Viceland - HEY, KIDS... IT'S TIME FOR SOME DUMB MYTHS AND SMART FACTS ABOUT SLAVERY!

VICE: You probably knew when you wrote this that it was going to make people angry. Why do you think Americans are so unable to talk about race?

JG: Because racism is the Great Demon of the Modern Age. It's hilarious to me the way that otherwise intelligent people shroud this topic in superstition and retarded emotion. You can't talk about race with any measure of logic or science, it is confined to a primitive morality tale with clearly defined angels and devils.

I believe that the economically powerful focus on race, and whether you're a rabid racist or a rabid anti-racist, you're unhealthily focused on race, as a smokescreen to divert attention from class disparities. It's always been about class.

Africans weren't enslaved primarily due to racial hatred, they were cheap labor. This is all but forgotten. The Man has done a very good job at keeping everyone's attention diverted from where it should be. That's why he's The Man. He's very good at what he does.

But the chief reason for racial hysteria is that there's so much unresolved guilt regarding race relations. The problem, as I see it, is that the WRONG white people get blamed for what happened to blacks in this country. The poor white trash acquired racist attitudes because rich whites always pitted them against blacks for the shitty jobs. But it was the rich whites who owned slaves. It was the rich whites who've encouraged blacks and rednecks to view one another as enemies. It is the rich whites who finance all the anti-racist propaganda, even though it's the poor whites who invariably live alongside blacks and have to deal with their resentment.

The way history is taught in schools we're lead to believe America is rich and powerful because it built a fortune on black slavery. This also gets linked to the reason Africa is poor.

All wealth is built upon the exploitation of labor. Focusing on black slavery ignores that fact that white CHILDREN were toiling under slave-labor conditions in New England factories well into the 1900s, long after black slavery ended. Y'all cats always miss the bigger picture. That's why I write, I pull the camera back and focus on the panoramic totality of human corruption. Humans are fucked-up creatures, not just white men.

If America's wealth was built primarily on slavery, how come the North, which DIDN'T have slavery, was an industrial powerhouse that was able to roll over the supposedly choking-with-riches South? Where did THEIR wealth and military might come from? It came from the exploitation of workers, just like all wealth.

How come you never hear anyone claim that Europe's riches came from 1000 years of exploiting the serfs? Serfdom existed in Russia for 50 years after black slavery ended in America.

Africa's current condition is undoubtedly due in part to European meddling. But here's the uncomfortable question for the whitey-bashers: If Africa was doing so great BEFORE the European invasion, why were its economies so puny and its systems of military defense so primitive that it was a breeze to overrun it in the first place?

I disagree strongly with the idea that it was a matter of "cultural differences" and that Africans were peace-loving and non-imperialistic. Hannibal was an African general who TRIED conquering Europe. He failed. The Moors were Africans who invaded Spain and ruled there for 500 years, sending whites into African slavery. Just because Africans were losers at the Imperialism Game is no reason to get so bitter.

But I object most strongly to this concept of "The White Man," as if he were the legendary Bigfoot and there is only one White Man. Throughout history, only a tiny percentage of whites called the shots. The rest were pawns of the elite.

"But," you counter reflexively, "all whites living in America today enjoy the fruits of the sins that the Evil Minority of whites committed."

"Yes," I answer with boundless wisdom, "and so do all blacks living in America today. Very few of them would go back to Africa if given the choice, since life is so much better here. Isn't that what started this fucking argument?"

Most people seem to be offended with the part where you say blacks in America are better off than blacks in Africa. They take that to mean "American blacks are poor because they are inferior."

Unless you define "better"ˇ strictly in economic terms, which I don't, I wouldn't be so bold as to say American blacks enjoy better lives than their African counterparts. But it's inarguable that their economic standard of living is much, much, much higher. It's also an uncomfortable fact for the breast-beating, self-hating whites to ponder that African blacks tend to envy the economic status and relatively cushy status of American blacks. This doesn't jibe with their comfy little morality play at all. It doesn't fit neatly within their fragile cosmos to consider that most African blacks would probably rather be in America than the inverse.

Apparently, "blacks are inferior" is the only conclusion these people can draw from the facts. That isn't what I was saying, but it's interesting how quickly they try to project this conclusion onto me. The stark fact is that American blacks DO enjoy at least a part of the wealth their ancestors' labor helped to create, rendering the idea of economic reparations somewhat silly.

