[Plantagenet]

Tell me if you will, how two runners in a race can ever be equal as long as one has a 300 year head start.

Racers don't come out equal even when they both start from the same starting line. The whole purpose of the race is to see which racer is the fastest and sure enough, someone always wins. And the winner isn't determined by skin color----its determined by which person can run the fastest.

You benefit from having a White skin, they suffer because they do not.

There are individual people with black skin who do very very well, just as there are individuals with white skin who do very very poorly. Attributing success in life to skin color, and seeing all people with black skin as victims and all people with white skin as oppressors is at best a waste of time, IMHO, and at worst very damaging to black people who may come to believe your point that they have no chance of success, and give up on trying to work hard.

Discrimination for Blacks is real, still present

My experience is quite the opposite. IMHO affirmative action programs are government mandated discrimination IN FAVOR OF blacks, which in some cases allow people with black skin to attain preferential admission to elite colleges, or be hired into certain jobs due to racial preferances, or to receive various federal programs and grants that more qualified people with yellow skin or white skin are denied. In fact the DOJ just filed a lawsuit last week alleging racial discrimination in favor of blacks at Harvard---just the latest in a long string of such lawsuits.

lawsuit-accuses-harvard-discriminating-against-asian-american-applicants

... here in California's SF Bay Area, the Blacks almost all live in Oakland, and it's not a good place to live. Nor is Watts, for that matter. Not to mention, Harlem or South Chicago or East Boston or Washington DC or East St. Louis, or much of Philidelphia.

I don't think Black people live in those places because that is their preference. I think that White people force them to live there with discrimination.

Yes, I've seen those places. I'm always shocked at the amount of segregation in housing and schools, and the poor quality of the education and housing in the liberal blue states, particularly in the big liberal cities like San Francisco, Chicago Boston, Washington DC, etc. However, I don't think white people are forcing black people to live in segregated areas today. The old segregationists Ds are all out of office, and the Jim Crow laws etc. are gone. Today we are looking at economics driving housing, with wealthier people, regardless of skin color, moving away from crime-ridden and decaying inner cities areas, and leaving poorer people of all skin colors behind.

Cheers!

[KaiserJeep]

I understand what you are saying, and I understand why you wish to believe what you believe. But LOOK at the first chart I published. The net impact of everything we have talked about, is still that Whites are accumulating wealth far faster than Blacks. Also, Blacks who want to live in toney suburbs are being denied real estate services, by agents who are acting as their White wealthy clients want them to act, and are being denied affordable loans by bank officers, because they live in places where Blacks live - but not by choice.

I understand affirmative action, and I even understand - and have felt - other forms of the reverse racism that the US Government imposes. I'm not disputing any of the things you said, in fact, other than your apparent belief that you live in a country that is largely past discrimination. All the evidence says that we don't. If Blacks had equal access to good neighborhoods where homes appreciate, and prime mortgage loans that they could afford, there would not be a wealth disparity by race, nor would that disparity be growing at an increasing rate.

The facts may be inconvenient, but they demonstrate that your beliefs and opinions are wrong. If you want to understand more, watch that 16 minute NetFlix video. In it, you will see Black US Senator Cory Booker relate how his family got into a White neighborhood, a sorry tale involving lawyers and a sting operation by the FHA, and having a White couple make an offer on their prospective home. When his Black parents showed up at closing, the real estate agent was incensed, and attacked their lawyer with his fists, while siccing a large dog on Booker Sr. In the ensuing scuffle, a window was broken and then subsequently the Bookers leveraged their good neighborhood into another even better, and Cory got a good education and even gained Federal Office. But the family's success dated from that sting - an act of courage few could manage, and an opportunity that existed with LBJ in office, or even Barack Obama, but something very unlikely today.

Because the country you live in oppresses minorities, by the actions of biggoted individuals and not by policy, and things are not improving. In fact your very belief that no problem still exists today in spite of evidence to the contrary, is an act of oppression by YOU against minorities.

Believe me, there is no insult intended. But when you study the facts and discard your prejudices, you discover uncomfortable things that arise from your convictions, as did I.

