You Gotta Love Racist White New York Liberals
...Yeah, I said it, and I meant it too. The New Yorker staffers and editors who thought it was acceptable to run the cover of Barack-and-Michelle-Obama-as-Muslim-and/or-black-nationalist-militants are racists. And assholes. Their liberalism does not acquit them. The fact that most of them will probably vote for Obama in November doesn't acquit them. The fact that they think themselves hip and urbane, and oh-so-pithy and oh-so-ironic, and oh-so satirical doesn't make a bit of difference. What they have done, irrespective of their intent, is to further the right-wing white racial frame that has been placed on the Obama candidacy from the outset. By trafficking in stereotypes, presumably to poke fun at them, the New Yorker has reinforced imagery that is guaranteed to push certain buttons with many voters, and not "irony buttons" (I mean most Americans can't even define the term, which is why folks thought that Alanis Morrissette song was so good, even though every example of irony she mentioned wasn't an example of irony at all), but bigotry ones. Intent does not matter with this kind of thing: impact is what counts, and the impact will be to reinforce white fears about the Obamas. White folks don't tend to appreciate irony when the joke is on us, you see.
But for those who choose to defend the New Yorker on this cartoon, (and who think it’s legit satire, because it “obviously” pokes fun at the whole right-wing “Obama is a muslim” conspiracy B.S….), here's why no such defense is possible....
Let's think about some other examples of satire, which, theoretically, the New Yorker could have turned into covers, where they could have poked fun at stupid conspiracy thinking and obviously absurd bigotry...
Can anyone on here imagine the New Yorker, or any other mainstream outlet doing a “satire” where they poke fun at the asinine conspiracy theories about Jews and 9/11 (like "4000 Jews stayed home from work that day because they got tipped off by the Mossad")? Can you imagine them satirizing the loons who say that shit by doing a cover with a bunch of rabbis, calling each other on the phone reminding other “members of the tribe” (as we occasionally call ourselves, for those who don’t know) to stay home? Or perhaps a rabbi pushing down on a TNT charge, and bringing the WTC down? Of course not. They would never do this, and with good reason.
Likewise, whack jobs have been spinning conspiracy yarns for centuries about Jews baking matzo using the blood of gentiles, etc., but never would any media outlet think it was ok to make fun of such stupidity by showing Jewish men in kippahs snacking on flatbread made from the plasma of someone named Mikey O’Malley (for lack of a more authentic gentile name).
They would never ’satirize’ Holocaust denial, for example, by showing a cover with Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz, playing cards, or shuffleboard, as a way to show the absurdity and venality of those who claim there was no mass murder of Jews and that Auschwitz was “actually a pretty nice place, with an orchestra, for entertainment,” (a claim David Duke made several years ago, for example).
Even if it were an election season, and a Jewish candidate were in the race (as was the case for Lieberman as VP in 2000), there is simply no way that the New Yorker would have done a cover with Lieberman playing the role of a puppeteer, and say, pulling the strings of an Al Gore marionette, with, let’s say, an Israeli flag flapping in the background, as a way to satirize the buffoons who said things about how Joe L. was just a Zionist Manchurian candidate, brainwashed in shul to “destroy all goyim,” as one Nazi froot loop swore to me was true eight years ago.
Bottom line: hip white liberals don’t take chances at offending Jewish folks the way we will black folks or Muslims. And the reasons are simple:
1. Jews are a dangerous target to offend because we have more economic clout than folks of color and can punish anti-Semitic acts in ways that folks of color often can’t when the acts are racist, and,
2. Jewish suffering and pain is taken more seriously than the pain and suffering of other groups, and garners more sympathy, in large measure because it is the suffering of a people who are now thought of as white (wasn’t always the case but it is now by most folks). This is why no one ever worries that Holocaust Studies programs that focus on the Shoah (and it alone) will encourage Jews to develop a “victim mentality,” or cause us to “shirk personal responsibility for our community,” while Af-Am studies or Ethnic Studies programs that discuss the oppression of folks of color, and their struggles to overcome that oppression and define themselves in history, are met with constant cries of “PC” and concern that indeed, folks of color are being encouraged to think of themselves as permanent victims in such classes. Jewish pain counts, it seems, while black and brown pain does not. Jewish pain can be blamed on others (nasty Germans, for example), while black and brown pain is very much our shame in the U.S….so we can’t face it, or care the same way, or worry about offending folks of color, while we would never think of risking such offense with Jewish folks, for the most part.
Those of us who are Jewish should speak up and demand that the same standard of care be taken with other groups as is taken with us. What would be unacceptable when done to us, must be unacceptable when done to others.
And those of us who are Southern should probably use examples like this to point out that Northern racism, while perhaps more veiled and "hip" than that which comes from our part of the country, isn't any more acceptable for it.
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m+ b+ says:
It's not racist, just different.
As someone who is every bit as sensitive to racism as you are, Mr. Wise, I assure you that sometimes satire is offensive and still satire. Often it is the best kind. The fact is that this cartoon has not perpetuated nor endorsed any particular racist image of the Obamas. Rather it has forced the incredible barrage of hidden racist imagery in the media to the absolute extreme and is making all of American media emphatically disavow it and any suggestion that they are drawing similar parallels. It has engaged the absurd attempts to equate everything Obama with every xenophobic, racist instinct and made every media head stand back and take a careful look at what they say or do.
This is exactly what the cartoon was intended to do. It's not playing into any media stereotype, it has tackled the stereotype head on and forced every person in America to disavow it or enjoin it. In the same vein as 'A Modest Proposal' the picture is incredibly offensive on the surface. The smallest amount of examination reveals that such a portrayal cannot be taken seriously because it is so absurd. Calling the New Yorker cover 'racist' is little different than calling a woman who accuses any man of misogyny a sexist.
Tim Wise says:
so please explain...
...why wouldn't the New Yorker, or any other media outlet, EVER do a satire of this kind, skewering absurd anti-Jewish bigotry, with pics of rabbis blowing up the WTC, or Lieberman, pulling Gore's strings with an Israeli flag behind him? Or prisoners at Auschwitz playing cards? All of those would also "engage the absurd attempts to equate everything" Jewish with evil and conspiratorial control, etc. But you and I both know good and well they would never do any of these...so there has to be a reason. I argue that the reason is, the media is willing to take a chance of being misunderstood and insulting black people, Muslims, or other folks of color, in ways they are not willing to do with others, such as those of us who are Jewish. So whether the intent is racist, the impact is seen as potentially so, in the case of Jews, and the mistake is never made, nor the satire engaged. But with folks of color or Muslims, either the impact is not seen as potentially racist, which is amazingly ignorant, or it is, but there is less concern about the pain it might cause...that too is racist. That was my point, and one which you seem to have missed in your attempt to justify a cover that is indefensible, and would never have a counterpart that did the same thing with Jewish folks
m+ b+ says:
You make two points which are not necessarily related
I didn't respond to the point you bring up because I don't particularly disagree with it, I just don't think it has much bearing on the other issue that you raised that I take issue with: that the New Yorker cover advances the Right Wing's agenda in smearing Obama with Fox News talking points.
The stigma against saying anything negative whatsoever about jewish people, Israel, AIPAC, etc. is very well doctumented, however, and not necessarily reflective of your argument, which, as I said before, I do not disagree with. I simply think you've completely missed the point of the New Yorker cover. I solidly believe it will do more good in forcing people in denial of their own racist and anti-muslim tendencies to confront those attitudes.