Another criticism is that the article brought up points that didn't need to be brought up. For example, many consider the reparations debate to be long since dead and to bring it up is to agitate for the sake of agitation.

When did the issue die? How come no one told me? Last I looked, multi-millionaire Dave Chappelle was talking about reparations on his show. In Portland recently, a flyer was circulating depicting LeVar Burton as slave-boy Kunta Kinte from ROOTS with a chain around his neck and the word REPARATIONS at the bottom. So as far as I can tell, the issue is very much alive. I'd be glad if the topic were to die. Either that, or the definition should be expanded to include every American worker who has ever received less than their work was worth.

Someone once described the idea of modern-day reparations for slavery as (I'm paraphrasing) "forcing people who AREN'T guilty of something to pay other people who DIDN'T have the crime happen to them."

Some were confused by the Australian entry. Were you saying that Australia was built on white slavery?

Partially, yes. I have little knowledge about the extent to which Australia's aboriginal population was economically exploited, and I've learned to keep quiet regarding that which I don't know.

The real fear is acknowledging any kind of racial difference is going to lead to another Nazi movement. Do you agree?

Well, it hasn't turned me into a Nazi. For over a decade now, I've believed that innate racial differences exist, and I've yet to goosestep. I haven't wished anyone harm because they're different from me. What's interesting, though, is the firm belief of the equality-peddlers that Nazism is inevitable if one were to admit that people are born unequal. What do they fear about THEMSELVES if they were to acknowledge such a fact? It reminds me of the classic censor's mentality, they try to wipe out porn, or "hate speech," or any sort of unpopular opinion because they primarily fear its potential effect on THEMSELVES.

Relax, people, you can admit we aren't equal without wanting to hurt anyone. It's easy.

Jim Goad goes more into detail in his book The Redneck Manifesto. See more of the facts on this from Jim Goad's book here.

Comments:

Subject: Differences
Date: Jul 18 2005 09:13:48 AM
Author: Jim Goad

JIMINY SPIGOTS: "Saying there are may be innate differences between races beyond skin color is interesting... can you elaborate on that ??"

JIMBLES LEE DEUTERONOMY GOAD: For purposes of comparison right now, let's stick to physical differences between what are referred to in street slang as "whites" and "blacks."

To say skin color is the only difference is a laughable premise. Easily disproven. Not sure why otherwise intelligent people would keep saying it. Making such sweeping statements in an attempt to appear non-racist actually undermines such a stance.

Hair texture is different. Eye color is generally different. Lips are different. Bone density and propensity toward body fat tend to be different. Susceptibility to certain diseases, such as sickle-cell anemia, is different. Tendency toward certain blood types is different. Maturation rate is different. Studies have shown testosterone levels between black and white males to be different.

Does this help?

Subject: belief re: innate racial differences
Date: Jul 17 2005 06:13:25 PM
Author: Jiminy Spigots

Dear Mr. Goad,

Saying there are may be innate differences between races beyond skin color is interesting... can you elaborate on that ?? Have you written elsewhere on this and can point to a text online? Sorry, I haven't read Redneck Manifesto. The 'innate differences' comment is the most provocative part of this interview and begs for clarification.

I think it could be considered be bigotry if there's a value judgement associated with these innate differences you're alluding to...

Subject: The guy directly below me
Date: Jul 17 2005 03:09:40 PM
Author: Hyman

You sir are a paranoid individual. Jews come up with evil theories? You're fucked. Anyhow, to discount out of hand the ideas of the three thinkers you've mentioned is ludicrous in itself. Of course, Marx's thought has had beyond regrettable results but Boaz? If it counters your Social Darwinist fantasy that whites are a supreme race then it is "ultimately destructive"?

The "Jews produce these types with greater regularity than other races." Ok. Is it Jewish culture? The religion? Or some biological seed of corrupt intellect?

An aside: is Goad's overarching thesis a Marxist one? I seem to be reading that poor working whites and blacks are equally exploited by the ruling class and need to ally themselves in order to resist that exploitation. I actually agree but its funny that I heard the same stuff at an International Socialist meeting on Malcolm X. The ISers claimed that before Malcolm was killed he had been struck by the primacy of class rather than race as a condition for oppression. They went as far as to claim that the ruling elite "invented" white supremacy to polarize poor whites and blacks. Seems like a bit of a reduction.

Erase Racism. Cold Chillin'.

Subject: Jewish "philosophers"
Date: Jul 14 2005 01:51:54 PM
Author: Luke the Drifter

I believe Diamond is another one of those Jews who posit a imaginative, revolutionary, totally un-provable, and ultimately destructive thesis.

