But I visit this thread a third time not to console Richard, but to make sure Zakia’s neurotic post gets politely rebutted before anyone else labels it as “breathtaking”.

Zakia, first off, I DO NOT feel a life altering personal guilt about the plight of the 21st century Black American. Nor, I suspect, do two thirds of the white electorate (AKA racist Republicans). We would like nothing more than to burst forth from the bondage of OUR oppressor – the race card. And our desire for this freedom isn’t so we can dust off and don the sheets we all keep hidden in our attics, then attempt to re-enslave 40 million American Blacks. We all need to end this BS so 300 million Americans don’t become economically enslaved by 3 billion Asians.
(Or about 5 or 6 other grim scenarios that are helped along by the racial divide in the US).

As for the wobbly third of the white electorate (AKA guilty Democrats) to whom you refer and despise for their inner feelings – how in the hell do you ever expect them to get over the guilt of white colonialism and oppression when you constantly beat them over the head with – white colonialism and oppression!

Colonialism, like race and intellect, is a topic on which there is too little rational debate. How can blacks and whites ever have a talk about anything, let alone something as provocative as the the recent topic LaShawn has suggested, if long dead Portuguese in wooden ships keep sailing to the front discussion? Colonialism was a wash in my opinion: Among other things, Africa would most likely be 100% Muslim today if not for the divine intervention of the British Army and the English missionary, et al.

Besides, after fighting off the Golden Horde from Asia, Turning the Persians away from the gates of Vienna and Defeating the brutal African Moorish occupation of the Iberian Peninsula – Europeans figured the world was cool with imperial expansionism.

If anything, insofar as intellect is concerned, colonialism probably furthered the general g of the civilizations it touched. The British left India in 1947. The Indians could easily have decided then to take off their suits, stop speaking English, and return to their traditional system of governance and adjudication. Instead, they voluntarily decided to continue doing many things that were previously imposed on them by the Brits. This, to me, is evidence that the Indians, through their actions, testify to the benefits brought to India by colonialism. (DD)

The part of your post where I thought maybe you were just pulling my leg was when you stated, “they (white folks) throw money at(Africa) or demand other people do it. Instead of holding black leaders and blacks in general to task in recovering and becoming self-sufficient, they throw money at us and demand we are given special treatment.” Maybe Southwest Airlines could use that statement in one of their “wanna get away” commercials.

Anyway, as you charged, it’s “dangerous” for a 5’9″ twenty something prematurely balding white father like myself to be allowed to engage in such blasphemous dialog with other Blacks. So I’d better just shut up and know my place.

(Sorry LaShawn, but I believe I had no choice but to leave the pen in order to rope the discussion back in line.)

College is not easy, by the way, its as hard as you want to make it. Don’t worry.

I failed elementary school with flying colors, I some how got accepted into honor program at the top high school in my region and I have repeatedly made the honor every marking period since the first one in freshmen year. Despite things being at a higher level, I am still bored. When I was settling into high school, my grades rallied well above the requirements for the honor roll and since then they have been tapering off.

I am no longer paying attention in class. I see no reason to pay attention. I am taking American History for the third time and I have lost count of all of the times I have taken Algebra; Chemistry simply bores me, and there is no point in caring about anything else if my favorite subjects are complete jokes. Computer class is also one of my favorites but I will not get started there. In Algebra II/Trigonometry (although I fail to find any semblance of trigonometry in that class thus far), I could be teaching the class. I already know all of the content and I almost exclusively lose points for failing to write out work for questions that are so elementary that only an answer should be required. American History has traditionally been a strong subject for me but come on now, three times? I could have used the extra detail four years ago when I still cared enough to pay attention. While I have never taken Chemistry class before, the level that it is being taught at is an insult. I am reading Dr. Linus Paulings’ book, The Nature of the Chemical Bond and I understand everything that I have read so far. In chemistry class, I am forced to learn trivia (e.g. where the first atomic bomb was exploded by Oppenheimer) and trivial concepts.

I have tried to leave for a college but no college will accept me without having put a certain amount of time into high school. That is essentially is all that high school is, a place that spends your time for you; no thinking required. If high school required any thought, we would be being forced to think of ways to solve problems and derive formulas in math class instead of being handed formulas and procedures.