[Ibon]

Very noble attempts KJ in reasoning with Plantagent who may not acknowledge what you are saying but that does not mean it wont act on him silently the way climate change did years ago. Otherwise he is the Trump loving bigot that he appears to be.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Looking at various posts above, it's complex. It's not a monolithic issue wrapped around money.

If you only look at wealth disparity between whites and blacks, then that has persisted. Between cultural differences like family differences, a large wealth gap, and a large educational gap, that wealth disparity isn't going to be made up quickly.

However, if you look at opportunity, including policies in place to ensure minorities get a fair chance, I believe things are getting better. Equal opportunity for housing and jobs. Protected groups. Preferential hiring and admissions policies. How are policies like that "oppressing minorities"?

I also still think that generally, especially for younger people, that in the US, there is a far better attitude about accepting minorities who are US citizens.

When I moved into the "bad" neighborhood in '81, which was 98% black because it had cheap rent and was 5 to 10 minutes from work, virtually all my relatives and friends thought I was insane. They thought it was too dangerous. They thought too many black people would want to hurt me or rob me or beat me up. They thought I'd be shot due to all the gang turf wars. They thought I'd have problems from all the drug trafficking. And on and on. And they just couldn't get that part of the reason I did it was a matter of principle. I figured some white people needed to walk the walk and live in such a way that demonstrated some white people really aren't racist (or are trying hard not to be, even if political correctness says that anyone white is a racist by definition).

Racial jokes and slurs used to be common. I noticed because I hated that crap, even in the 70's while I was growing up. Now, among most circles, that is seriously frowned upon by almost everyone. Even if there are still idiot white supremacists, that's an exception to the general rule.

I remember a meeting at work when I was about 30, when the various "protected groups" were discussed by our manager. So as an under 40 white guy, I was virtually the only person in the 15 strong department who wasn't in a protected group. We had quite a few folks in 2 or 3 protected groups. I accepted that less qualified people would get promotions over me as part of the helping out in the race KJ describes. I had no problem with that unless the people were TERRIBLY incompetent and just got promoted (multiple times and quickly) for showing up and being in multiple protected groups.

...

So it's a mixed bag and there are still racist a-holes. But that doesn't mean it's not getting better in a variety of ways, over time.

[KaiserJeep]

It's not improving economically in the USA for Blacks. The result is an upsurge of violence, crime, and drugs in Black neighborhoods. Which only serves to perpetuate the things such as unfair housing practices.

The Civil Rights era came and went. Genuine Black leaders such as Martin Luther King came and went. What remains now in Black communities are demagogues such as Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakahn, and Al Sharpton, who increase the level of strife and violence and call it leadership. Barack Obama did some of that himself.

There are also a boatload of White people who apparently really do care about the Blacks and do everything they can to make the situation better. These include Jimmy Carter and wealthy individuals such as Bill and Melinda Gates. Then there is Barack Obama, who simply does not display leadership, and who was a "switch hitter" while in office, on the one hand promoting Peace, and on the other, Black Activism including disruptions to a functioning society.

It's simply not clear to me if things are getting better or worse - for the Blacks. I acknowledge that virtually every other racial minority group is being absorbed into mainstream US society, over the span of a few generations. But every time a Black person looks in the mirror, he sees a Black face, and that has not changed in 300 years. For those with Black faces, life in the USA is not improving, they are falling further behind instead.

The worst problem that the Blacks have is smug White people who simply deny that a problem exists, or who are oh-so-insistent that life is improving for the Blacks living in the USA. As I mentioned before, those who ignore the continued deteriorating conditions in Black neighborhoods are perpetuating the prevailing situation, and at the same time, making it harder to ever provide relief.

Yet as I say these words, I look around my Silicon Valley neighborhood, and we have every skin tone there is, and dozens of nationalities, and you will typically hear a half dozen languages when you venture out. The Catholic Church down on the corner now has Mass in Spanish and Portuguese, but not English.

