A Post OpEd by Jonathan Capehart: That honest conversation about race everyone wants? We can’t handle it. … We say we want the conversation. But we just can’t handle it — especially in public. … [In 2008,] I would have wanted to hear a white Southern Republican such as Barbour give an honest speech on race from his perspective, in an effort to explain and heal. It might have proved uncomfortable, but we would have listened, learned and moved forward with the knowledge gained. But I also understand Barbour’s reticence. To deliver such a speech, with power and nuance, would mean putting one’s livelihood — in politics and business — on the line. It would require a bravery and selflessness few could muster. (
I don't see what advantage calling it "ethnicity" has. I have heard of race to refer to all humans, but only in the phrase "the human race", or when a fantasy setting with non-human people is involved. I don't see how the word can cause confusion.
The genetic component would be visible by its correlate, the tendency to rebel or resist. Slave-rebellion was the all-pervasive fear.
But in general, I think humans are well equipped natively to judge the intelligence of their fellows with minimal interaction. Intelligence tests have mostly dulled our native capacities to judge intelligence.
I've never heard of American slaves making intelligence tests. The environmental component of intelligence rarely had the opportunity to develop in an American slave while the genetic component was not tested for nor visible in daily life.
If slaveowners wanted to select for intelligence they were probably very unsuccessful and based the selection around things like phrenology or the knowledge a slave possessed and their ability to read (which barely corresponds to intelligence because even stupid people can memorize things they happen to come across).
You may consider familiarizing yourself with the relevant statistics comparing the mean IQ or the likelihood of committing a violent crime for an Ashkenazi American and a Bantu-descended American. And if you widen your comparison to the whole world, even more drastic differences in IQ and violence can be found.
There are claims that family functioning was rather autonomous; but also evidence to the contrary not only in the reports of fugitive slaves but also in the slaveowners' written advertisements for "breeding females" and "stud males."
I can see where the slavocracy would want to maintain the family unit (although slaveowners had sexual rights to their slaves, which they asserted), but I cannot believe they would leave pairings to chance (when so many cultures with institutions less oppressive have tolerated arranged marriage). Testimony of fugitive slaves also supports the view that often (usually?) slaves were paired by their masters.
[If they were bred, they were bred for being good slaves. What does that mean? Perhaps a clue is that it was usually illegal for slaves to learn to read and write.]
"We might have been better off to instead pay a different kind of cost, such as cash transfers."Actually, we do have significant cash transfers as well. Women are well-paid by the state for initiating a divorce which is why about 80% of divorces are initiated by women. And how many trillions of dollars have been spent in the "War on Poverty"?
"yes, that's my point! For some reason Americans have been lead to believe that race is some huge important categorization that says a lot about a person, more than any other categorization save gender. That's just ridiculous."Is it ridiculous to pay attention to a marker that lets you predict an up to 28 IQ point difference, and a 20 - 50 fold difference in likelihood of violent behavior, just by looking at a person?
That is a good point, since the Russian silver fox experiment shows that animal breeding can have large effects over a rather small number of generations. But I did not think the same thing occurred with slaves. My understanding was that family formation was rather autonomous, but that such families could still be split up by sales.
Interestingly, most of the African slave trade went east rather than west to the New World, but without the same demographic effect because the males were castrated. The slaves in islamic territory were generally used for what Adam Smith would call "unproductive" labor, so there was less of an economic imperative in ensuring they could still breed.
But you have to keep in mind the number of generations over which that selection effect operated.
If slaves were artificially selected--bred for "desirable" traits--couldn't a few generations have substantial effect?
There seems no consensus among historians on whether slaves were bred selectively (in the manner cattle might be bred). I find it hard to believe they weren't. Physical strength would obviously be desirable in males, fertility in women. My guess is that a slaveowner wouldn't want slaves who were too bright.
I should copy this as an example of how easy it is (for me) to be unclear. I meant eliminating Jim Crow as an example of civil rights, not of an assumption regarding them. (Ambiguous as written.) I understood you to oppose civil rights (hence, eliminating Jim Crow) because you not only said it was based on false assumptions but also because it's the "Left's baby." I don't think it was an unfair inference even if it's wrong and you would favor eliminating Jim Crow. [I only raised the point because I think the right's opposition to basic civil rights demonstrated the right's utter bankruptcy. Usually, rightists try to forget.]
I understand now how you maintain PC defends false assumptions. As I said, I think that puts the cart before the horse because it doesn't explain why these particular assumptions are so valued. Institutions change their official rationales harmlessly on other subjects. [The assumptions derive from the consensus among social scientists in the postwar period. In retrospect, some of these expectations were an ideological (over) reaction to the Nazi view on race. To some extent, it was due to lack of knowledge about human beginnings and early migration patterns.]
[Added.] I take your point about the Korean immigrants to be this: if PC were about social peace, then these Koreans should be PC.
Again, there's a simple answer. PC is a language code, and it's irrelevant between speakers of different languages.
It's true that elites could better weather the storm. But you ignore that they also pay for PC a lower price!
I'm skeptical, as long as it refers to the same thing. See Pinker on the "euphemism treadmill". I guess scientists can use them in hopes the general public doesn't figure out what they're talking about.
