Why are people racist?

by MrMoe 100 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  gravedancer

  Education is the answer to both sides of the coin....

  Educated people don't believe that people's skin color alone determines therir worth as people

  AND

  Education makes people act like humans and not like animals.
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  Dutchie

  Both authors of The Bell Tower, the most racist book I've ever read were Yale graduates.
• 

  patio34

  I haven't had time to read this entire thread, so please excuse me if this has been touched on. Methinks people have always been "racist," and often for a very good reason. In days when there were no police or sodiers and people lived in small villages where most were related, when strangers met each other, there was real danger. People have always had a degree of xenophobia or fear of strangers. It was probably a self-preservation thing.

  Pat
• 

  drahcir yarrum

  Dutchie:

  Are you referring to the book, The Bell Curve? Both of the authors were from Harvard and at least one of them was a professor there. The book wasn't the least bit racist. It was a statistical look at where the races were at that point in time in our society relative to each other in educational testing, income and other societal areas. The unfortunate thing about the book is that some liberal readers did not want to see any differences between blacks and whites on various achievement scales. The authors didn't draw any conclusions from the data that weren't indicated by the data. So unless you wanted to claim that their statistics were flawed, you can't make an argument that it was racist. They also made statistical analysis regarding Asians and how they score significantly higher in the sciences and math than whites do. Was that also racist? I think the most troubling thing for me was that the numbers of truely bright people in our society are diminishing, whether white, black or Asian. Since the intellectually superior tend to end up with power over those not as bright, we are at risk of losing our self determination if the trends continue.

  The authors were unfairly pilloried by the liberal media and liberal acamadicians.
• 

  Dutchie

  Drahcir, yes, I''m sorry, the book was The Bell Curve.

  When people read they come to different conclusions based on their experiences.

  I thought the book was wildly racist and unfairly placed blacks in a poor light. To me, their conclusion that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites was racist and totally unfair.

  They were nothing less that rednecked "Bubbas" with an ivy league education.

  Yes, I believe that their statistics were flawed.

  Edited by - Dutchie on 4 August 2002 21:25:58
• 

  Dutchie

  Further, they found that black IQ scores are so far below white IQ scores in their distribution as to preclude useful Affirmative Action Programs. The reason? Only 29,000 African Americans have IQ levels above 130 points, the minimal level found suitable for many executives in business. With 15+ million businesses in America, this leaves fewer than 1 theoretically qualified African American for each 500 businesses to serve as executives; however, more than 20,000 of these 29,000 African Americans are under 21 years of age and one-half of those precious few 9,000 African Americans who are presently above 21 years of age will never earn a university undergraduate degree. That leaves just 4,500 African Americans over 130 IQ points with a university degree to share among 15+ million companies. this is why Affirmative Action has aided white women and asians in achieving high promotions more than it has African Americans.
  
  The types of jobs available for almost 28 million African Americans with IQ's below 115 points are typical menial positions such as janitorial work, cooking, common labor, carpentry, routine factory work, residential services, security, farming, retail sales, and lawn work. These were the natural choices of African Americans prior to Affirmative Action and continue to employ the vast majority of African Americans. It is believed by many economists that one of the reasons American manufacturers are moving overseas is the problem of African American economic expectation--e.g., African American low IQ levels, Affirmative Action unrealistic legal rules concerning African American promotions, and African American lawsuits over not being promoted regardless of their low IQ level, and the related quagmire of civil rights in the United States.

  You truly believe that their writing are not racist? Please.............
• 

  larc

  Dutchie, because the authors present statistical information and conclusions, does not make them racists. What they presented is common knowledge among researchers and has been presented many times. Tests are a measuring device, much like a thermometer. If a person has a fever do you blame the thermometer or seek the reason for the reason why the thermometer registered as it did? Now is a question for you. IQ tests were normed on a cross section of this country, so why is it that Asians and Jews score higher than the white Anglos, since they were underrepresented in the normative sample?
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  DakotaRed

  If I may chime in here on your side, Dutchie. One big problem with relying on IQ scores, as your authors did, is that they are basically rigged in favor of white America. When in Psyhc 101, we discussed IQ tests and all agreed that the tests favored White culture over Black culture. So, naturally, Blacks had to score lower.

  For any scholar, or professor, to use these results to explain away differences in the races is definitely racist, or at least, uneducated, in my opinion. Where is it any different than when the KKK spread false rumors about Black men and their greatest desire was to have a white woman? Any conclusion based on false, or prejudiced data makes the conclusion just as false and prejudiced, regardless of the persons education.

  Lew W
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  larc

  Dutchie, how are the statistical results in this book flawed. Because you say so, doesn't make it so. Dakota Red, you and I posted at the same time. See my question above.
• 

  Dutchie

  Larc,

  Statistics are, in my opinion, very often flawed. They are easy to juggle and too often they are used simply to prove an oh so flawed point..

  I believe that statistics are much like the Bible. We can use them to prove anything that we want them to prove.

  I think the whole system needs to be revamped. Just because these methods are widely used by professionals and are looked to with confidence by professionals does not mean that they should not be revamped.

  If we use them to judge groups of people, as the authors of The Bell Curve did, and then people look to these authors as having accurately portrayed the worth of a group of people, then something is very wrong.