Frederic Christie says:
His Point Is The One That Matters
Let's say you're correct. Tim could easily be right that satirizing Nazis and anti-Semites in such a manner could have the same impact, yet the point is that there the people who'd be used as our political weapon have the clout to fight back if they're offended. Blacks don't. And it's exactly that wholesale ignorance of fundamental power differences that characterizes New York liberals.
Notice how you describe it as the "Right Wing's" agenda. As if Democrats and liberals played no part in racial or anti-Muslim agendas. As if it's only reactionary Republicans.
Frankly, I doubt that most whites of the group that Tim would be concerned about would pick up the New Yorker. But it DOES contribute to the backdrop of allegations and I am sure has already been used by some Horowitz-level ass to argue that "Even the Left knows that Obama's a terrorist!"
N Q says:
hidden racist imagery???
Hidden in plain view, maybe.
Andrew Oetzel says:
Unfair comparison . . .
Hey Tim,
While I half way agree with your overall point . . . that the cover was in bad taste. I think however your argument falls down when you make the comparison to Jewish issues and the Lieberman candidacy. Beyond some sort of Nazi sympathizer that you cite, no one was making overt claims of a Jewish conspiracy surrounding the Lieberman candidacy. Whereas with the Obamas major news organizations (NOT just Fox) have been making the suggestions that they are Muslims or terrorists or both. The Daily Show even did a comic montage of all of the various news agencies reporting on the rumors as part of its coverage of the New Yorker cover. Maybe if there had been rampant rumors and major news outlets reporting on the possibility of Lieberman being a Zionist Manchurian candidate the New Yorker might have run just such a cover as you describe. We'll never know because it wasn't at all a similar situation.
I think you are right to point out that overall anti-African American and anti-Muslim feelings are more permissible in American society in 2008 than Anti-Semitism. I honestly do think however that the folks at the New Yorker were reacting to that instead of taking part in it. They overplayed it and certainly underestimated the amount of outrage it would generate. (Another point that also undercuts one of your main points, but that’s another post.)
Just my 2 pennies.
Drew
Tim Wise says:
Actually....
your point only begs the question: why did the rumors, started by whack jobs, about Jewish conspiracies, not catch fire the way the Obama rumors did? In other words, you are right: the anti-Jewish rumors didn't have legs the way these against Obama have...but why not?
Secondly, if one wants to poke fun at the absurdity of these rumors, and not take any chance at being misunderstood (which is the kind of caution they would take with Jewish folks, but not folks of color or Muslims), one could always do a cover in which one caraicatured the PERPETRATORS of the rumors, as knuckle-dragging idiots, which they are, rather than caricaturing the TARGETS of the rumors. So, for instance, if any media outlet was going to satirize anti-Jewish conspiracies, they would picture klansmen or neo-Nazis, in appropriately unflattering ways, as a way to lambast THEM, rather than Jewish folks...they could have done the same here, and the fact that they didn't, is not, to me, a meaningless coincidence
Andrew Oetzel says:
Actually actually . . .
I think your rebuttal WAS my point. As I said above, you are quite right to point out the present currency of anti-black and anti-Muslim sentiments in American society. That being said, I don't think by second guessing the New Yorker's editorial choices you have found prima facie evidence of racism. Bad judgment certainly, but you haven’t made the case for racism.
That is not to say it couldn't be racism, just that the evidence you provide both in your main post and rebuttal is scant.
Tim Wise says:
Actually x3
...racism isn't determined by intent, but rather by impact. For example, even if poll taxes for voting hadn't been intended to disenfranchise blacks (but had merely had that effect, as if by coincidence), they still would have been racist. Standardized testing is racist and classist, irrespective of intent, because it furthers inequality. Likewise, humor of this kind is racist, regardless of intent, because it furthers a dominant racial framing of people of color, and can serve to reinforce racist thinking about people of color as "dangerous" and "exotic" and outsiders who are a threat to the established order. If people are ignorant and incapable of discerning irony--and sadly, that is true for most of us, an awful lot of the time--then the impact is not to get people thinking "my how ironic, how satirical" but rather to reinforce what polls suggest 15 percent of white folks already are willing to say they believe. Impact matters, intent is irrelevant. To the extent the cover merely keeps the discussion about Obama's Islamic connection alive as a centepiece of discussion, it harms him, because it allows for people to continue to wonder about it...it serves that function, regardless of intent. The impact is racist against this man as a man of color and religiously bigoted against Muslims generally (given the graphic linkage of Islam with fanaticism in the cartoon), and what they intended simply doesn't matter one whit.
It is also racist because the action was taken using a much lower threshhold than would have been used for other groups...in other words, the standard of care is different and less complete than with Jews, etc. That means that the New Yorker is willing to take the risk of being misunderstood or hurting people of color, in ways they wouldn't with other groups. That is racist in impact as well.
Andrew Oetzel says:
Intent vs. Impact, Cause vs. Symptom
First off I'd like to look at your assertion that impact only determines what is and isn't racism. And since you seem fond of Nazi examples, I've come up with a nice one. Swastikas as you know are not only symbols of the 3rd Reich but also potent religious symbols in many South Asian religions. So if a practicing Jane makes a vase covered with swastikas with the intent of honoring her religion, in your view, she would also be guilty of racism. This is of course an extreme example, but it makes the point that intent does matter. It's not exonerating in and of itself, but it does matter.
What I think is behind my basic objection to your first post and this reply is the focus on the effect and not the cause. For example, racist intent or no, standardized tests aren't the true cause of lack of achievement. By the time an underprivileged student takes the SAT she's already had 17 years of racist and classist educational and societal neglect to bring about a bad score. When we chose to advocate for changing the test or even abolishing the test we may be striking a blow against inequality, but are we really helping the core cause of the problem? Or are we providing a nice cover for the institutional and societal problems that lurk behind racist standardized tests?
In our present example, the New Yorker put a distasteful, controversial, and ill-conceived cartoon on its front cover. It can be argued that they were racist in their lack of consideration of how these satirical images might be seen and viewed beyond their own over-privileged and over-educated readership. But like the standardized tests above, this New Yorker cover is the symptom of a deeper problem. Unlike Fox News, the New Yorker had little to do with putting the ideas they were satirizing into the zeitgeist. So even if we were to obtain a full apology from the editors of the New Yorker with a special apologetic cover coming out next month, the racism spewed by Fox and echoed by the other television networks would continue. So maybe I'm right in thinking the editors of the New Yorker are stupid and insensitive but not racist, or maybe you are right in saying they are racists (and stupid and insensitive too I'm sure!) . . . but either way we're pointing our rhetorical guns in the wrong direction to truly solve or at least get society to look at the root cause of the issue. Luckily for us there are other folks who are!
Frederic Christie says:
Individual Instances Matter
"First off I'd like to look at your assertion that impact only determines what is and isn't racism. And since you seem fond of Nazi examples, I've come up with a nice one. Swastikas as you know are not only symbols of the 3rd Reich but also potent religious symbols in many South Asian religions. So if a practicing Jane makes a vase covered with swastikas with the intent of honoring her religion, in your view, she would also be guilty of racism. This is of course an extreme example, but it makes the point that intent does matter. It's not exonerating in and of itself, but it does matter."
She'd be guilty of incredible ignorance. ESPECIALLY if she made the mistake you did. The swastika is a REVERSED manji: It was designed to reverse the original intent as a representation of Surya, the sun. In Japan, manji are often depicted in manga and anime. When taken to America, they are routinely either censored or a disclaimer notice is put into the manga. This is all quite appropriate.
