Most White People Think Blacks Are Intellectually Inferior
By Luke Visconti
March 02, 2007
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In what has become the most popular area of DiversityInc.com, Luke Visconti
offers readers the opportunity to confidentially ask questions regarding
diversity. Luke is one of two business partners who own and run DiversityInc. He
directs all editorial and circulation functions.
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." (See also: Why Are Sports Dominated by
Blacks? and Why Are
Sports Dominated by Blacks? What Our Readers Said)
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.
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