There is only one local Black family that I even remember, and when IBM sold the hard disk manufactuing to Hitachi, he didn't have a job anymore, and they moved to Oakland. He told me once he was the token at the hard disk factory. I also ran into a Black instructor I knew from HP at one of the local stores. He admitted to living nearby, but I never found out where, he had an unlisted telephone number, and quite simply he was one of the most prejudiced men I ever met, and hated all White people, and taught his kids to be the same way.

Please, don't any of you deny that a problem still exists.

[Cog]

Very noble attempts KJ in reasoning with Plantagent who may not acknowledge what you are saying but that does not mean it wont act on him silently the way climate change did years ago. Otherwise he is the Trump loving bigot that he appears to be.

You love throwing around the term racist and bigot. You even called me one and when I challenged you to prove it, with any of my posts, you slunk away like the coward you are. The left loves to use the word racist when they can't argue the facts. They attempt to shut down debate but its transparent, at least to those who use a logical and rational thought process.

Sorry your girl lost. The real racists are the Democrat party. The party of the Klan and Jim Crow. Nothing has changed with them. They still love their blacks firmly on the Democrat plantation as always. You want to know why blacks fail in the inner cities? Look at what party runs them.

[Plantagenet]

For 262 years, Black slaves built America, and the White people kept the wealth generated by them.

You are being imprecise to say that "white People" kept the wealth. In fact only a very small group of slaveholders retained most of the wealth generated by slaves. George Washington, for instance, was the wealthiest man in America in 1776, due to his landholdings and slaves and agricultural sales. Most other whites, even in the south, didn't not benefit to any great extent from slavery. In fact, you could argue it hurt other workers by holding down wages for non-slave workers, just as illegal aliens today have the effect of competing with and reducing wages for native-born American workers now.

Then in 1867 when the war was over, 101 years of official US Government discrimination in mortgage lending began.

Actually the federal government didn't intervene in mortgage markets until the great depression.

Since 1968, another 50 years of racial discrimination, this time imposed by mortgage lenders, has happened.

Actually, racial discrimination by mortgage lenders is illegal. Do problems in lending still exist? Yes. But the law is on the side of people who are discriminated against, and there are armies of lawyers in the federal government and elsewhere who are only too glad to help them file suit and receive legal and financial redress.

Now you understand Michelle Obama's famous remark: "Every day I wake up in a house built by Black slaves."

Its true that black slaves helped construct the White House. But its only a half-truth. White laborers worked along side the black slaves, white foremen supervised the construction, white artisans crafted the statues and architectural elements, and white architects designed the building and supervised the entire process. I'm sure Michelle Obama had her political reasons for ignoring the contributions of white workers, architects, artisans etc. to the building of the White House, but in reality both whites and blacks worked on and built the White House.

Perhaps you have done your own share of oppression. This struck me when I started to consider the differences between the spectrum of skin colors in my present Silicon Valley neighborhood, and the "redlined" areas of Nantucket Island and the state of Wisconsin.

Again, why do you assume other people are engaging in "oppression" just because you inherited a house in mostly White Nanatucket or you are buying another house in a mostly White part of Wisconsin? Now that you've retired and inherited a house on Nantucket worth millions, where you decide to live is entirely up to you---it has nothing do with me or all White people or anybody else. Its all up to you. If you think you are oppressing black people by living on Nantucket and you want to live in a more racially diverse area, then I suggest you sell off the Nantucket house and then move somewhere else where it is more racially diverse and acceptable to you. Its entirely your decision where you live and what kind of neighborhood you choose to live in.

Cheers!

[KaiserJeep]

Plant, this has nothing to do with where I live or want to live. I am talking about the country I was born in and love, where White people are oppressing Blacks. I understand and accept something that you are maintaining a state of denial about. That would be that Black people are still being oppressed, in this day and age, and in spite of the laws you mention, and even with many people - such as you - attempting to heal the breach.

As long as the mean Black family income is one tenth the mean White family income, injustice exists. A similar disparity exists win individual wages. The accumulated wealth gap is even worse. Furthermore, since those gaps are increasing with time, the injustice is worsening and their suffering is increasing. You obviously don't want to believe this, but it's true.