Remember that ignorance is in and of itself based in the capacity to BE ignorant. Blacks cannot be afford to be ignorant about racist symbols and warning signs, but whites can.
"What I think is behind my basic objection to your first post and this reply is the focus on the effect and not the cause. For example, racist intent or no, standardized tests aren't the true cause of lack of achievement. By the time an underprivileged student takes the SAT she's already had 17 years of racist and classist educational and societal neglect to bring about a bad score."
This is a silly argument. It's like saying that mortgage discrimination isn't why blacks are confined in poor neighborhoods, it's actually employment discrimination. Well, actually, it's both. That is, even kids who SURMOUNT the previous hurdles have numerous problems with the SAT, particularly the stereotype threat. Thus, the SAT functions as a racist gatekeeper, no matter how many other racist gatekeepers there are.
"When we chose to advocate for changing the test or even abolishing the test we may be striking a blow against inequality, but are we really helping the core cause of the problem? Or are we providing a nice cover for the institutional and societal problems that lurk behind racist standardized tests?"
We could do either or degrees of both depending on how our advocacy and tactics play out. That's moot to whether or not the SAT itself is racist, only as to the tactics we'll use to combat it.
"Unlike Fox News, the New Yorker had little to do with putting the ideas they were satirizing into the zeitgeist."
This is buck passing of the worst variety. It's like saying that if I make a racist joke, that racist joke is okay because in the background there's dozens more being said. Each has to be confronted and defeated in its own way. NAS illustrates the point: Don't give Fox a break, don't give the New Yorker a break.
Andrew Oetzel says:
lemme 'splain
Ok first off, my mistake. In spell checking my document I let MS Word change Jain to Jane . . . I was referring to a Jain not a Hindu. But no matter, let me give a few more examples to show how intent and not just impact matter.
Take for example the controversy over the use of the word niggardly in Washington DC back in 1999. An aide to the mayor in DC used the word in describing a budget item. Another person present heard the word as a racial slur and filed a complaint. Claiming he meant absolutely no racial slur in the use of the word, which is etymologically completely separate from the racial slur it resembles, the aide resigned anyway. Once it hit the general public there was a huge outpouring of support for the misunderstood aide, and even the president of the NAACP advocated that the aide be reinstated, which he was, in a different position. Intent always matters. As I stated above, intent is not the end of the discussion, but it cannot be ignored, and it certainly can't only be the impact of something that defines it.
I'm not passing the buck on the New Yorker. It's not at all "like saying that if I make a racist joke, that racist joke is okay because in the background there's dozens more being said." You have missed my point entirely in your rush to rebut it. Instead it's like telling a joke meant to make fun of racists but due to a clumsy telling coming off sounding racist instead. Is the joke teller guilty of racism automatically because they botched the joke? Probably not. Were they perhaps guilty of it in not thinking better of even trying to tell the joke at all? Perhaps. You seem to be saying that anything that can be misinterpreted as racism is racism, I just can't agree with that.
For instance what if the New Yorker cover had been two televisions, one labeled CNN and the other labeled Fox News. On the CNN television they depict the Obamas in the Oval Office dressed normally, and on the Fox television they depict the Obamas as they were on the cover dressed as a 70s Black Nationalist and a Muslim. This more directly aimed satire would also fail your test since any depiction of the Obamas in those outfits no matter what the context or the intent is always racism. I just can't buy that notion. Intent matters. Context matters.
As to cause vs. symptom, I stand by what I said. Mortgage discrimination is not separate at all from economic discrimination. It’s part of it. However, when we focus on mortgage discrimination we provide an easy fix and allow the public to think it’s doing right. “Look, we’ve outlawed mortgage discrimination, now we have color blind lending.” Never mind the fact that the harder to fix basic economic issues that underlie mortgage discrimination will continue unabated and unaddressed. In the same vein, all of us flipping out about how horrible and racist the editors of the New Yorker are (as much as I enjoy doing it), shines the light away from the true perps.
Now if only Nas's petition were getting as much attention as this was . . .
Frederic Christie says:
Stupidity Is Not An Excuse
Take for example the controversy over the use of the word niggardly in Washington DC back in 1999. An aide to the mayor in DC used the word in describing a budget item. Another person present heard the word as a racial slur and filed a complaint. Claiming he meant absolutely no racial slur in the use of the word, which is etymologically completely separate from the racial slur it resembles, the aide resigned anyway. Once it hit the general public there was a huge outpouring of support for the misunderstood aide, and even the president of the NAACP advocated that the aide be reinstated, which he was, in a different position. Intent always matters. As I stated above, intent is not the end of the discussion, but it cannot be ignored, and it certainly can't only be the impact of something that defines it."
But this is an incredibly silly example. The IMPACT of his speech was to offend almost no one, just one person who misheard. It clearly didn't contribute to a broader social scenario. There is a difference between being misheard and CONSCIOUSLY making a joke that plays on stereotypes.
"I'm not passing the buck on the New Yorker. It's not at all "like saying that if I make a racist joke, that racist joke is okay because in the background there's dozens more being said." You have missed my point entirely in your rush to rebut it. Instead it's like telling a joke meant to make fun of racists but due to a clumsy telling coming off sounding racist instead. Is the joke teller guilty of racism automatically because they botched the joke? Probably not. Were they perhaps guilty of it in not thinking better of even trying to tell the joke at all? Perhaps. You seem to be saying that anything that can be misinterpreted as racism is racism, I just can't agree with that."
That's neither Tim's nor my argument. Pay careful attention.
If I'm going to make a joke about racists and I'm going to make a joke about Jews to satirize Nazis (depicting them stealing money), inherently due to the way the power dynamics play out I am going to be stepping through far more minefields than if I do the same thing about blacks or Muslims.
Now, to even MAKE that choice, the choice the New Yorker made, is to be complicit in white privilege. Because the New Yorker had to know that if they DID inadvertently piss someone off, they weren't too likely to lose too many advertising dollars for it.
See the difference?
Your earlier argument WAS saying that due to the broader backdrop of racism, any individual misstep is unimportant. That was buckpassing and it's disingenuous to backpedal now. Your argument has been refined (I DO assume good faith on your part) to the idea that if due to the racist backdrop an ironic statement is misheard, then it's not your fault.
But why the hell isn't it?
If you consciously think about making a joke, as they undoubtedly did (since this is NOT a faux pas at a dinner party but cover art that had to be drawn and colored and put through editing and so forth, so they had plenty of time to think about it), and don't realize that the joke you're making, however well-intentioned, will have racist impact, YOU ARE CONTRIBUTING TO THE PROBLEM.
Are you as bad as a Nazi telling a joke? Maybe not. But the fact that a group like the New Yorker would go ahead and make the joke anyways, instead of going the much safer route and satirizing the type of person making the ridiculous allegations to Obama (and boy, are there some good satires there), shows that they are perfectly aware of how unable blacks are to fight back if they get offended. And it is THAT decision, not the decision to print the joke, that is racist.
The difference is that they didn't botch the joke. They did the joke right. It's just that the joke will be misheard, no matter how well it's told.
"As to cause vs. symptom, I stand by what I said. Mortgage discrimination is not separate at all from economic discrimination. It’s part of it. However, when we focus on mortgage discrimination we provide an easy fix and allow the public to think it’s doing right. “Look, we’ve outlawed mortgage discrimination, now we have color blind lending.”"
