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Well-meant euphemisms about race cause harm
In a good column on racial preferences that has an even better title, “The Fog of Affirmative Action,” the never foolish Mona Charen makes a persuasive case that affirmative action, in and of itself, systematically and inevitably removes incentives from blacks at every level of their school career. As a result, they work much less harder and develop their abilities much less than they otherwise would—even as the society continues to reward them more and more for doing less and less. Miss Charen is right that everyone including blacks should work up to his top level, and that racial preferences create a serious obstacle to the fulfillment of that ideal. But at the same time she somewhat misrepresents the situation when she resorts to the soothing euphemism (used with absolute predictability by literally every single mainstream journalist who writes about this subject) that “blacks continue to lag behind whites in academic performance.” [Emphasis added.] “Lag” suggests that blacks are just a bit behind whites, in the same footrace as it were, but crossing the finish line just a little bit later. The reality is that blacks on average perform substantially below whites in every area of intellectual endeavor, particularly of demanding intellectual endeavor. In terms of the footrace metaphor, in many or most instances blacks as a group are not in the same footrace with whites at all. The very policy of racially proportional admissions in the elite universities reveals this fact, since it results in two non-contiguous student bodies, with almost all the blacks and Hispanics having been admitted with scores at which almost all the whites and Asians would be automatically rejected. Of course blacks could substantially raise their sights and standards and become more self-sustaining and genuinely self-respecting, and we all wish that they would do so. Yet we are lying to ourselves when we pretend that there is any reasonable prospect in the foreseeable future of blacks as a group achieving at exactly the same intellectual level as whites. That 15 to 18 point racial IQ difference is real, and does not go away even among black children adopted at birth and raised by white middle-class parents. No one is expecting a mainstream conservative like Mona Charen to start talking like Charles Murray or Jared Taylor. But at the very least we ought to be able to expect a writer of her good sense to avoid misleading euphemisms, such as that “blacks lag behind whites,” which give such a thoroughly incorrect impression of reality and make people believe that with just a little more effort, blacks could catch up with whites. The danger lurking in that false belief is that when blacks despite their presumed equal potential don’t catch up, their failure must inevitably be seen as the fault of some outside force, namely whites, who, yet once again, must bend themselves out of shape to come up with yet another social engineering scheme that will raise black performance to an equal level with that of whites. Each such scheme only expands blacks’ already bloated sense of entitlement that Charen talked about, thus further damaging their character, lowering their aspirations, and increasing their racial resentment.
If our society is not to sink into a bottomless pit of racial socialism, we must start to deal with racial reality, not with dreams. The dreams have already caused incalculable damage. Comments
Though this statement by Mr. Auster is extremely well-put, and cannot be improved upon that I can see, there is an additional point which lies a bit beyond its scope, and that is this: the perspective of what is very properly starting to be called “race realism” is not one of meanness but of kindness, help, and “the way, finally, out of the mess.” It’s very simply this: if any parent had a child who, let’s say, had chosen a college major that was over his head and as a result was not doing well despite working hard, and was scared and miserable in his college experience, would it be mean of that parent to counsel that child to perhaps consider a different major, one more in line with his talents? On the contrary, the mean approach would perhaps be to inappropriately continue to push him in the wrong direction, the direction of personal failure. There’s a false view prevalent among both conservatives and liberals that the idea of inborn racial differences is one of those things, like the sun and like the reality of death, that can’t be stared at, but one must look away. One sees that that isn’t true when it is realized that the only way to “finally start making things right” in today’s society is to take differing gifts, talents, and abilities into account and plan social policy accordingly. No one is “inferior” or “superior,” but we each bring our unique God-given gifts to the table of our society and culture, to make our equally valuable contribution with pride and self-respect. No one is going to be mean to anyone because of the kinds of gifts that person brings to the table. No holocaust, but instead only a welcome sense of blessed relief ON ALL SIDES OF THE QUESTION, will follow the acceptance by society of what is appropriately called “racial realism.” No one will be “kept down,” everyone will still have every chance and opportunity every one else has. What will change will only be the constant racial blame-game, one of the most hate-engendering and counter-productive social problems to arise in the whole history of the Western World (which is why the West-hating — and, at bottom, self-hating — left loves it so much). Posted by: Unadorned on January 21, 2003 9:03 AMHere’s a blog entry (below) which I just noticed while browsing Ed Mick’s blog-site ( www.revealedtruth.blogspot.com ), which has to do with the spirit and letter of Mr. Auster’s blog entry. I agree with the Deroy Murdock quote that such a set-up as in this San Francisco high school not only is outrageously unjust toward Orientals and, less so, toward whites, but is as insulting as hell for all the races who got the bar lowered for themselves, namely blacks and whites compared to Orientals. And of course, it’s a clear signal to blacks (and to a lesser degree, to whites) that they need not work as hard as the poor Oriental students who’ve outrageously had the bar set higher for themselves by the feds. This is outrageous and harmful from every point of view imaginable. Ex-slaves Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington would have fiercely opposed this sort of thing and supported Ward Connerly (any doubters please read their books — Washington’s “Up From Slavery” in its entirety is available free at www.Bartleby.com , and of course Douglass’ powerful autobiography and speeches are easily found in libraries and book stores). I fully understand fair-minded, self-respecting blacks like Murdock, Prof. Thomas Sowell, Prof. Walter Williams, businessman and activist Ward Connerly, and so many others, who find this stuff unacceptable for all concerned, and who bravely struggle against it publicly. (For any who may not know, Murdock is an African-American columnist, and one of the best columnists out there.) [Under the Jan. 20th entries — scroll down…] “Here’s an excellent column on Nationalpost.com about race preferences in school admissions. I hadn’t heard about the San Francisco high school case the author (Deroy Murdock) cites. Positively unconscionable and - if I may use so politically incorrect a term - unamerican. ” ‘This is academic racial profiling. If — as civil rights activists scream until they swoon — it is wrong for cops to see a black man and assume he is a criminal, why is it right for Michigan to see someone and assume he needs special help simply for applying while black?…. ” ‘Michigan’s system should go the way of the recently rejected entrance exam at San Francisco’s Lowell Academy. This selective government high school’s admissions test had a perfect score of 69 points. Students of Chinese descent needed at least 62 points to pass. Whites and “other Asians” required 58 points for admission while blacks and Hispanics could gain entrance with just 53 points. “Talk about degrading. Who were San Francisco’s educrats to deem blacks and Hispanics intellectually inferior to other students? And were all these Chinese kids brilliant? Surely a few of them were dim bulbs…. “posted by Ed Mick at 9:37 PM “
Not so at all. Entry scores are predictive for the first year of college only. By graduation, there is no correlation between ‘race’ and performance in classes. That, in itself, suggests that SAT, ACT, e.t.c. scores are highly overrated. Posted by: Gozo on January 25, 2003 6:46 AM“Entry scores are predictive for the first year of college only.” This is simply untrue. Posted by: Lawrence Auster on January 25, 2003 10:11 AM |