The Jews produce these types with greater regularity than any other race.

They initially seduce the naïve, well-meaning masses with their pipe-dream visions, and it often takes decades to undo the damage. (See also Freud, Marx, Boas, etc etc etc).

Subject: Jared Diamond
Date: Jul 14 2005 01:50:56 PM
Author: Luke the Drifter

I read "Guns Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond.

It is an egalitarian, utopian crock of shit and I'll tell you why:

Diamond’s essential thesis is that some peoples (ie races) have done better than others because the environment in which they lived was advantageous.

So far, so good. I agree with him.

But then he goes on to argue that disparate environments are SOLELY AND EXCLUSIVELY responsible for the achievement gaps between peoples/races.

It's remarkable that anyone can take such a ridiculous idea seriously.

Differing environments spur adaptive changes in the inhabitants. This is a fundamental Darwinian principal.

Diamond wants us to believe that the environment is so unimportant that it causes little or no evolutionary/adaptive changes in respective populations.

At the same time, he wants us to believe that the environment is so important that it can explain every disparity in racial achievement.

He’s is a fraud and a huckster.

If I had a copy of the book in front of me, I'd quote a particular paragraph where he walks right up to the precipice of being forced to acknowledge the irreconcilable inconsistency of his position, and then changes the subject.

Subject: There's a Bigot in the Spigot!
Date: Jul 14 2005 09:55:55 AM
Author: Jim Goad

BLITZ: I was pretty much with you up to that point. I don't think you're a goose-stepping nazi but you don't have to be a National Socialist to be a biggot. [sic]

ME: Honey-pie, I realize it's prissy of me to point out spelling errors, but when you want to come on here flappin' your chicken wings and making absolute statements about what "science" says when "science" proves you wrong, then dive into hoodoo jibbety-jabber about your supposedly enlightened intellectual stance on sociological matters, please spell basic terms relevant to the discussion correctly. It's "bigot."

“MR. Bigot” to you.

If you're gonna call me bad names, the least I can do is ask you to spell them correctly. OK?

Subject: Innate Differences
Date: Jul 14 2005 09:52:47 AM
Author: Jim Goad

BLITZ: The only innate difference is the colour of the skin.

ME: You can state it as fact and pretend it's a fact all you want. You can go to sleep with it as if it were a fact and cuddle it like it was your own personal Factual Teddy Bear.

But if it's a fact, how come these scientists to whom you allude recently developed a blood-pressure medication specifically for blacks?

If skin color's the only difference, why are there innate cardiovascular differences, too? There are dozens of other examples that would support the idea that things go deeper than skin, but why strain? The blood-pressure thing alone discounts your foolishly categorical statement.

Yes, people laugh and cry and have babies and make music all over the world. They live, eat, poop, and die. And they all have feelings. Wonderful, sun-spackled, syrupy feelings. In that sense, they're all equal.

Here's where you stray—as FACT, you throw out some huge matzo balls such as "in each culture and race there is the same genius" when you'd likely run a-screamin' from all the IQ tests which suggest otherwise—while givin' me NOTHIN' to support why YOUR statement is true.

So I'm eager to hear this "credible" science that proves skin color is the only difference. My mind isn't made up on this matter. In this case, I said I "believed" something. I didn't claim it was a fact, as you're wont to do.

Subject: Innate racial differences?
Date: Jul 14 2005 07:36:49 AM
Author: Blitz

"For over a decade now, I've believed that innate racial differences exist, and I've yet to goosestep."
What absolute bollocks this is and science absolutes doesn't agree with you either (at least credible science). The human brain is the same over the whole of the world and the neurons function the same everywhere. In each culture and race there is the same genius and madness. To say white scientists have invented this that and the other over black scientist is also a crock. When given the same environment both races excel.

The only innate difference is the colour of the skin.

I was pretty much with you up to that point. I don't think you're a goose-stepping nazi but you don't have to be a National Socialist to be a biggot.

Subject: Er...Wrong
Date: Jul 13 2005 01:33:27 PM
Author: Jim Goad

ER: " just a few "smart facts" : most of the cow-boys were black.

ME: And...your source?

"During the late 1800s and early 1900s, 25 percent of cowboys were black and 12 percent were Hispanic, Weston wrote."

"Nearly 25 percent of the more than 30,000 cowboys who worked the cattle frontier were black."