I don't see what advantage calling it "ethnicity" has. I have heard of race to refer to all humans, but only in the phrase "the human race", or when a fantasy setting with non-human people is involved. I don't see how the word can cause confusion.
The genetic component would be visible by its correlate, the tendency to rebel or resist. Slave-rebellion was the all-pervasive fear.
But in general, I think humans are well equipped natively to judge the intelligence of their fellows with minimal interaction. Intelligence tests have mostly dulled our native capacities to judge intelligence.
I've never heard of American slaves making intelligence tests. The environmental component of intelligence rarely had the opportunity to develop in an American slave while the genetic component was not tested for nor visible in daily life.
If slaveowners wanted to select for intelligence they were probably very unsuccessful and based the selection around things like phrenology or the knowledge a slave possessed and their ability to read (which barely corresponds to intelligence because even stupid people can memorize things they happen to come across).
You're not going to distinguish Ashkenazis by "just looking at a person."
Interesting, I wasn't aware of those details.
You may consider familiarizing yourself with the relevant statistics comparing the mean IQ or the likelihood of committing a violent crime for an Ashkenazi American and a Bantu-descended American. And if you widen your comparison to the whole world, even more drastic differences in IQ and violence can be found.
There are claims that family functioning was rather autonomous; but also evidence to the contrary not only in the reports of fugitive slaves but also in the slaveowners' written advertisements for "breeding females" and "stud males."
I can see where the slavocracy would want to maintain the family unit (although slaveowners had sexual rights to their slaves, which they asserted), but I cannot believe they would leave pairings to chance (when so many cultures with institutions less oppressive have tolerated arranged marriage). Testimony of fugitive slaves also supports the view that often (usually?) slaves were paired by their masters.
[If they were bred, they were bred for being good slaves. What does that mean? Perhaps a clue is that it was usually illegal for slaves to learn to read and write.]
It's ridiculous to claim that race predicts 28 IQ points or a 20-fold difference in likelihood of violent behavior.
Robin wrote:
"We might have been better off to instead pay a different kind of cost, such as cash transfers."Actually, we do have significant cash transfers as well. Women are well-paid by the state for initiating a divorce which is why about 80% of divorces are initiated by women. And how many trillions of dollars have been spent in the "War on Poverty"?
"yes, that's my point! For some reason Americans have been lead to believe that race is some huge important categorization that says a lot about a person, more than any other categorization save gender. That's just ridiculous."Is it ridiculous to pay attention to a marker that lets you predict an up to 28 IQ point difference, and a 20 - 50 fold difference in likelihood of violent behavior, just by looking at a person?
That is a good point, since the Russian silver fox experiment shows that animal breeding can have large effects over a rather small number of generations. But I did not think the same thing occurred with slaves. My understanding was that family formation was rather autonomous, but that such families could still be split up by sales.
Interestingly, most of the African slave trade went east rather than west to the New World, but without the same demographic effect because the males were castrated. The slaves in islamic territory were generally used for what Adam Smith would call "unproductive" labor, so there was less of an economic imperative in ensuring they could still breed.
But you have to keep in mind the number of generations over which that selection effect operated.
If slaves were artificially selected--bred for "desirable" traits--couldn't a few generations have substantial effect?
There seems no consensus among historians on whether slaves were bred selectively (in the manner cattle might be bred). I find it hard to believe they weren't. Physical strength would obviously be desirable in males, fertility in women. My guess is that a slaveowner wouldn't want slaves who were too bright.
"we don't consider gingers a separate race for some reason"
I think "Irish" used to be a race...
It seems to me it is a good strategy if the if the out group is small and weak. The out group is so weak they are not a threat.
Also though I find the subject interesting, I think it may be best to not discuss it.
I should copy this as an example of how easy it is (for me) to be unclear. I meant eliminating Jim Crow as an example of civil rights, not of an assumption regarding them. (Ambiguous as written.) I understood you to oppose civil rights (hence, eliminating Jim Crow) because you not only said it was based on false assumptions but also because it's the "Left's baby." I don't think it was an unfair inference even if it's wrong and you would favor eliminating Jim Crow. [I only raised the point because I think the right's opposition to basic civil rights demonstrated the right's utter bankruptcy. Usually, rightists try to forget.]
I understand now how you maintain PC defends false assumptions. As I said, I think that puts the cart before the horse because it doesn't explain why these particular assumptions are so valued. Institutions change their official rationales harmlessly on other subjects. [The assumptions derive from the consensus among social scientists in the postwar period. In retrospect, some of these expectations were an ideological (over) reaction to the Nazi view on race. To some extent, it was due to lack of knowledge about human beginnings and early migration patterns.]
[Added.] I take your point about the Korean immigrants to be this: if PC were about social peace, then these Koreans should be PC.
Again, there's a simple answer. PC is a language code, and it's irrelevant between speakers of different languages.
It's true that elites could better weather the storm. But you ignore that they also pay for PC a lower price!
I'm skeptical, as long as it refers to the same thing. See Pinker on the "euphemism treadmill". I guess scientists can use them in hopes the general public doesn't figure out what they're talking about.