But that is true of absolutely ANY social change that doesn't immediately fix every problem in the world and thus is a fallacious argument from perfection. Even if we overturned racism, someone with Marxist or anarchist or leftist predilections like Tim and myself could easily argue that now we're being misled to thinking capitalism or statism are just. But that argument doesn't cut the mustard.
Think about it this way. If a movement gets up and says, "Mortgage discrimination is THE lynchpin issue. We solve it, we solve all of racism", and of course that turns out not to be the case, then not only will they have bred artificial contentment and cooption among those not paying attention, they'll have bred cynicism and renewed resistance to alternatives from those who do see the sham. And if the state manages to pacify or coopt the movement by granting this reform, same thing. But if the movement says vocally that mortgage discrimination is only the beginning, then leverages their victory in the mortgage discrimination field to enhance their resources and volunteers and hope, quite the opposite occurs.
Further, if a patient is too sick to fight off the cause, you have to treat symptoms. Aspirin is useful despite the fact that it doesn't solve the root cause of headaches. Similarly, social change that solves a symptom IS a good thing, even if it does nothing else.
Movements have had both trajectories. What trajectory NO movement has ever had, not once, is to skip all the hard work of social change and just jump right to the utopia. You have to begin where you are and use the right tactics to turn successes into momentum rather than complacency.
"For instance what if the New Yorker cover had been two televisions, one labeled CNN and the other labeled Fox News. On the CNN television they depict the Obamas in the Oval Office dressed normally, and on the Fox television they depict the Obamas as they were on the cover dressed as a 70s Black Nationalist and a Muslim. This more directly aimed satire would also fail your test since any depiction of the Obamas in those outfits no matter what the context or the intent is always racism. I just can't buy that notion. Intent matters. Context matters."
No, see, both Tim and I said CLEARLY that THAT would be fine. Because then it's clearly satirizing FOX. The question for you is: Why didn't the New Yorker make that simple, easy choice?
Is it because they were stupid? And do you want to let them off the hook for the type of stupidity and insensitivity that only privileged white folks can have?
Or is it because they made a CONSCIOUS choice to go for the "edgier" satire, the choice they NEVER would have made were the targets Nazis and Buchanan mocking Jews, because they knew that they could get away with it?
Either way, the New Yorker made a racist decision.
Yeah, intent matters and context matters. But drunk drivers don't intend to kill anyone. It's still no excuse.
Carol M says:
I believe impact holds more weight...
I know you have stated in your later posts that your INTENTION was not to pass the buck, but this last paragraph smells like pass-the-buckism. We can look at the root cause of the issue and look at this issue as well, both have succeeded in opening up half-baked dialogues about race in which blacks are pinned as too stupid/too sensitive/too whiny to differentiate racism from non-racism. Both have served the purpose of allowing white liberals and white conservatives to have a "racial bonding" moment and rant incessantly about how blacks play the "race-card" too much. The New Yorker's intentions are out the window, this moment now goes down into the White Nationalist Record Book as one more time where blacks have gotten "whiny" over "nothing". Courtesy, of New Yorker.
I have a very difficult time believeing that New Yorker didn't think they were skating on offensive thin ice or that their picture would be perfectly understood, and that it would serve the purpose of making fun of conservative views (without actually making fun of CONSERVATIVES in the picture). Regardless to what their intent was, they chose to make fun of the VICTIMS instead of the PERPS. That's comparable to someone making fun of sexists by showing a very sexist picture of a woman.... what good does it do? If sexists are sexist against women...how exactly is a SEXIST picture of a woman going to pull the chords of the sexist man? How is that going to make them look inside themselves and question their views? It's not. New Yorker's picture is epic failure to say the least, and has just surfaced back the racial tension that had calmed after Rev Wright. Not only that, but it served the purpose of reinforcing more stereotypes. I hate to meet the white conservative raised kid (who is exposed to NO black people) when they first saw that picture.
I don't think that the New Yorker's intent is relevant in this case. It had an effect that was not intended, but it darn sure had an effect...at the expense of Muslims and blacks. There is a cartoon called The Boondocks, that at first glance is HIGHLY offensive; upon reading the views of the creator, it becomes obvious that the creator of the television show had intended on it being a satirical cartoon that reveales issues in the black community (by using extreme versions of stereotypes). Shirley Q. Liquor is a gay man who does blackface in drag, he claims that his "intent" is to do God's work. He claims that making fun of black women was what God told him to do...his "intent" is his scapegoat, and when people oppose his blackface routine..he relies on his "intent" to keep people (mostly white) from calling him racist. No surprise, but using "intent" as an excuse goes over well with many people (not many seem to be racial or religious minorities, though). Both examples that I have used, perpetuate the most common stereotypes blacks have to endure, and BOTH of the people who perpetuate these stereotypes claim to not have malice in their heart...but honestly, what difference does that make? If my intention is to spread the word of God to a gay teen, and I (without malice) tell them that homosexuality is an abomination unto the Lord and they BELIEVE me and internalize that view. Than what difference does it make for me to claim that I didn't "intentionally do it"? The least I could do is apologize for the mishap and harm that I caused the gay teen, similarly the LEAST New Yorker could do (I'm unaware of whether they have done this or not) is apologize for inadvertantly perpetuating more anti-black and anti-Muslim stereotypes.Most people classify spreading anti-black, anti-gay, anti-Muslim ect stereotypes as being racist/heterosexist/bigoted ect, but I suppose that is one of those "eye of the beholder" type things.
Frederic Christie says:
Boondocks Aren't SO Bad
I'm actually okay with the Boondocks. It's a show that takes radical assumptions to heart and undergirds it, with brilliant critiques of white privilege within it. I must admit I wince when I see some of the more extreme racial stereotypes. But the stereotypes are one thing when within the community (McGruder being black) and quite another when outside.
Carol M says:
Hmmm
I suppose it all depends on what angle you are looking at it from. Initially, I loved the Boondocks for the exact reasons you described, it shed light on issues that white people, collectively, seem to not want to hear, however...later in the series, the Boondocks went from "educational and funny" to "This is a Ni**a Moment". I also think that the audiences McGruder marketed to changed greatly. Originally, everyone from Larry Elder to white conservatives hated Aaron for his comic strip and his cartoon, however something happened. As the show progressed, it became more of a "take personal responsibility Black folk" cartoon instead of the cartoon it was before. One of the most bothersome cartoons of them all, for me, was the Hurricane Katrina episode. The Blacks on the show were portrayed as lazy bums who just wanted to "get they check" and mooch off of the government.
You are absolutely right, Blacks often times have "race talk" amongst themselves and call for "responsibility moments" (actually this happens a LOT) but this cartoon isn't all-in the family, so to speak...it's shown in conservative households where they ALREADY view Blacks as "thugalicious", Afrocentric, and non-productive. Huey makes wonderful points throughout the show, but I fear that his views are often over-looked by people who are not apart of the Black community, and instead they take notice to other things such as the incessant use of the n word that is said throughout the show.
Frederic Christie says:
I'm Not So Sure
Yeah, I must admit that its presence on Adult Swim means that it's likely to be targeting at least in part a lot of white college students and generally the white 18-35 demographic. Then again, this is nothing new for McGruder. He's constantly been on the most controversial edge of self-criticism for the black community. But I do think that a lot of the explicitly critical stuff from the comic has definitely been lost, which is a pity. Reading what was available of the strips on Adult Swim, there is DEFINITELY a massive juxtaposition with the daily radical information. And in interviews, McGruder has backpedaled from the politics, saying he's trying to provide entertainment.