ER: "no movie ever portrays a heroic black cowboy."

ME: "Unlike the shallow and silly "Rosewood" Van Peebles's "Posse" [1993] gives viewers a clear picture of what life was like for African-American cowboys at the turn of the century."

Subject: yeah
Date: Jul 13 2005 12:53:57 AM
Author: er....

"the west has won the world in the last few hundred years (blink of an eye really), not through its wisdom or understanding, but through its ruthless use of technology for violence"

- I don't remember who said that.

I have limited time, but just a few "smart facts" :

most of the cow-boys were black. no movie ever portrays a heroic black cowboy. same with the Chinese that built the rail roads.

European complicity in atrocities such as Rwanda 94, where ethnic hatred were pretty much ENTIRELY created as a result of colonialism, are dealt with total irresponsibility.

I would list more but have to run.

Subject: Who Got the Hate Ball Rolling? pt. 2
Date: Jul 12 2005 09:26:03 AM
Author: Jim Goad

I posted this in the main thread, but it bears repeating here:

http://www.afrigeneas.com/forum-books/index.cgi?noframes
;rea /> d=1175

“It was more economical to import indentured Englishmen and work them until they died than to spend money up-front to buy Africans who might die just as fast. Indentured servitude remained the primary source of labor in Virginia through the 1680s, until ECONOMIC considerations made slaves the cheaper alternative.

“English colonists had previously called themselves “Christians” and had called native Americans and Africans “Heathens.” Increasingly in the latter 1600s the colonists call themselves “White” and their African slaves “Black.” This invention of the white and black “races” was a deliberate STRATEGY OF THE ELITE PLANTER CLASS to evoke a race consciousness in the landless working-class Englishmen that would deflect class conflicts. …The planter elite desperately needed a social structure to discourage discontented landless English colonists and slaves from finding common cause against them. … The language of race provided a tool for social control.

Subject: Who Got The Hate Ball Rolling?
Date: Jul 11 2005 07:57:14 PM
Author: Jim Goad

PETEY: "Did the hate just start spontaneously following emancipation? Was it the affront of the idea that Africans were humans that got it going? "

Assuming this is a serious question, you can find some solid answers for who 'got it going' on the main thread of this article under the headers "Subject #3, pt. 3 - pt. 5."

Subject: Petey Wheatstraw
Date: Jul 11 2005 07:50:13 PM
Author: Jim Goad

ORIGINAL QUOTE: "Africans weren't enslaved PRIMARILY due to racial hatred, they were cheap labor. "

PETER'S REVISION: "The espousing of unequivocal statements such as "blacks weren't enslaved due to racial hatred" seems a bit presumptuous."

The rephrasing and editing of an equivocal statement in order to present it as unequivocal statement seems a bit dishonest.

Maybe others did, but I never argued that the reason Africa wasn't prepared to repel a military invasion was due to genetic inferiority. I never posited a reason. I just argued that they weren't prepared. To rephrase my position in the way you have also seems dishonest.

Subject: facts? har!
Date: Jul 11 2005 12:54:19 PM
Author: peter

The espousing of unequivocal statements such as "blacks weren't enslaved due to racial hatred" seems a bit presumptuous. Is your point that you don't have to hate someone to consider them subhuman? Did you travel back in time and then use telepathy to examine the moral reasoning of slave traders?

Did the hate just start spontaneously following emancipation? Was it the affront of the idea that Africans were humans that got it going?

So, slaveowners were just "men of their day" and not subject to our moral judgement? Africans' "primitive" defenses against colonial invaders is evidence of biological inequality?

It is nearly funny that this garbage is trying to pass itself off as free from ideological bias.

Subject: Hey Mr. Metis
Date: Jul 09 2005 01:36:25 PM
Author: Karlheinz

"Now tell me that North American peoples had geogrpahy unsuitable for the level of agriculture and development that europe had."

There were fewer domesticatable plants and animals (the ones we grow here now are mostly imported from Europe). Less contact with other peoples. They also arrived on the continent much, much later that humans did onto the European continent. All this points to far less technology, and far less exposure to (and immunity from) disease, etc. It's not about stuff like "natural defenses."

The author makes a pretty clear case for this in the book. Perhaps you should actually READ "Guns, Germs, and Steel" before you spout off about it. When you made the argument about developing farming techniques, creating surplus, etc, you're AGREEING with the book.

Of course, all this has only slight bearing on the topic at hand, and neither proves nor refutes anything Goad said.