The sad part is that despite me having done everything 3-5 times, I will have to do it all over again in the first two years of college. People only need to teach these concepts once yet they teach them repeatedly at increasing difficulty levels as if they were trying to train monkeys. The sheer repetition and simplicity hurts Orientals, and I really would like it if people talked about how the school system hurts Orientals instead solely of how the school system “helps whites” and “hurts blacks.”

I am a rather humble person and never liked the idea of IQ or aptitude tests. In fact, I sabotaged one such test in high school and ended up with a terrible score that made the administrators at my school scratch their heads and squirm in their seats. Somehow word got out that I had intentionally tried to get as low a score as possible and after being yelled at by the Dean of Boys and the Headmaster, I was made to re-take the test. Even my football coach got in on the act and informed me that what I did took MORE intelligence than most because first I had to know the RIGHT answers in order to get the WRONG answers! I didn’t bother to tell him that CHANCE was on my side to get the WRONG answers.

I really don’t know how you measure intelligence. The late Leo Buscaglia said “Some of the dumbest people I know are PhD’s.” And how do you reconcile it when someone who you know to be highly intelligent takes up a destructive habit like smoking, or declares that God is a myth? Does it make me stupid to believe that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge?

I believe white people in general hold a conscious or sub-conscious belief that they are “genetically” superior to black people. Generally speaking.
And why not? Every indication would deem it truth.
I also believe that this “genetic” inferiority has become the basis for black victim hood culture worldwide. This culture is the direct result of white guilt for the above feelings.

Slavery and colonialism of black peoples and lands were justified by the opinion that blacks were mentally incapable of taking care of themselves. We were being helped and socially advanced by whites that saw us as completely helpless beings. Whites needed to take us under their wings because we had the mental capacity of a cow or ,at most, that of a child. And if we did not fit into this ideal for some reason, it was explain by the amount of white blood in us.

This is the original “White Guilt”

Those currently suffering from white guilt do not have these feelings because they think we have suffered so much. They feel guilty because inside themselves they still hold the view that we are inferior to them. They battle with these views inside themselves and need a way to relieve this guilt. Therefore, in deluding themselves and those around them that they are helping us, they have helped create a worldwide epidemic of black permanent victim hood.

Africa and its peoples have been ravaged by colonialism, greed, and corruption. But instead of helping to promote recovery and self-sufficiency so that Africa does not find itself again in such a weak position, they throw money at the continent or demand other people do it. Instead of holding black leaders and blacks in general to task in recovering and becoming self-sufficient, they throw money at us and demand we are given special treatment.

It is like that poor bum you see on the sidewalk begging. You don’t really want to give him your money, you probably think he is just a drunk, but passing him by makes you feel guilty. So instead of directing him to a shelter, finding out why he found himself in that position and maybe offer advice, you hold your nose and throw him some change. And you are released of your guilt.

White guilters, White Liberals and the phoney black leaders (that keep blacks in victim hood so they can retain power over us) don’t view blacks as being just as capable as anyone else , they believe that we are incapable. They hold the same views as our original white enslavers. They hold us in mental slavery. So the only option for black people, to them, is that of charity. And we as blacks have become used to this charity. We expect it, we demand it, and nothing else is acceptable. And we especially know that because of white guilt we can get something for nothing. Its called the race card. But in all of us, we failed to realize that we have fulfilled the truths those original whites oppressors put upon us the moment they stepped foot on our soil.

(excuse my genetically inferior grammar)

Tom Sowell uses this example. I looked this up. In approximately 1899, black Dunbar high school did indeed score higher than any of the several DC white high schools on a history test. However, the same year it was at the bottom in Math. The above information (from memory) was published in a US Government Document. I’m skeptical about the consistency claim.

I know. I’m linking to her testimony in the next post. – Admin

But the data shows that whites themselves are hardly pace-setters when in comes to IQ. And it shows that white IQ scores themselves were dismally low in the past, improving as socio-economic conditionsimproved, just like blacks. It also shows that practices used with IQ tests disguise black progress, so that a black guy with a score of 100 in 1960 who would have been considered average, is considered a “dunce” in 2005 if he achieves the same score. LaShawn needs to add more context and data to the discussion, rather than just throwing out the statistic.

EVAN sez:
Again, American whites have lost their spines in this and a few other taboo debates (and Europeans would faint upon sight of someone even thinking such thoughts).