Like I said before, 2/3rds of the wealth of the Middle Class is housing and land. What the chart above indicates is that the main form of oppression - even though it is illegal - is discrimination in housing. My present middle class neighborhood is integrated, but there are places in the SF Bay area that are not, and there are places where minority gangs clash over territories with guns and knives.

I also explained how I found that the most popular real estate search application was being used to perpetuate a modern version of (now illegal) redlining. I will add that most home listings are not coded by color, but enough were that I was able to figure out what it meant.

Yet you still want to deny my words, don't you? You would prefer to not believe these uncomfortable ideas, correct?

[Plantagenet]

Plant, this has nothing to do with where I live or want to live. I am talking about the country I was born in and love, where White people are oppressing Blacks. I understand and accept something that you are maintaining a state of denial about. That would be that Black people are still being oppressed, in this day and age, and in spite of the laws you mention, and even with many people - such as you - attempting to heal the breach.

I enjoy your posts so much, KJ. You are a very thoughtful man, I think. Let us all do our best to heal the breach and help the less fortunate.

As long as the mean Black family income is one tenth the mean White family income, injustice exists.

I don't believe thats right. The latest number I could find is that in 2014, median black household income was about $43,300, while white household income was about $71,300. That would put black family income at about 58% of white family income. Still very unequal, but not as bad as you suggested

Furthermore, since that gap is increasing with time, the injustice is worsening and their suffering is increasing. You obviously don't want to believe this, but it's true.

I agree black vs. white family incomes are unequal, but I don't see this as an injustice. The amount of money people make is a product of their career choices and their success in their jobs. The difference in family income in black and white families is mainly a product of different choices in their careers, and different levels of success once people start working. I don't see much effect of racism, If anything there are special opportunities for minorities. A truly huge amount effort goes into helping minority students succeed in school---I know because I'm involved in these programs for minorities. On the National Level I spent some time working with the Ford Foundation to select minority students for special scholarships for college, grad school and post-docs, and I just spent two weeks working personally with a group of Alaskan minority students here in Alaska, providing special coaching and special opportunities to get them interested in going into the sciences when they go to college. However, the reality is that very few of them will choose to go into the sciences....I think we've recruited only 1-2 in the 5 years I've been working with this Alaskan enrichment/recruiting program.

You were an engineer. You know that engineers make good money as do Scientists, doctors, lawyers, etc. However its hard to get minority students interested in these subjects, even with special funding and special admissions programs. If minority students self select into non STEM and non-Professional careers, their opportunities to make high salaries are reduced. Thats just how it is---racism does not need to be invoked as an excuse.

Cheers!

[Cog]

The moment you claim victim status and try to use it as a reason you can't make your way in life, your battle is already lost. The destruction of the black family by liberal policies is at the root of all this not racism. Does racism force blacks to have 75% of their children out of wedlock? Does racism force 13% of the population to commit 50% of violent crimes? I could adopt any black infant and raise him with values of hard work and education and he would turn out to be a productive citizen. The real racism in play here is being committed for political purposes to make a whole group of people wholly dependent to capture their vote.

Kj can broadcast his white guilt liberalism here of course but it's just a repackaged way of saying blacks are inferior to whites and must be cared for like you would a retarded cat.

I've worked with and for too many successful black people to buy this bullshit Kj is spreading. But they shared a common work and moral ethic with me, and didn't waste time sitting on their ass and crying about being a victim.

[Outcast_Searcher]

The moment you claim victim status and try to use it as a reason you can't make your way in life, your battle is already lost. The destruction of the black family by liberal policies is at the root of all this not racism. Does racism force blacks to have 75% of their children out of wedlock? Does racism force 13% of the population to commit 50% of violent crimes? I could adopt any black infant and raise him with values of hard work and education and he would turn out to be a productive citizen. The real racism in play here is being committed for political purposes to make a whole group of people wholly dependent to capture their vote.

Kj can broadcast his white guilt liberalism here of course but it's just a repackaged way of saying blacks are inferior to whites and must be cared for like you would a retarded cat.