Subject: douche of the day
Date: Jul 08 2005 10:00:01 PM
Author: d fresh

from the title i knew this was written by goad the flaming asshole. i tortured myself anyway. i hate this guy more than i hate your white dad.

Subject: and so forth
Date: Jul 08 2005 09:59:57 PM
Author: Mr. Metis

Mike D, YOU are dumb and gay. not to mention ignorant. Leaving Africa out of the picture for a moment, let's look at America's own indigenous peoples. White folk rolled over them just about as quick an easy as they did the Zulu. Now tell me that North American peoples had geogrpahy unsuitable for the level of agriculture and development that europe had. I hope you have the basic intelligence to see what's wrong with that idea.
My claim is not that any one race or continent is inherently superior. I lack the genetic homogeneity (sp?) to have that sort of attachment. My claim is that Persons, individuals are intelligent, caring, and sensitive. People, tend to form into mobs, succumb to groupthink. People are aggressive, ignorant, greedy and stupid. All people. It's just that at the definitive moment, Europe seemed to have all the right advantages. But watch out, whitey, that's all going to change, and fast. There are a lot of up-and-comers in the world, and no empire yet has lasted forever, and history tends to accelerate.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, Goad smart, you dumb. Goad right, you wrong. Goad funny, you boring.
Everyone is getting screwed, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it.

Subject: and so on
Date: Jul 08 2005 09:58:46 PM
Author: Mr. Metis.

their swarthy victims is because EUROPEAN innovaters were able to develop agricultural equipment and techniques that increased farm efficiency and created an economic surplus, raising the standard of existence somewhat above subsistence-level, which gave the elite time to read, study and think instead of constantly trying to meet their basic needs for survival. So maybe they stole some math and some philosophy, but cultures are built on appropriaton, and they did create their own ability to steal.
Non Human Factors: Yeah, Europe has some natural defences, but will anyone seriously argue that Hannibal could not possibly have done any better? He tried to march fucking ELEPHANTS over the fucking ALPS to invade fucking ROME. How dumb can you get? it's hard enough to get a horse over a puny mountain. If he had put his resources into troops, training, and winter equipment instead of fucking elephant food, like the Romans did, he might've had a better chance.
" just about all of the "disadvantaged" ethnicities in the world are that way because they came from geographies which kept them disadvantaged and kept them lagging behind other groups around the world. africans simply didn't have things like domesticable animals or proper grain structures, or they had too varied a climate spectrum to have their innovations (i.e., writing, centralized society, etc.) spread. THIS is why their economies or armies could not stand up to ours."
Mike

Subject: almost all y'all are missing the point
Date: Jul 08 2005 08:47:07 PM
Author: Mr. Metis

Well. Where to begin? I think it would be appropriate to mention that I am a big mutt, Jewish, Polish, French Canadia, Lakhota Sioux, and etc. I have ancestors that died in the holocaust, and more than likely others that owned slaves.
Now, each and every one of you that has posted a comment (with a few exceptions) has been almost entirely off base. The point is that blaming whitey for all the American blacks' problems is not going to get us anywhere. Case in point: who do poor black people hate, if they're dumb enough to hate someone? White people. Who do they shoot? Black people. This does not make sense. No, actually it does, when you consider that mankind in general is about a half-cut above that femur-wielding ape in 2001: A Space Oddyssey.
Everyone, quick, go read Thucydides' "The Pelopennesian Wars." Espescially the section on Athens' invasion of Melos. THose with power will take what they can get where they can get it. Period.
Now, some specifics. To argue that the imperialistic winners (Europe) won because of A) stealing all the good shit from the Arabs and B) geographical factors is simply misinformed. Here's why: A) First, the Arabs stole all their good shit, or almost all of it, from the Greeks, who like europeans only they embrace butt sex and are smarter (coincidence?). Second: the only, and I mean ONLY reason that Europe was able to emerge from the dark ages and begin learning enough to steal all the good shit from their

Subject: Reds get out!
Date: Jul 08 2005 12:15:50 PM
Author: digduggler

Hey Goad - why don't you cart your commie ass off to China, peasant?

Subject: Australians
Date: Jul 06 2005 04:06:46 AM
Author: Monkiki

its true that the first fleet travelling to oz weren't much more than slaves - when they arrived they were made to build there own prisons, many died during this time. shame really, oz had the potential to be a totally non racist country but we pissed on that idea instantly - killing aboriginals and exploiting our own.