Also agreed, but what’s the point of a lot of debating the well known “gap” without adding data and context? And too often such debates are focused on blacks as basket-cases, with little scrutiny applied to white patterns, which are similar to the black pattern: a rise of scores over time from an initially low level. And I don’t hear a lot of white “debate” on the white-Asian gap, although everyone seems eager to pile on where black folk are concerned. Kudos to LaShawn for broaching the issue but much more data needs to be added to firm up the discussion. She could for example have mentioned the need for MORE testing of black kids to pinpoint their weaknesses and get them more help early on rather than let them drift in the name of “self-esteem”. But then again, she probably knew her blog readers would supply the details anyway.:)

ROB also sez:
Steele argues that stereotype threat is in fact very real phenomenom. Sowell argues that in pre civil rights movement america, blacks performed at level as high or higher than whites in predominately black schools. Fryer says that the negative affects of acting white exist in racially integrated schools, but not so much in predominately black schools..
Not quite accurate. Claude Steele argued the existence of stereotype threat, but his brother scholar Shelby Steele was less than impressed and held it had little significant effect on black performance. If “sterotype threat” is the problem, why is black perfomance so much more dismal in ALL BLACK schools where no white people are around to hurt “self esteem”? As to “acting white” the phenonemon is not confined to mixed schools, but appears in MOSTLY BLACK schools as well, wehre students serious about academics were criticized for “acting white”. Even the studies that attempt to dispute McWorther’s thesis, confirm the existenceof an oppositional culture among blacks to academic achievement. Some say it is stronger in advanced placement classes where there were very few blacks, but the phenomenon is there, no matter how you slice it. See the archives again: http://lashawnbarber.com/wp-comments-popup.php?p=618&c=1

As everyone knows, there is no blueprint to parenting and how to raise a child to be a good citizen. Case in point, I have a lot of friends who grew up in stable two parent homes where both parents made good money, made sure everyone went to church on sunday, all at dinner together, what have you. The thing is that despite their middle class income, neither of the were college educated. In these houses no one is talking about what is going on in the paper at breakfast. No bookshelves in the living room, no trips to museum or the zoo.
Contrary to the notion of “no blueprint” there are several good blueprints out there. This example confirms what Lashawn is saying about negative cultural elements. The black parents in your example failed to follow through. However there is an invisible class of black parents who don’t have much college education, who don’t get much press attention and who do follow through on education. There are over a million of them. They are black parents primarily from the Caribbean, specifially the West Indies. Black West Indian immigrants in general, (not all obviously) are noted for being serious and hard-nosed about education. The results confirm their appraoch. As early as 1970, their income was approaching white levels for the second generation. They have moved on since then.

This hard-nosed approach has made Black West Indians unpopular in some places, with native blacks considering them too aggressive and pushy, hence the common slur “Jew Maican”. Asian Americans have also been hard nosed about education. In the early 20th century, the kids of Japanese farmers in California, whose parents were typically poor and spoke very little English, and who did not have houses stocked with middle class books outperformed supposedly “superior” white Irish kids on several measures. Indeed the Japanese kids were the joy of their teachers, noted for their discipline and attentiveness, a sharp contrast to many of the white kids around them. See Sowell’s “Ethnic America”. Again, there are several “good blueprints” out there, for those willing to follow them.

As a matter of clarification, I had meant Darwinism as it is applied today. There is no question that much of what Darwin said has been both sanitized and also petrified into doctrine. I hope it came across that I was pointing out the logical flaws of an approach to this discussion that is simply biological. I certainly don’t believe that there is any such difference.

Now I really feel nervous and embarrassed.

Which only reinforces what a lot of you have said about this subject being demonized, thus preventing real solutions being found.

Standardized tests illustrate that children in lower socio-economic brackets, and underperfroming schools, generally score lower than their counterparts in higher income brackets and high-performing schools- across “racial” lines. A Boston human rights activist collected data on this in 1964, and the urban public schools in Charlestown, Hyde Park and South Boston (then 100% white) produced no more collegians than those of Roxbury. (so why all the busing of Black kids to those exact three high schools in 1974 and ’75)?

Due respect, but that’s simply not true.

You can measure some thing with a test, and you can choose to call that thing “intelligence”, but there will always be wide disagreement about whether or not the thing you’ve measured actually IS “intelligence”.

I don’t think this necessarily undermines any points you are making (or will make), but it just puts it all in the proper perspective.

La Shawn opened up a can of worms yesterday, writing about cognitive capacities among races, as measured by results on standardized tests (I.Q. tests, et. al.). I don’t agree with her conclusion for…