I do have to say that it being shown in conservative households is mostly an accident. It's on UPN, which most conservatives won't go to unless they're paid to, and Adult Swim, which is a late-night cartoon broadcast and thus is only really interesting to the young demographic they target (otaku, college kids, etc.)
Among my mostly white friends, it's a mixed story. Most of them think Huey, Riley and Grandpa are awesome characters, which is definitely good. Some of them use the Boondocks to give a sort of cultural veneer to stereotypes. Then again, the average impact that I've seen has been overwhelmingly positive. They'll hold those stereotypes no matter how many PSAs we throw at them that say that the stereotypes are horseshit. What the Boondocks has managed to do is make thoroughly black characters into REAL people. Maybe flawed people, maybe even satires of people, but at least real, relatable people. For example, the episode with Thugnificence moving in ended up showing that underneath the rap and glitter, Thugnificence WAS trying to be reasonable to his neighbors and it was actually Riley at fault for a substantial portion of the friction. Gin and Rummy are brilliant satires of Bush and Cheney as well as the general politics of white privilege. The episode with the X-Box Killer was very good with this: A black man wrongly accused, an implicit criticism of Afghanistan and Iraq, etc. And the satire of some of the over-the-top sexuality and masculinity of rappers being homoerotic was also brilliant.
I think that at the end of the day, the Boondocks does give some ammo to those already predisposed to have stereotypical views. But there is no shortage of ammo in daily media. Those who don't will recognize the Katrina moochers and such as a satire of the stereotypes from within the black community. Meanwhile, the show opens up a lot of issues within the black community and I think really makes the culture accessible to outsiders (Chappelle's Show did something similar). And its critiques are just spot on. In general, Adult Swim tends to lean liberal or even radical in its presuppositions and arguments. And since it's an explicitly POLITICAL show, it also helps to counter apathy by making politics entertaining. Bringing people to the table is probably the most important thing a show can do. I think that if Huey became much more anvilicious with his points, it'd simply turn off a lot of viewers.
The show's second season, I'm afraid, did something worse for me: It started drifting away from politics. The episodes with Stinkmeaner's Return and with Soul Plane 2 are brilliant and funny, with gorgeous martial art scenes, but most of the season abandoned much political criticism at all, bad or good. I think THAT'S the problem.
There has definitely been a rightward drift in McGruder's work, though. Pretty predictable...
Jim Shapiro says:
Standardized testing as tool of white oppression
Standardized testing is racist and classist? Is that why poor whites score higher on average than rich blacks? Standard tests do not further inequality anymore than stopwatches further inequality in track and field competitions. The data upset your PC racial fictions, ergo they are bad.
Leftists hate standardized tests and distrust the whole field of psychometrics - unless, of course, it's to get a low-IQ murderer off death row. Leftists denigrate minor genetic differences as meaningless, and are uneasy with the use of DNA to profile suspects, but if DNA science is used to spring a wrongfully-convicted person from prison, then liberals embrace it without reservation. The same mentality says that race racial differences dosn't really exist, but has no problem seeing race when advocating or enforcing affirmative action programs.
Pointing out these double standards probably makes me a "racist."
Tim Wise: "in other words, the standard of care is different and less complete than with Jews"
Tim, go check out The New Yorker cover from several years ago depicting several denizens of the Big Apple on the subway in which each passenger was portrayed as an animal. The effect was altogether humorous until someone wrote in to protest the supposed bad taste in depicting a Rabbi as a buffalo. "Egad, a Jew with horns! A throwback to medieval anti-Semitism!" someone protested in a letter to the editor. Give me a break, the magazine routinely makes fun of even its readers.
If Obama gets elected, will the country have to walk on eggshells in the humor department?
Frederic Christie says:
All Those Sources...
I notice your devastating array of sources to prop up the claim that the SAT isn't racist - oh, odd, I guess my reading skills (despite scoring high on the verbal section) are atrophied, because there's not a damn one.
First: The very format of a standardized test, the way it is set up as an end-all be-all, a Holy Grail, has been shown conclusively (this is in modern psych textbooks, so it's you who is showing antagonism to psychometrics) by work by Shelby Steele to generate "stereotype threat". Black and minority students routinely suffer lower scores because of the psychological impact of race. While this may not sound like the SAT's fault, the point is that this is NOT true about all testing paradigms. Steele's work shows that there are ways of presenting the test that reduce or eliminate the unique pressure to minority students and thus eliminate this particular gap.
Second, for you to honestly believe that any standardized test based on knowledge and learned skills could possibly be a fair adjudicator shows that you're an idealogue, not a psychometrics advocate. If one school can afford honors classes, SAT-prep materials, tutors, etc. and another can't, who do you HONESTLY think is going to do better, even if the test is 100% fair? And if those funding discrepancies are due to past and ongoing racism, should it be no surprise when the discrepancies are partially racial? Again: This superficially is not the SAT's or standardized testing's fault. There's nothing they can do about that, the best hope they have is to put forth a fair test. But that's not the only thing the SAT does. Rather, the SAT takes advantage of ancillary businesses it generates around it (textbooks and tutors and so on) which are dispro white in their customers. More importantly, the SAT, ACT, AP, etc. present themselves as neutral arbiters of merit and good indicators of college performance. Ergo, if a black student does badly, the implication is that class and race are moot, they're just not as good of students. Thus, they end up giving plausible deniability to college administrators, employers, etc. While it's obvious that a failing schools' GRADES should be taken with a grain of salt, certainly not the SAT, right?!
Third, EVERY serious study of the SAT's material shows that it is culturally sensitive. Look up Tim's articles on the topic. Suffice it to say that standardized testing hasn't graduated far from the days when it showed black Africans people playing tennis and asked them to draw the net when most of them,had never seen the game. And, yes, it is surmountable here as well.
It's not the "left" that shows antagonism to psychometrics. It's science. We simply don't have the data that the SAT pretended we did to make some kind of scientifically-confirmed brainpower-generated meritocracy. While there's no harm alone in making this claim, the problem is that it being so scientifically empty is because of it being so serviceable to legitimizing already existing discrepancies in wealth and power between groups.
Similarly, it's not the "left" that shows antagonism to what you think is the science of genetic differences, but SCIENCE. Our usage of DNA to clear a criminal is both just and within the scientific community's capacity: We know that if a DNA strand doesn't match a killer, it's highly unlikely it was them. Think about it this way: Leftists didn't whine about blood types, did we? Did you encounter any leftist that was against blood typing? No. Because there's no social stigma about blood typing. There is about race.
The reason why scientists and, therefore, the left say minor genetic differfences are meaningless is because they are, SOCIALLY. Yes, blacks are likely to be taller, have curly hair, have darker skin, etc. This is true. And, yes, less trivially there are inherited diseases, for example, that cluster in racial groups. But the point is that the difference between any two racial groups not only clusters in something like five to twenty alleles controlling only a tiny amount of traits none of which are relevant to socially-significant traits like character traits or intelligence, but is larger INTERNAL to the group than BETWEEN groups. That is, if you take two random black and white folks, in the clash and jangle of competing effects they're actually slightly more likely to be ALIKE than two blacks or two whites!
It is the height of idiocy to make an analogy between DNA testing of criminals and using DNA to establish racial categories. The former is science, the latter is a chimera, and there is virtually no reputable biologist who will tell you otherwise.
And, no, making these arguments doesn't make you a racist. The implications you make are.
Your analogy regarding the subway cover is about as bad as the rest of them. Simply presenting a group of people on the subway as animals doesn't make an intrinsically racialized point. Showing Obama as a scary Muslim does. But it seems you are so far out of touch with basic fact and basic experience about race that this will undoubtedly befuddle you.