Subject: >
Date: Jul 06 2005 03:04:59 AM
Author: <

whoever wrote that "Guns Germs & Steel
says white people ruined the world via trickery and deceipt." not only can't spell, but also is hilariously off base.

what diamond aims to do in this book is actually to look for explanations for europe's success in imperial expansion - given that most cultures are at least somewhat imperialistic, and that culture alone can't explain european success (especially since, as the previous poster noted, what made europe an imperial success was largely adopted from other cultures), an alternate reason must be available.

diamond proposes that geography is the answer - so much so that it didn't even matter what europeans did - through trickery or honesty. He and similar writers ("Ecological Imperialism"), are arguing that the non-human elements of europe were responsible for imperialism, not the people of europe. likewise, those unsuccessful nations failed on the basis of non-human determinants over those of human action.

Subject: ___
Date: Jul 06 2005 03:04:14 AM
Author: ___

"*we're simply the best at doing stuff. *"
That would be more convincing if it wasn't for the fact that when you look at the accounts of European explorers and settlers, they turn out to be mind blowingly dumb and generally awful at doing stuff. jamestown, anybody?

when exploring the hudson, cartier fell for this trick about a billion times "uh, you want all our wealth? well, you could do that, but just up the river a is an island city made of gold. and we'd hate to weigh you down with our stuff once you got to gold-city".not only did he fall for it, he wrote it down and published it, because he was still convinced that he just made a wrong turn somewhere, and wanted to go back to try and find the city. and the french still got canada.

face it, everyone everywhere is pretty much mostly dumb. history is 1/10 intentional, and 9/10 dumb luck, and europe got a lot of that luck in the form of happy geography and access to the best of other people's ideas - most of the stuff that made europe successful wasn't the result of them being good at stuff, it was using a combo of other people's stuff - navigation strategy, shipbuilding technology, astronomy, advanced math, and so on was vital to european imperialism - and they weren't the ones that came up with it - it was all developed in the middle east, africa, and asia while europe was doing its dark ages thing (talk about dumb!)

Subject: The Bell Curve
Date: Jul 05 2005 09:47:19 PM
Author: Hernstein

Stop having a heart attack about race and IQ. When we wrote The Bell Curve we made it very clear we were not trying to claim one race was superior.

For example, if you (god forbid) did take all our data as fact you would notice the bell curves provide PLENTY of overlap. Sure blacks tend to lose, whites tend to err to the middle and Asians tend to win but the overlap of smart blacks and dumb white is enormous. In America (The Bell Curve is only about America) the top half of blacks are smarter than 33 million whites. That's more than the entire population of Canada. Also, the top 1/6th of blacks are smarter than 100 million whites. That's more than half the population of American whites.

Does that make our bitter pill easier to swallow?

Subject: guns germs steel
Date: Jul 05 2005 09:37:48 PM
Author: ready mcgee

Angry Black White Boy
is an idiot white piece of shit diatribe about battling racism. It's as ridiculous as that Fugazi song where Ian Mckaye goes, "Why can't I walk down the street full of suggestion."

Guns Germs & Steel
says white people ruined the world via trickery and deceipt. Its contention is that we only won the planet because we kicked everyone else in the balls. Um, maybe we won because we cheated maybe we won because we're simply the best at doing stuff. Can we dare discuss the latter option?

Why are you all so afraid of the possibility that the winner deserves to be there? One tiny country in Africa has dominated long distance running in the Olympics for decades. Are they naturally predisposed to running well or did they cheat? Is it conditioning or is that particular breed of the race just better at track and field?

Subject: Black is the new white.
Date: Jul 05 2005 06:00:15 PM
Author: Ross Farrier

I used to want to say that all blacks were born stupid, that it was an inate physiological difference.

I understand that black culture just runs a different time schedule. Sure alot of honkeys are dumb and lazy. but I would venture to say there are alot more lazy, dumb black people, drive through a ghetto and what do you see, lazy black people, with the most asinine contraptions trying to signal wealth..bling, bling, cellphones, gold teeth and souped up Caddie's, Beamers, and Mercedes with the tail pipes falling off. In this sense I am no different with my old Volvo that is smashed in 3 places,that I wax, and stil drive around feeling a part of an "educated, and upwardly mobile class." of course, I realize, it is nothing but a fake costume, like all fashion..