I've worked with and for too many successful black people to buy this bullshit Kj is spreading. But they shared a common work and moral ethic with me, and didn't waste time sitting on their ass and crying about being a victim.

We're basically in agreement re the consequences. And that the blame is misplaced.

You call the reason liberal policies. I call much of the reason "culture", but clearly:

1). Liberal policies aren't helping make the culture holding many blacks back much more productive or "practical" re making social and economic progress as far as "success" in the US -- they're mainly spending lots of money and buying lots of votes.

2). OTOH, the right isn't helping much either. Trying to cut taxes and social programs constantly isn't going to help, say, black drug gangs in Baltimore (see "The Wire", which was supposedly based on reality), as long as they don't have meaningful opportunities to allow them to change.

...

So I would ask both KJ and Cog, what is the answer? (Not perfection, not an overnight solution -- but just a way to help blacks make real economic and social progress over time, and help greatly reduce the problems of unwanted children and gun violence Cog correctly points out exist in many poor black communities).

Because arm waving and blaming group X might be great for scoring political points, but doesn't help solve the underlying problem.

...

And I don't claim to have the big answers. Observation tells me that just throwing more money at such problems don't fix them. Whether at large communities or at individual families.

Some of my liberal friends are for more jobs/training programs. In an era of "full" employment, where many employers are complaining about a lack of unskilled workers, that might have plenty of merit but of course, as always, the question of "where does the money come from?" (vs other programs) has to be answered.

[KaiserJeep]

First, I have to make one thing clear. What we are about to discuss will very likely get censored. At some point, somebody is going to contact the forum administrator and ask that what I am about to post be taken down, for whatever reason. Because, even though the US Government paid for the Human Genome Project, they are repressing the results by policy. These things were originally published by the US Government's Bureau of Labor Statistics during Bill Clinton's second term, then the policy changed. You can still find the information online outside of the US web sites in other countries they do not control. Whenever possible, I will use US charts from the BLS National Longitudinal Surveys, the last of which was NLSY97 in 1997, because they also didn't like what they got there and they quit doing those as well.

Second of all, Plant, I made mistakes in my messages, repeatedly talking about family income when I should have been specific and discussed accumulated family wealth. That is what has a 10:1 disparity exists, due to housing discrimination against minorities. Here's another version of that:

...a third chart since my original post on the topic. The second chart above was "per capita", which is why the numbers differ, the first and third are by family.

I'm tempted to say that all we have to do is bulldoze the inner cities, and then give each white family a minority family as involuntary permanent guests. But I suspect that would not work either, because they would still LOOK different, with their Black or Brown skins, from their lighter skinned hosts. I suspect the whole problem originates in another of those primate instincts, the same one that underlies warfare between nations.

If somebody looks different, sounds different (a different language), or smells different (because they eat curried veggies or deep-fried corn pone "hush puppies" or tofu) then they are obviously not a member of YOUR ape troop, so it's OK to kill them, discriminate against them, or do whatever else, because only the members of YOUR OWN ape troop matter in the primate world. It just might be that something deep down in your genes is telling you those things.

Then there is the embarassing fact that Anthopology and the Behavioral Sciences have been measuring racial differences all along. The Human Genome Project even quantified this by relating the differing intelligence centroids of racial groups to gene clusters:

...and the eye-opening chart that sums it all up:


This chart is about intelligence, because that is the most controversial topic. US Blacks average an IQ of 82 which increases to 87 when you include the somewhat larger group with 25% or more White parentage. The figures were "normalized" so that US Whites averaged 100 on the IQ scale. US Jews average 110, but that includes both the Ashkenazi Jews (average IQ 127) and those speaking the "low tongue" (Yiddish).

The HGP did not just measure intelligence, either. They published charts on muscular strength, agility, running ability, everything. If you ever wanted to know why Blacks dominate the NBA, the NFL, and certain other sports, the answers are in the (now repressed) findings of the HGP, and are related to your genes.