Frederic Christie says:
Class versus Race
Oh, and one last thing, Jim: Your presumption that the only thing that matters socially between blacks and whites is class alone shows that you have no clothes, sociologically speaking. Even poor whites routinely have access to buddies' test materials and some spillover benefits from tutors from people who aren't so poor. I knew plenty of poor people in my own high school who nonetheless, thanks to the difference between what "poor" means in this country between white and black, were able to get from our school library or purchase used or borrow or SOMETHING an SAT prep book. That social network is not available for blacks by and large: Their libraries are not nice and well-funded with SAT prep material (or even books from this decade), a tiny fraction of their friends have the books on hands, etc. And the stereotype threat, the cultural nature of the SAT, the fact that even rich blacks are likely to be put into remedial classes disproportionately, the fact that even rich blacks are likely to thanks to de facto segregation be attending the same failing high schools as their poorer brethren (or, barring that, go to expensive private schools where they are often treated as the token Sambo, so to speak), etc. all collude to make the matter FAR less about class and more about race. But, see, you've made yourself a nice circular little argument, and woe be it to the leftist (or, indeed, the person who can read and process an argument) to shit on your parade by pointing out that there are innumerable class-independent impacts of racism, such that (as Tim's repeated to the point of bromides) rich blacks more closely emulate poor whites than people in their economic echelon, and poor whites have certain advantages even rich blacks do not. Odd that you'd be completely ignorant of this data...
Jim Shapiro says:
Can Frederic's ignorance be cured?
Frederic Christie says:
>First: The very format of a standardized test, the way it is set up as an end-all be-all, a Holy Grail, has been shown conclusively (this is in modern psych textbooks, so it's you who is showing antagonism to psychometrics) by work by Shelby Steele to generate "stereotype threat".
Shelby Steele? Don’t you mean Claude Steele, Shelby’s brother? And I believe he called his notion “stereotype vulnerability,” not “stereotype threat.” (And you accuse me of being ignorant?) BTW, Shelby has been very outspoken in opposing his brother’s views.
>Black and minority students routinely suffer lower scores
Asian-Americans aren’t a minority? http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0883611.html
>because of the psychological impact of race. While this may not sound like the SAT's fault, the point is that this is NOT true about all testing paradigms. Steele's work shows that there are ways of presenting the test that reduce or eliminate the unique pressure to minority students and thus eliminate this particular gap.
Wrong. Go read his study. (Steele and Aronson 1995) They tested the black students under one set of condition, they tested the white students under a different set of conditions, and then they compared the results. That’s not how real science is done.
>Second, for you to honestly believe that any standardized test based on knowledge and learned skills could possibly be a fair adjudicator shows that you're an ideologue [sic], not a psychometrics advocate.
The main scientific evidence of black/white differences does not come from standardized tests based on knowledge and learned skills. The main evidence of black/white differences in intelligence is black and white performance on standardized intelligence tests. Competent authorities agree that, as measured by the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, the Wechseler Intelligence Scale for Children, the Raven ‘s Progressive Matrices, and similar instruments, the mean IQ of whites exceeds that of American blacks by about one white standard deviation. When IQ is scaled so that the white mean is 100 and the SD is 15, the black mean is about 85 and the black SD slightly less than 15. In other words, the average white person has a higher IQ than about 88% of American blacks.
The most thorough survey of the literature through 1966 is Shuey’s The Testing of Negro Intelligence (1966), which reports 382 comparative studies involving 80 different tests administered to hundreds of thousands of black and white children, high school and college students, military personnel, civilian adults, deviates, and criminals. The difference is mean IQs in the various studies range from 12 to 18 points.
In what must be considered the definitive study of ability testing by a neutral scientific body, the National Academy of Science confirmed that “the roughly one-standard-deviation difference in test scores between blacks and white students in this country found by Coleman et al. is typical of other studies.” (Garner and Wigdor 1982)
>If one school can afford honors classes,
Did you know that public schools offer honors courses? And that public schools do not charge tuition?
>SAT-prep materials, tutors, etc. and another can't,
Test prep courses cost anywhere between $200 and $1200. I just took a graduate school test prep course. Out of 16 students in the course, 11 were either black, latino, or Asian. Your old whine of “oh the poor blacks mired in poverty just can’t afford a test prep course” just doesn’t hold water. Only one-fourth of blacks live in "poverty." Have you been to a mall lately? Hard to get all weepy-eyed about "poverty" when it walks past you in $200 sneakers.
>Third, EVERY serious study of the SAT's material shows that it is culturally sensitive.
Ah yes, the culturally biased questions on the SAT. I remember when I took the SAT I saw many questions like the following.
“You’re on your way from an afternoon tennis engagement at your country club to a formal party at the yacht club when you realize that you have inadvertently left your formal attire at home. Should you
(A) proceed directly o the yacht club and apologize to the host for wearing casual attire after 5 pm;
(B) take a detour to your home in order to change into appropriate formal wear, and then apologize to the host for running late;
(C) proceed directly to the yacht club and ask the host if you might borrow appropriate attire; or
(D) take the A-train uptown.”
That question trips up the brothers every time. ;)
Apparently it’s biased in favor of Asian-Americans.
Average white SAT score in 2006: 1582
Average Asian-American SAT score in 2006: 1600
Listen, Frederic, your claim is specious, and has been dealt with repeatedly within the scientific literature. Items on the nonverbal Raven’s Matrices, for instance, on which black performance is particularly poor, ask the subject to select the pieces missing from patterns. Given the ubiquity of patterns in daily experience, to say that blacks are less familiar with them than whites virtually concedes a difference in cognitive function.
Did you know that standardized tests predict performance on such criteria as academic achievement and vocational success as accurately for blacks as for whites? Blacks not only fail to earn higher grades than whites who have achieved the same SAT scores, they in fact earn somewhat lower grades than SAT-equivalent whites, by definition bias against whites.
>Look up Tim's articles on the topic.
Has Tim done any original research into the question of psychometrics? No. He’s just a polemicist with an arrogant, vulgar style of debate who repeats Leon Kamin and Stephen Gould. Tim's no scientist. The fact that anyone takes him seriously boggles the mind.
>The reason why scientists and, therefore, the left say minor genetic differfences [sic] are meaningless is because they are, SOCIALLY.
Wrong again. Read J. Philippe Rushton’s Race, Evolution and Behavior: A Life History Perspective (1995). Blacks have shorter gestation periods on average, black women are more fertile, blacks have greater incidence of twining, there's greater incidence of child mortality, black children walk and talk before whites, reach puberty before whites, have shorter lifespans than whites, etc. None of that is all that controversial, but the fact that genes affect us above the neck as well as below the neck - now we're on dangerous ground. Did you know that blacks have on average smaller brains?
FACT: Among human races numerous studies have been made of the comparative weight of White and Negro brains with results that fell within the range of about an 8-12 percent lower weight for the Negro brain. Such studies have been conducted by Bean, Pearl, Vint, Tilney, Gordon, Todd, and others.
FACT: In addition to the difference in brain weight, the Negro brain grows less after puberty than the white. Though the Negro brain and nervous system mature faster than the white brain, its development is arrested at an earlier age which limits further intellectual advancement.
FACT: The thickness of the supragranular layer (the outside layer)of the Negro brain is about 15 percent thinner, and its convolutions are fewer and more simple, on average, than that of the White brain.