There are lazy and stupid, everykind of people, I think though with blacks, since they like the Jews cannot get over, this sense of history, that most of them never even witnessed such as the slave trade or the Holocaust, but we live in a time and country where people are so empty that they crave an IDNENTITY, so that even if they are 1 percent JEWISH or BLACK, then they are TOTALLY THAT. And if you make one comment about thier people you need to be lynched.

I am tired of playing the race game, and being sensitive, to "minorities" and being sensitive to everyone, and pretending like we are all equal when I know we are not. Why should I have to like or res

Subject: Oh, yeah
Date: Jul 05 2005 11:17:49 AM
Author: Karlheinz

As an aside: I'm white, but none of my ancestors ever owned slaves. One side came over after the Civil War; the other came over just before. Both settled almost immediately in the frontier states. The only member of my family to fight in that war, fought and died for the North.

But I'm not asking for much. Black dudes, if you wanna buy me a beer sometime, we'll call it even.

Subject: Two cents (and a mule)
Date: Jul 05 2005 11:16:28 AM
Author: Karlheinz

Chiming in for no good reason...

From what I've read, this is the skinny on IQ differences:
1. There are IQ differences between most groups of people, including racial groups.
2. Those differences can be either exaggerated or diminished by environmental factors.
3. They cannot, however, be eliminated entirely.
4. The differences between groups is always much less than the differences between individuals within that group.

Make of that what you will. A decent (though simple) book on the subject is Stephen Pinker's "The Blank Slate." And, yeah, I've read - and mostly agree with - "Guns, Germs and Steel" as well.

Of course, none of this has much to do with Goad's main point, which is this: "The predominant views of slavery in this country are simplistic and misleading, and unfairly blame all whites for all blacks' problems. Furthermore, whites can't even talk about this without being branded as Nazis."

These posts seem to prove him right. (For instance, nowhere in the article does he mention IQ - says sumpin', don't it?)

Subject: Fear of a Black Planet
Date: Jul 04 2005 11:11:12 AM
Author: Daniel Burros

If a "black planet" would be anything like Africa, FUCK YEAH I fear it.

Africa is a hellhole.

Subject: fear of a black planet
Date: Jul 04 2005 08:34:55 AM
Author: chuck

hey, kids...

first read guns germs and steel.

then read William Julius Wilson (black sociologist). No joke, I used to teach this guy in a class at Cornell and several of my students thought he was a white bigot... anyone who knows him has to appreciate the irony there...

has anyone read Angry White Black Boy? or was it Black White Boy?

Subject: mike d
Date: Jul 04 2005 03:22:06 AM
Author: mcgeorge

jim goad rhetorically asks why wasn't africa doing so great before europe started fucking with them. jim goad then sets up a straw man argument, ridiculing the long-dead theory that sane people actually think that africans (or native americans or eskimos, etc) are somehow more gentle than europeans. this is gay and dumb.

just about all of the "disadvantaged" ethnicities in the world are that way because they came from geographies which kept them disadvantaged and kept them lagging behind other groups around the world. africans simply didn't have things like domesticable animals or proper grain structures, or they had too varied a climate spectrum to have their innovations (i.e., writing, centralized society, etc.) spread. THIS is why their economies or armies could not stand up to ours. africans are still losing a race that started tens of thousands of years ago, and has been exacerbated by those who are winning it.

if we had been born, geographically, in the places where they were, same thing would have happened.

ps. jared diamond pretty much put this one to bed in "guns, germs, and steel."

Subject: Jim Goad—One SEXY "Weird Racist"
Date: Jul 03 2005 11:54:08 PM
Author: Someone Who Wants to Blow Him

Hey, Benny:

I'm not sure whether Jim Goad is "a weird racist who is obsessed with torture and murder," but either way, it's better than being a dumb wigger who is obsessed with Jim Goad.

Look at this picture:

http://www.jimgoad.net/images/backeast.jpg

There is absolutely no chance, Benny, that you are sexier than Jim Goad. And you will NEVER have better "stee" than him.

Subject: *
Date: Jul 03 2005 09:41:36 PM
Author: *

well . . . thanks for making me less dumb anyway (and much less at that!). not that i think benny is dumb, he just seems to have less time on his hands and less natural inclination to argue for no good reason.

anyway, as I am getting lazier and drunker as the day goes on myself: the problem with these studies is that they're all terribly flawed. To really be workable, such a study would have to essentially raise different generations of cloned groups in a controlled environment to really adequately come to any conclusion, and even then there'd be problems. Simply put, the issue is way to complex and too close to home to study with any real accuracy. Pretty much anybody can release a study on anything, it being "a study" doesn't make it inherently truthful or valuable.

