Most White People Think Blacks Are Intellectually Inferior
Luke Visconti’s Ask the White Guy column is a top draw on DiversityInc.com. Visconti, the founder and CEO of DiversityInc, is a nationally recognized leader in diversity management. In his popular column, readers who ask Visconti tough questions about race/culture, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability and age can expect smart, direct and disarmingly frank answers.
Question:
I think you have a distorted view of Americans when you make such blanket statements like the one you made in your reply to the question of “Why doesn’t the NBA look like America?” You stated “… because it’s still not acceptable in our society to think of black people as being intellectually equal.”
I find that very offensive. I know I don’t think like that, nor do most whites I know. I do know a number of African Americans who think whites think that way, and your statement just reinforces their thinking. Perpetuating that kind of thinking only aids in supporting the separatist attitude that too many African Americans hold, and it certainly won’t help it to go away.
Answer:
You may not think like that–and because you don’t, you associate with people who share your opinion. That’s good. However, unless we face the facts as they are, we can’t change our circumstances. I think the facts show that most whites do not accept blacks as intellectually equal.
We live in a society that purports itself to be open for all people, but we should keep in mind that Dr. King and the civil-rights movement had to bring the federal government to the state of national unrest and international embarrassment (over the treatment of peaceful civil-rights marchers) to get the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Bills passed just 42 years ago. Until that time, most African Americans could not legally vote, and access to “mainstream” higher education was almost zero.
Sen. Obama is the third black senator since reconstruction (which ended in approximately 1877). There have been 1,148 senators sworn in since 1877. African Americans have been fairly consistent at 13 percent of our population. If whites felt that blacks were intellectually equal, they certainly wouldn’t have enslaved African Americans, and the Senate would have been far more than 0.26 percent black.
It’s a sad state of affairs, but there’s no way our country would sit still for a second and accept Gary, Ind., or Camden, N.J., looking as it does if the inhabitants were not almost 100 percent black.
You and I may accept blacks as intellectually equal–and I’d assume that we both socialize with people who feel the same as we do–but that’s no reason to assume most white people feel the same way, because the facts show otherwise.
Aside from the ethical issue, there is an overarching economic imperative to rectify disparities: We are now competing in a global market; any waste of talent is a loss in productivity, innovation and wealth that we cannot afford.
7:31 pm
The results of most studies that use scores earned on standardized tests (IQ, SAT, etc) show that measured intelligence level and race do indeed correlate. This is quite an inconvenient fact in our modern progressive era. While it is immoral and foolish to judge on the basis of race alone, to assume that race plays no role in innate intellectual capacity is misguided.
4:59 am
it is true. only for this reason: some of the whites that were racially biased in the civil rights movement are still alive. the teenagers of that era now have families. they tell their kids what they thought of blacks and unrightly spit racism back into play. now the white kids with racist parents are domed to be racist. furthermore, the kkk does have a significant enough audience to brainwash nonracist whites into becoming a racist, they recruit them. and furthermore, ‘hoods’ like camden, gangs, and the general ‘gangsta’ agenda is a dying trend. it wont take long for community development, environmental projects, and education to prosper in these areas. hip hop is about money these days; the easiest and safest way to make money is through schooling. but we all know whos falling behind on funding schools and providing good education. the government.
as i see it, it may take another generation, maybe more to fully rid this country of racism. us blacks won the civi rights movement on a federal level, almost. its up to the country itself to man up and respect our brothers and sisters as equal americans, and its up to the government to spend their billions on things that really matter. then finallly, equality will be possible
9:43 am
To be quite honest, people will believe what they choose to believe regardless of having scientific proof or not. If I’m raised in a poorly educated house hold, then my test scores may reflect that, no matter what race I might be. My race is just a part of me. Race alone does not dictate my circumstances, nor does it define me completely. So, obviously there are people of various races who are more or less intelligent then some others. You would see this if we all truly had an equal opportunity (and we do not). If you put a white person and a black person in the same life situation, and neither one had access to a job, money for food, education, clothing, survival mode should kick in. Then you would see that race has very little to do with the will to live, survive and prosper. Don’t judge, THINK!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our physical appearance is dictated by our genes. Natural selection could affect how we look when specific environmental conditions cause genes adapt over time. We are all related! You might not like it, but try to disprove it and see what you find. You may be blacker than you think.
4:00 pm
In response to the comment made on Jan 5, 2010 by Guest. Standardardized Test measurements are defined by the questions asked, which are defined and determined by the question designer. Please consider the source of the question before determining its infallibility in measuring intelligence. This includes racial correlations. Differing life experiences influence question responses. A major error in the “standard” test is an assumption that everyone taking the test have equal exposure and access to knowledge.
8:48 pm
We must understand that civil rights were granted to blacks only 5 decades ago. It takes more than one generation to catch up with the social inequality. Sure legally and socially racism has been controlled but what about the racist talk over the kitchen table? I bet even today there are many white parents (particularly of Nordic origin) who are still telling their young impressionable kids how inferior their black fellow citizens are.
The measurement of blacks in terms of their achievement would be realistic only after at least 2 generations when most of the white supremacists who lived thru the black slavery days have died and kids make their own judgement of their fellow human being
3:13 pm
Under the skin we are all equally the same.
11:38 am
It is only fair to look at history when one is speaking so blatantly about “innate intelligence”. Blacks were enslaved for more than 400 years with no access to any form of education, while whites were becoming more educated with each generation. Now if you believe in eugenics, each generation builds on the progress of the previous. Whites progressed while blacks remained the same for centuries. Even after slavery, it is only within the last fifty years that blacks have been given opportunities for education and even then it is not the same quality as whites are receiving. It is only fair to say that blacks possess the potential match the white intellect given that they are brought up in the same manner. We must give credit to the rising number of blacks that are being submitted to state universities and other higher education institutions.