FACT: The frontal lobes of the Negro brain, responsible for abstract conceptional reasoning, are smaller relative to body weight, less fissured, and less complex than those of the White brain.
Little wonder that when Europeans first landed in sub-saharan Africa, they found that the Africans had what is euphemistically described as “a rich oral tradition.” Professor Vandenberg teaches in sub-saharan Africa. He related to me the story of how one of his studentsnoticed that he had an English dictionary in his office. She asked him why, and he replied that he needed if for the times that he encountered a word that he didn't know. She was perplexed. "But you speak English! Why would you need a dictionary?" If your tribe has a "rich oral tradition," you don't need a dictionary. If your tribe as been producing literature for the past five thousand years, then you need a dictionary. It wasn't until the evil old Europeans arrived in Africa that the languages were written down.
>It is the height of idiocy to make an analogy between DNA testing of criminals and using DNA to establish racial categories. The former is science, the latter is a chimera, and there is virtually no reputable biologist who will tell you otherwise.
Wrong again. Meet Tony Frudakis, molecular biologist. Dr. Frudakis runs DNAPrint Genomics and has developed a test called "DNAWitness," a product that uses Ancestry Informative Markers for a forensic purpose. By using the same ancestry tests on DNA evidence from crime scenes, DNAPrint Genomics can help narrow down suspects based on race. See “The Inconvenient Science of Racial DNA Profiling,” by Melba Newsome in Wired, 10/5/07. If you can look at something under a microscope, it isn’t a “social construct.”
>Your analogy regarding the subway cover is about as bad as the rest of them. Simply presenting a group of people on the subway as animals doesn't make an intrinsically racialized point. Showing Obama as a scary Muslim does.
Depicting a Jew with horns isn’t racist.
Showing Obama dressed in Muslim garb – like this http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/images/2008/02/24/obama_... - is racist.
Yeah, OK, sure, whatever.
>Oh, and one last thing, Jim: Your presumption that the only thing that matters socially between blacks and whites is class alone shows that you have no clothes, sociologically speaking.
If you think that I ever made such an assumption then your reading comprehension skills are seriously deficient.
I don’t have time to school you any further today, so here’s your reading assignment.
Why Race Matter by Michael Levin (2005).
Race: The Reality of Human Differences by Vincent Sarich and Frank Miele (2004)
Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis by Richard Lynn (2006)
The Global Bell Curve: Race, IQ, and Inequality Worldwide by Richard Lynn (2008)
The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability by Arthur R. Jensen (1998). If this book is too big and difficult for you, then you might want to read Intelligence, Race and Genetics: Conversations With Arthur R. Jensen by Frank Miele (2002)
Understanding Human History by Michael Hart (2007)
Frederic Christie says:
A Failure of Science
"Shelby Steele? Don’t you mean Claude Steele, Shelby’s brother? And I believe he called his notion “stereotype vulnerability,” not “stereotype threat.” (And you accuse me of being ignorant?) BTW, Shelby has been very outspoken in opposing his brother’s views."
Ah, yes, I apologize for mistaking the one brother for the other. (You WERE ignorant, and you compound your ignorance by continuing to speak). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat . There's the wiki, man. Both terms are used in the technical literature.
Shelby's comments are neither here nor there, though it's quite funny that Claude's work so drastically undermines his brothers'.
"Asian-Americans aren’t a minority? http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0883611.html"
Pointing to X or Y minority group that does better or worse is moot. Note, of course, that those who point to Asian American success never say that Asian Amerians should replace whites in college or electoral politics. Nor do they speak about Asian-American communities' real problems with racism, like the fact that APAs with college degrees make less on average than whites with high school degrees.
Further, studies have shown that APA achievement on standardized tests is no simple matter: http://www.asianweek.com/2008/09/17/asian-americans-sat-stars/ . To quote: "In 1995, a detailed breakdown showed that Asians were not just six times more likely to get the highest scores, they were just as likely to be bunched up at the bottom with miserable verbal and math scores as well."
In fact, as the book Whitewashing Race makes clear, your psychometrics argument is belied by the very group you look at: http://books.google.com/books?id=W78KmJJTz1kC&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=Asia... . Higher SAT performance among Asians co-exists right alongside lower wages as a group despite
The main problem with this argument is that Asians and blacks are not analogous groups. Asian-Americans have opportunities for advancement blacks do not. They are not historically kept in ghetto areas, are much more likely to be able to attend elite or at least passable schools instead of failing schools, are much less likely to be put into remedial classes and academically disciplined. And Claude's data shows that APAs simply don't feel as strongly the stigma that black students do. So parroting this model minority myth is not only insulting to both blacks and Asians, but it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"Wrong. Go read his study. (Steele and Aronson 1995) [sic, no period] They tested the black students under one set of condition [sic], they tested the white students under a different set of conditions, and then they compared the results. That’s not how real science is done."
Which is why Catherine Good's study, Amy Keifer's study, another study with Aronson (this time partnered with McGlone), and numerous other studies have confirmed the data afterwards. Further, Claude and Aronson only confirmed for race data that was already well accepted from the 60s by Irwin Katz, where blacks performed better on tests when they were told they would only be compared to other blacks. In fact, over 100 journal articles have confirmed the data, and almost no contradictory data exists against it, and the concept has found its way into sociology and psychology textbooks. So, again, you are the one in the scientific minority, not Tim. All of the information shows unambiguously that in all standardized tests, race and gender are "in the room", but that there are ways of presenting the data, studying, etc. that mitigate the impact. Which would be the basis for effective social policy to rectify the problem if we cared about black folks. Get the picture?
"The main scientific evidence of black/white differences does not come from standardized tests based on knowledge and learned skills. The main evidence of black/white differences in intelligence is black and white performance on standardized intelligence tests."
And all standardized intelligence tests are based on knowledge and learned skills, not least text-taking methodologies overwhelmingly taught to whites, literacy in the reading of the test, etc. It's not even close to controversial that scores on IQ tests can be raised through study, and similarly it's not controversial (despite your claims to the contrary) that black and white results on intelligence tests vary due to factors not related to intelligence.
"Competent authorities agree that, as measured by the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, the Wechseler Intelligence Scale for Children, the Raven ‘s Progressive Matrices, and similar instruments, the mean IQ of whites exceeds that of American blacks by about one white standard deviation. When IQ is scaled so that the white mean is 100 and the SD is 15, the black mean is about 85 and the black SD slightly less than 15. In other words, the average white person has a higher IQ than about 88% of American blacks."
Which "competent authorities?" Cherry-picked authorities you happen to like? Murray and Herrnstein?
Putting aside that much of the data that forms these conclusions is quite bad, there are an array of non-genetic explanations: Stereotype threat (which would trigger from any standardized test, intelligence or not), health, class, quality of education, racial caste (after all, in many Asian countries low caste people score lower on tests, the same groups that score highly here), etc. None of which can be extricated from race, of course.
"The most thorough survey of the literature through 1966 is Shuey’s The Testing of Negro Intelligence (1966), which reports 382 comparative studies involving 80 different tests administered to hundreds of thousands of black and white children, high school and college students, military personnel, civilian adults, deviates, and criminals. The difference is mean IQs in the various studies range from 12 to 18 points."
The fact that you are proposing we take seriously a paper written in 1966 called "The Testing of Negro Intelligence" examining blacks under Jim Crow when even under law they were second-class citizens says more about the ideology that you substitute for science than anything I could say.
"Did you know that public schools offer honors courses? And that public schools do not charge tuition?"
Do you know that you are an arrogant ideologue?