I will say this. I don't know whether the censorship policy is correct or not. Certainly bigotry could result from this information. My only complaint is that the US Government decided that YOU CAN'T HANDLE THIS, and as a result, my words are most likely going away. Try printing this message while it still exists, if you don't believe me. Then "Right Click" on the pictures and save the URLs.

[KaiserJeep]

On re-reading the above message string, I realized I must have pushed one of Cog's hot buttons. He accused me of "white guilt liberalism" and IIRC nobody has ever done that to me before.

OK, folks, this is your opportunity to post before the thread goes away. What are your thoughts?

What I think: We are going to have this same spectrum of racial issues for another few thousands of years, ending only when everybody is more or less the same skin color as the merry mixing of genes continues.

[KaiserJeep]

Well, it has now been over four hours since I posted, and no replies yet. Look, we have touched upon this topic before and I have already been labelled as a Racist and a Nazi by Left-leaning members in those prior threads, and by Cog as a White Liberal "with guilt" in this one. But what I am actually seeking is open discourse on a sensitive topic, by one and all.

Is this just something that the rest of you are afraid to touch? Do you think THE GOVERNMENT might include your names in the secret database of Permanent Records? Or are you still reacting to the information that (gasp) people of different races have different capabilities for many things, and the government measured these things and kept the information from you?

Hint: The actual definitions of "race" via the HGP disclose that humanity has at least SEVEN and possibly as many as TWENTY-THREE races, depending on where you set the bar for the number of distinct genes that define a "race" of humans. These distinctions were largely the result of isolated populations of humans, seperated by geographic barriers while mutations accumulated in that isolated population. But there were always travellers and always new genes being added to most such populations, so the HGP did a lot of statistical analysis via computers.

It's difficult to even have this discussion, because the prior and classic definition of "race" allowed for THREE, which we called the White man, The Black man, and the Yellow man, based on skin color. That is certainly obsolete, but we don't have agreed-upon terminology for the 7-23 racial groups of the HGP. So we are going to use the old labels to talk about the new races, there isn't any other option. It's inconvenient, but it can be done, by anybody not afraid to touch the topic.

[Plantagenet]

there is the embarassing fact that Anthopology and the Behavioral Sciences have been measuring racial differences all along. The Human Genome Project even quantified this by relating the differing intelligence centroids of racial groups to gene clusters:

...and the eye-opening chart that sums it all up:


This chart is about intelligence, because that is the most controversial topic. US Blacks average an IQ of 82 which increases to 87 when you include the somewhat larger group with 25% or more White parentage. The figures were "normalized" so that US Whites averaged 100 on the IQ scale. US Jews average 110, but that includes both the Ashkenazi Jews (average IQ 127) and those speaking the "low tongue" (Yiddish).

Similar data on IQ were presented in numerous scientific papers and in the popular book "The Bell Jar" about 20 years ago, but these simply described the link between conventional racial categories (white, black, asian, etc) and IQ. I hadn't seen these results from the HGP before, however, showing links between IQ and various genetic factors. This is very very interesting stuff indeed. Its amazing stuff. Do you have some links for the HPG discussion of the influence of genetics on intelligence and other human characteristics?

... the answers are in the (now repressed) findings of the HGP, and are related to your genes.....I will say this. I don't know whether the censorship policy is correct or not.

I think censorship is always incorrect. We need more light, not more covering up of facts. Turning your back on the facts is dangerous, particularly in a democracy.

Certainly bigotry could result from this information.

Bigotry is bad, but so is ignorance. Scientific facts should not be repressed, IMHO.

My only complaint is that the US Government decided that YOU CAN'T HANDLE THIS, and as a result, my words are most likely going away. Try printing this message while it still exists, if you don't believe me. Then "Right Click" on the pictures and save the URLs.

Thanks KJ. Very interesting stuff indeed.

[KaiserJeep]

The reason this stuff was repressed and removed from US Web pages was because Bubba Clinton insisted on it (and GWB didn't change his decision, to be fair). This Internet censorship was highly controversial here in Silly Valley, and those controversies were not covered by lamestream media because they were not PC. The reason that the censorship didn't work was that the HGP was not funded exclusively by the USA, it was an International project with International funding and researchers.

