Institute of Christian Growth
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August 2013
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By William P. Wilson, M. D.

Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry
Duke University Medical Center
Durham, NC 

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Counseling
Carolina Graduate School of Divinity
Greensboro, NC

Director, Institute of Christian Growth
Durham, NC

Racism, Equalitarianism and Reality

It has been over fifty years since the civil rights brought about the end of segregation. At the time it was hoped that changing this social evil would result in Afro-Americans moving up the socio-economic scale, and take their place in society competing with citizens of all races. We integrated schools with the hope that providing equal educational opportunity would help facilitate this process, but instead the schools have deteriorated, and Afro-Americans still drop out of the educational system at rates much higher than other ethnic groups. The number of students who go on to college is much lower too. Dropout rates for blacks ages 16 to 24 is almost double that of whites, but one-half that of Hispanics. There were ten times as many bachelor's degrees awarded to whites as blacks. There have been marked numerical gains in Master's and Doctor's degrees among blacks.

But racism still persists. Obviously education has not done it, but if we ask why, the only answer to be found is in the much maligned study called The Bell Curve1. There we are told that blacks score an average of 20 points lower on IQ tests than whites or Orientals. There are highly intelligent among them, but their percentage is lower.

Blacks have been with us from the beginning of the nation's history, but they have not assimilated. To be assimilated they must absorb into the mores or culture of the population or group. They still have a culture that is distinctly different from the traditional white culture. Their sexual mores are different from the dominant culture as is witnessed by the extraordinarily high incidence of out of wedlock births, and the high incidence of single mothers. Most of them speak a different language (Ebonics), and some are loud and raucous. Many of them spend hours on the telephone both on land lines and especially cell phones. They have developed their own idiom for their music, or what they call music (Rap), even though it is dissonant. It is interesting that much of the music of African natives is of the same order although they have never been exposed to American rap. They are capable of singing in harmony and when they do it is quite pleasant. The development of jazz is primarily due to their influence.

Afro-Americans excel in athletics. They are strong, fast, and remarkably well coordinated so they dominate many sports − especially football, basketball, and boxing. A few of them invade traditionally white sports, (note Tiger Woods in golf and the Williams sisters in women's tennis) and are very successful. Now black professional athletes have enormous incomes, and yet may end up destitute in retirement within 5 years...

Sadly, poverty is a problem for blacks since 27% of them live in poverty, while only 9.9% of whites do. If the educational system was increasing their ability to compete we believe this should be reducing and not holding steady. Why have whites raised up the socioeconomic scale and blacks have not? The answer is that whites are inventive. When traveling in Africa I noticed the natives are still plowing with sharpened wooden sticks. This does not turn the ground over to incorporate the humus that is left from the previous year. They must harvest by hand which is not as efficient as with machinery. There is a shortage of fertilizer in the third world, and cow or horse dung is in short supply since it is not collected. Here in America black farmers are few in number (6%). They are not highly successful.

Sadly, blacks have a welfare mentality. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Haiti, where their attitude is that if the U.S. will not give them money, the French will, and if the French won't the Canadians will. And if the Canadians won't the U.S. will, etc. Never has so much money been expended with any results. They are worse off today than they were 30 years ago when I first visited the country. This attitude is rampant among blacks in the U.S. as evidenced by their demands. A black city councilwoman in Detroit said that since they helped elect Obama get elected they deserved to have money from Washington. While blacks represent only 12% of the population they are four times more likely to be on welfare than whites, so the numbers of blacks and whites on welfare are about equal. This data is used to excuse blacks since they can say that there are just as many whites on welfare as blacks.

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One highly complicating factor among blacks is reverse racism. Many of them have a paranoid attitude toward the white establishment, believing that if anything benefits whites and not blacks then they are being neglected or persecuted. One sees this in the management of schools. Any effort to segregate students by ability is met with a fierce counterattack claiming the effort is designed to segregate the schools once again.

This brings us to the second item in our title and that is equalitarianism. It is clear from psychological studies that there is a bell shaped curve of level of intelligence. If the norm is set at 100, then 17% of the population will be on the lower side of normal and 17% above. Only 1% have an I/Q above 135 and fifty percent of the population has an IQ below 100.

It is interesting that although Jews are only 2% of the population they comprise 25% of the population with IQs above 145. Thus we see them as high achievers in almost any area of endeavor. This is especially true in science, finance, and in the entertainment industry. In all other tests blacks score lower than whites or Asians. The SAT is the best example of this where there is a 300 point difference in their scores, blacks being on the lower side. This follows in other tests like the GRE, LSAT, and MCAT. Yet there are many who believe it is all due to poverty or cultural isolation.

Because of equalitarianism many universities have developed programs called affirmative action. These programs theoretically were designed to give underprivileged a leg up on admissions since it was believed that their low scores on tests were due to their socioeconomic status. The Supreme Court has looked on these programs with a jaundiced eye, and has not ruled too often in their favor when they are challenged. Social promotion in public schools have their existence justified on the same basis I have to emphasize the observation that we are not created with equal intelligence, social rank, musical ability, or athletic ability. Therefore, if criteria for qualifying are set with the belief that all men are equal in intelligence and ability then there will be much mismatching of workers to jobs and students to schools.

What about reality? One major factor is the physical anthropology of the various races. It has long been known that blacks are physically different from whites. However, to say something like this arouses the emotions of equalitarians. Ever since physical anthropology had its origin in 1776, there have been reports of physical differences.

Swan cited some of these in his article in Mankind Quarterly2. He said, "Physical anthropology has described morphological racial differences by means of absolute metric values obtained from the measurement of the head, body, and cranial and skeletal remains by indices obtained from various absolute measurement values and qualitative observations. In the course of numerous investigations radical differences have been demonstrated and described, both quantitatively and qualitatively in morphological characteristics such as skin color, nose shape, head shape, facial form, degree of facial protrusion, lip thickness, stature, body build, etc." There is, then, no question that these differences exist, but how do they relate to racism.

It is an interesting fact that facial characteristics of Orientals are little different from Caucasians. Their nose is flatter and wider, and their eyes have mongoloid folds, but their lips are thin. All in all, they do not differ significantly from whites.

Black skin in Indians sets them apart from other Caucasians, but they vary in color from light brown to dark black. People from south India tend to be the darkest. It is interesting that Indians are not subjected to overt racism at least in our part of America.

Amerinds have high cheekbones and their babies have mongoloid folds at birth, but they disappear within a year. I was surprised by this when I delivered a number of

Latino babies, but on pediatrics I noted that by one year they had disappeared. Skin color and facial configuration sets them apart.

Only blacks have brittle kinky hair with an unusual distribution. Their hairline over their brow usually goes straight across. One does not see this in any other ethnic groups.

I am convinced that the differences described above give rise to racism. Most mammals, birds, and fish are attracted sexually to others that look like them. There is also something inherent in our attraction to people who look like us, and repelling to marked deviance from our norm. We also are attracted to mates who are intellectually equal to us since we have similar interests, desires, and goals. Charles Murray has recorded similar observation. It is for these reasons that I believe racism will be with us a long time.

(Endnotes)
1 The Bell Curve, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, New York: The Free Press, 1994
2 .http://www.unz.org/Pub/MankindQuarterly-1965jan-00149

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