It is an accepted social science fact that the amount and quality of honors courses vary according to the quality and funding of the school. This is a no-brainer. And, since overwhelmingly minority inner city schools and other segregated schools get less property taxes, less funding and are worse schools, they have less honors programs. Ergo, black students even barring active discrimination against them individually are less able to access honors and AP programs. Even Northwestern University, hardly a hotbed of leftist political correctness, admits that to look at someone who took one honors class because that was the one class offered at her/his school and grade her/him against someone who took five out of the eight s/he could have is quite silly. Putting that aside, as I'm sure you are well aware (and as Tim cites on this very blog), blacks are more likely to be disciplined for the same infractions as whites and more likely to be put into remedial track education instead of honors track education. Also, the fact that one can attend an honors class is moot to one's ability to ace AP, SAT and other standardized courses, where tutoring and preparation books are massive advantages. Those of COURSE are connected to class, which in turn implicates race. The fact that you thought this was the height of wisdom as a response again shows how seriously you intend to be taken.
"
“You’re on your way from an afternoon tennis engagement at your country club to a formal party at the yacht club when you realize that you have inadvertently left your formal attire at home. Should you
(A) proceed directly o the yacht club and apologize to the host for wearing casual attire after 5 pm;
(B) take a detour to your home in order to change into appropriate formal wear, and then apologize to the host for running late;
(C) proceed directly to the yacht club and ask the host if you might borrow appropriate attire; or
(D) take the A-train uptown.”
That question trips up the brothers every time. ;)"
Or, y'know, asking people who've never heard of tennis to draw a net in an incomplete picture. Like that pre-1966 data you think is so compelling. But, hey, you want to call black folks "brothers" like you're one of them. You're so hip and edgy and racist!
"Listen, Frederic, your claim is specious, and has been dealt with repeatedly within the scientific literature. Items on the nonverbal Raven’s Matrices, for instance, on which black performance is particularly poor, ask the subject to select the pieces missing from patterns. Given the ubiquity of patterns in daily experience, to say that blacks are less familiar with them than whites virtually concedes a difference in cognitive function."
Picking one test as an example does not your point behoove. The claim I'm making has been RAISED repeatedly within the scientific literature: The jury is far from out, and where it absolutely IS out is the idea that any genetic difference (i.e. any non-social difference) could explain gaps in achievement. No geneticist will side with you on this score, so all you're doing is proving the salience of race and the complexity of the issues. Gould, as you rightly note, is one of the many who has looked into the dishonesty and quite blatant racism in psychometry since its founding, and there are hundreds of studies that demonstrate that cultural bias can impact even non-verbal testing, not to mention all the other issues I brought up...
"Wrong again. Read J. Philippe Rushton’s Race, Evolution and Behavior: A Life History Perspective (1995). Blacks have shorter gestation periods on average, black women are more fertile, blacks have greater incidence of twining, there's greater incidence of child mortality, black children walk and talk before whites, reach puberty before whites, have shorter lifespans than whites, etc. None of that is all that controversial, but the fact that genes affect us above the neck as well as below the neck - now we're on dangerous ground. Did you know that blacks have on average smaller brains?"
Phillipe Rushton, the man who purported to DEMONSTRATE this point by going to malls and asking how far people ejaculate and whose conduct was described as a "serious breach of scholarly procedure" of his own President? The man who has been exposed over and over as a deceitful shill for the Heritage Foundation and who entire books have been written to undermine? Please.
I have no time for morons who want to revive the Bell Curve, Rushton and other out-and-out racists who deny their own premises. (Hint: Check out what Murray was doing before he decided to jump onto the psychometry bandwagon. He was actually denying genetics mattered. What an interesting change of opinion). I'll simply point to http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/gettingserious.html , which shows how white pathologies are given excuses and attended to (like the poll that showed how many white students want to riot) and http://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/ukwise.htm , Tim's extensive and cited reply. Tim cites dozens of folks and makes a complex case.
"Has Tim done any original research into the question of psychometrics? No. He’s just a polemicist with an arrogant, vulgar style of debate who repeats Leon Kamin and Stephen Gould. Tim's no scientist. The fact that anyone takes him seriously boggles the mind."
So what? Are you an original researcher on psychometrics? If two original researchers on psychometrics disagree, as you clearly cite at least two who differ (and there's plenty of others), are they both right and both wrong? Can only people in this elite little club even bring up the topic? Now you have graduated from insulting genetic and psychometric science to assaulting the foundations of science wholeheartedly. The point of science is that we are able to evaluate positions, look at proof and make social policy based on the positions we view as compelling. You would rather just point to a big book that says SCIENCE and espouses your views
Jensen, Murray, Herrnstein... You know, the sad part is that I was hoping for something a little more nuanced. But you are simply a racist, sir, and a cyclical and arrogant one at that. All arguments you perceive will allow you to view blacks as inferior and whites as superior. Science has failed you, unfortunately.
James Morney says:
Very eye-opening essay
I must say that you have a truly wonderful gift when it comes to dissecting bogus defenses offered for racism. I only found out about you just a couple of months ago and have been captivated by some of your essays as well as youtube videos.
I agree whole-heartedly with this essay. As another example, one could play the hypothetical game if Hillary Clinton had won the Democratic Party nomination. Women are often stereotyped as being weak and female politicians are thus often stereotyped as not being strong enough to be a commander-in-chief. On a side note, I think that's probably why Hillary refused to apologize for her Iraq war vote when it was clear that Obama was garnering the support of the anti-Iraq War crowd. The Republican Party would have portrayed her (as they are trying to do with Barack Obama) as wanting to surrender, cut and run, and embrace defeat. Could you imagine a New Yorker cover aimed at "debunking" the stereotype of female politicians being weak on military using Hillary? I guess they would have a picture of her bending over grabbing her ankles while military leaders of other countries are standing in line outside of the room waiting to come in. The New Yorker would probably be shut down if they published something like that because it would obviously be sexist.
Please keep up the great work. There aren't enough advocates in this country like yourself.
Bruce Cohen says:
You Gotta Love Racist White New York Liberals
No, really, I don't. As a Jew, a left-wing progressive, and a person who dislikes bigotry of any kind, I've been dealing with "liberals" like the ones who decided that cover was a good idea for more decades than I like to think about, and I still boggle every time I see see that sort of clueless "satire". How anyone can grow up in the US and not be aware of the extent of white privilege and lack of sensitivity to non-white lack of privilege and its consequences is something I've never understood, though I've had the truth of it jammed in my face many times.
Only a couple of days ago a person I'm fond of whose intelligence and learning I respect succeeded in bringing a discussion about this subject to the point where most of the participants left rather than continue. No amount of clear and cogent explanation would get him to see that he was causing a number of people of color a great deal of distress and anger by insisting that reactions to that sort of casual racist remark were "too sensitive" and "counterproductive". Needless to say I'm not as fond of him as I once was.
It's clear to me, and to a lot of people I know, both persons of color and white people, that there is an implicit hierarchy of privilege and of the right not to be harmed physically and emotionally by others in this country. Until this fact becomes part of the consensus view of our society, we'll never get past it, and America will remain a racist society.
Stockton ToMalone says:
I have only recently been
I have only recently been introduced to your work Mr. Wise, and I must say, I am very, very impressed, and thankful for your contributions. Thank you.
William Branch says:
It's a juggling act...
...taking advantage of what one perceives as an opportunity to slam the people who harbor notions that lead them to take discriminatory actions against people of color (voting against Obama, for instance), while taking care not to hurt the feelings of pocs.