Here in the USA the HGP results are paywalled behind the professional journals of the practioners of Psychology and Psychiatry and Anthropology, you won't find this stuff in public places like Science. They don't talk about this stuff in Freshman Psych, either. It's not for the likes of us, you understand, it's for professionals.

I had a backdoor through the paywalls because I worked on the Internet research project by one of my daughter's friends and a former member of her GS Troop. She wrote up the results from some information I injected into THIS FORUM and a couple of others, which she was reading, but never posted in herself. (Nor do I think she came close to telling me everything.) Several of you guys helped her earn a PHD with her dissertation on the Internet.

The UK websites are your best bet, for the laymen's version of the HGP, because they (kind of) speak American. I did this years ago and my links are all dead (the HGP was published between 1989 and 2003), the information was repressed by the HGP "Board of Ethics" (oddly enough all lawyers) they put in place in the late 2000's.

I'm not suggesting that the HGP causes or caused Racism, either, because that is thousands of years old. But "older and wiser heads" in the US Senate decided you didn't need this information, and that the government would not share it with you. But it is something that thousands of US citizens know about that simply is not discussed publicly. Which is why I am expecting this thread to either get closed or for it to disappear.

There is actually lots of implications here. If somebody were to take note of the fact that government programs like "affirmative action" and other forms of reverse racism would not ever fix disparities in abilities that arise in a person's genes, then the justification for these programs could and would be attacked. There are implications involving welfare, sports, and education, to name a few. That's why we cannot talk about such stuff in public without being labelled as a "racist" or some other disparaging label, the intent being to suppress discussion.

Tanada, allow me to apologize if this material causes you distress, you are the OP. I undertand and in fact am expecting that this thread will get closed.

[Cog]

No reason to worry about censorship KJ. Science is color blind or at least it should be. Like Planty I was aware of the Bell Curve study but not this one. But what are we trying to achieve here as a society? I would maintain that a child raised by two parents who encourage hard work and study will almost always out-perform those not raised that way regardless of IQ. Is the average IQ of a black person lower than either whites or Asians? Probably. But I can't dunk a basketball either. I don't worry about it and do other things that are fulfilling. The primary way you defeat a disability is to figure out what you can do and do that thing well.

But a culture, like the inner city ghettos, where there is a single parent who may not care about education themselves won't give rise to kids that do. Black kids are often ridiculed by their peers as "thinking white" if they go down the path of study and hard work. I do not know how to fix that except to make sure that equality under the law is maintained. No one can force you to be a good parent and role model to your kids. But we can discourage sloth and dependency by social policy. Kids need to see the role model of mom and/or dad working for a living. The jobs are there.

[Plantagenet]

... lots of implications here. If somebody were to take note of the fact that government programs like "affirmative action" and other forms of reverse racism would not ever fix disparities in abilities that arise in a person's genes, then the justification for these programs could and would be attacked.

If various programs aren't doing any good then they should be attacked. Thats why we do science and collect data in the first place----we want and need to understand reality because its helpful in deciding how the world really works and what scientific theories/medical treatments/political policies are useful and should be supported and what policies don't work.

..we cannot talk about such stuff in public without being labelled as a "racist" or some other disparaging label, the intent being to suppress discussion.

Heck, people get labelled as racist today just for accidentally saying something favorable about Trump. There is a whole lot of name-calling going on right now, usually by the same people who are deficient in the RS10119, RS10457441 and RS4851266 genes.

I ... am expecting that this thread will get closed.

I hope not. These are some of the most information-rich posts I've seen here in a long time. Thanks.

[Cog]

The other thing that can account for some IQ differences is early exposure to reading. How much reading goes on in the Sub-Sahara? I'm not saying its 100% nurture, as there is a genetic influence to IQ, but it is a big factor.

[Ibon]

So nature and nurture both play a role and as this thread is courageous enough to address this what kind of a government leadership do you think would be required to translate this into effective policy? One that is uniting or one that incites racial hatred?