores?
7) I was raised to believe that we all have our strengths and weaknesses. I was taught in school that there is no “superior race.” Imagine that! But what if one race turned out to be stronger and faster than other races – but just as intelligent and creative? Wouldn’t that make the race in question “superior?” I’m speaking, of course, of blacks. They dominate most contact sports and we’re told that they’re highly spiritual and moral. After all, it was whites who enslaved blacks and persecuted them through lynching and Jim Crow. As a young man I had a check list:
a) Morally superior… Check!
b) Physically more imposing and better at all sports that mattered… Check!
c) Inventive and intellectually accomplished… Check!
Voila! We have found the superior race – and he’s black. Specifically black male. “But wait a minute”, I said. “Surely the black man must have a weakness.” White people must be better at SOMETHING! Perhaps, had I lived in Canada, I’d have satisfied myself with hockey. But I wasn’t Canadian. Hockey was not enough, so I re-examined my list – and found that only “b” could be argued with any credibility. Leaving morality aside for the moment, I satisfied myself with the notion that blacks are physically superior while whites and Asians are mentally superior. That way, I reasoned, there is no “superior race.” I had some pretty good teachers in school, and some of them were black. They had been vindicated after all.
8) Studying history, I noticed that there were few black African civilizations that were not either a) relatively late or b) spawned by other, non-black, civilizations. Ethiopia is only partly black, and has been in contact with its Semitic cousins in the Middle East since ancient times. This relative void of civilization, and lack of technology, made Africans easy prey for Arab and European colonizers and slave traders. Neither writing nor the wheel were discovered by blacks, and this backwardness persists to our own era. No significant architectural monuments dot the sub-Saharan African landscape; the “Great Zimbabwe” is of uncertain origin, and is not very old. It could be said that the tropical heat, and isolation of that region conspired to stunt the growth of civilization – yet Meso-America fared much better, and even saw the invention of writing. With the exception of small island nations, chaos and a lack of intellectual life seem to follow blacks wherever they go. Witness Haiti and Detroit for example – and now even Africa’s newest nation, South Sudan, is plagued by violence and corruption, despite billions of dollars in foreign aid and advisers.
Regarding Jared Diamond’s theories, see my critique of his book “Guns, Germs and Steel.”
Can the reader think of any city or neighborhood where the quality of life went up since blacks became a majority? When we witness this phenomenon, it should be perfectly reasonable to link it with low I.Q. scores. This should not be controversial at all.
9) Speaking of cities and neighborhoods, I have personally witnessed what happens when a neighborhood becomes majority black. I don’t claim that this is always the case. In general, however, we see an increase in graffiti, violent crime, neglected houses and yards, “troubled youths,” social vice and joblessness. All of these are linked to lower I.Q.
I have seen, with my own eyes, how corporations set lower standards so that they can count blacks among their (especially higher-paid) employees. They do this to avoid lawsuits. Blacks are wildly over-represented in government jobs such as DMV’s, IRS call-centers and the Postal Service. Less so in government jobs that still require written tests (see above). It’s not for want of employers’ willingness to hire blacks that their unemployment rates are so high; it’s because so many of them have criminal records or are unmotivated. Both are correlated with lower I.Q.
10) My own life-experiences have led me to believe in racial differences. It’s true that I’ve known some very intelligent people of all races – and some not-so-intelligent ones of all races as well. But I would have been deceiving myself had I not noticed the racial patterns that kept asserting themselves. As a child, I attended three different high schools: One in the ghetto of Inglewood, California, another in redneck territory in central Oregon, and the last in a racially mixed area of Seattle. I was considered a “genius” in the ghetto, “pretty smart” among the rednecks – but just average among the Asians and fellow Jews of Seattle. The first time I felt stupid, compared to those around me, was in a yeshiva (rabbinical school) in Israel.
It’s hard to swallow the dogma of racial egalitarianism with so much evidence, and life experience, stacked against it. If nothing else, all the above should at least merit objective discourse – and not be shrugged off as “pseudo-science” or “scientific racism.” Such name-calling is only evidence of the narrow-mindedness of the accuser. Outside of that, it’s no different than calling somebody a “heretic” or a “blasphemer.”