There are many other things within the realm of distant possibility that most logical people can agree are possible, but unlikely. Given that studies on the topic are deeply flawed, but that most show that traits such as intelligence (as measured by iq tests) alter upwards with time as social conditions improve and as tests are made more sensitive to cultural variety, isn't it logical to err on the side of caution and work with the premise that what these tests are measuring are more likely manifestations of social conditions such as access to education and healthcare than they are by genetics, which has been comparitively less altered.

Subject: Problematic
Date: Jul 03 2005 08:58:30 PM
Author: Greg Biffle

"What is problematic is to argue that these genetic differences are innate to any one group."

No, I think what's problematic here—from a logical standpoint—is to allow the fact that differences exist between individuals but to deny the possibility that they can exist between groups.

If you say apples are unequal among themselves—and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn't believe that—how can you possibly infer that they'd be in any way equal to oranges?

You say there is "no evidence to suggest" that there are innate racial inequities regarding intelligence, yet you are well aware of several studies which suggest this very thing.

The truth is that there is very little evidence to suggest equality. And that's a challenge that the dimwitted Benny and the much-less-dumb-but-still-ideologically-biased Female Professor keep failing to meet—where is the evidence of equality?

Subject: *
Date: Jul 03 2005 08:58:02 PM
Author: *

oops . . . my apologies. the cocktail hour has been in effect for a few hours now, and I'm getting careless.

Subject: Wrong Guy
Date: Jul 03 2005 08:49:28 PM
Author: None

"seeing as how you've never read "the bell curve", just take this as a warning - try not to cite it in the future..."

I'm not the one who cited it.

Subject: *
Date: Jul 03 2005 08:38:46 PM
Author: *

that one excerpt which acknowledges that more research is needed is quite a few years old, and in direct response to the bell curve. had either author published preliminary work in a peer-reviewed journal, as is the standard practice, people would have had the opportunity to do the contradictory research in a more timely manner.

the research that has been done in response to the APA's call has tended to support their findings.

seeing as how you've never read "the bell curve", just take this as a warning - try not to cite it in the future, as it does, in fact argue that groups who currently are disadvantaged by modern day IQ tests are that way due to a genetic, racial inferior intelligence. Also, the discredited thing.

arguing that intelligence has a genetic component is not inherently problematic, as there is some evidence to support that. What is problematic is to argue that these genetic differences are innate to any one group, at least partially because the differential testing that IQ tests provide makes it an apples to oranges situation. these tests look for traits that are deemed culturally valuable to a specific group of people, while leaving out traits that are considered culturally non-relevant. as these traits are obviously not going to be universally shared, this makes comparison difficult.

well, that, and there's no other convincing evidence to suggest that its true.

Subject: Nature and Nurture
Date: Jul 03 2005 08:11:53 PM
Author: None

"That's exactly the opposite of what the bell curve is arguing - what is innate does not alter with changes in the environment."

I have read neither "The Bell Curve" nor "The Mismeasure of Man." But I don't see how citing someone saying that they aren't even sure a trend has been established (on blacks closing the gap in American intelligence scores) is somehow a slam-dunk refutation of the idea that intelligence can possibly be inherited and that it may in some ways skew along ethnic lines.

I've never come across someone who believes intelligence is entirely deterministic. I think everyone would allow that environment could definitely affect how well someone scores on intelligence tests.

But none of this, as far as I can tell, debunks the idea that intelligence (or stupidity) can be inherited. Why can't it be a combination of nature AND nurture?

Subject: *
Date: Jul 03 2005 07:44:25 PM
Author: *

and in reference to your conclusion that the findings are supportive of the bell curve:

"except the authors here speculate that the differences are due to complex social reasons rather than innate differences.", the point in these articles seem more to be that these tests are only partially useful as diagnostic tools - that they do not take into account social factors which affect testing ability, but do not necessarily affect one's potential intelligence.

For example, although they admit that socio-economic factors affect test outcomes, they also state that "It is widely agreed that standardized tests do not sample all forms of intelligence. Obvious examples include creativity, wisdom, practical sense and social sensitivity; there are surely others."

At any rate, both of our arguments now refute the original article, which seems to be making the argument that black Americans need to 'get over' the issue of slavery, despite the fact that, as we have shown here, its legacy remains active in the form of continuing disparity of opportunity, and that is is important to acknowledge that, so as to put these disparities in a historical context.

Subject: and finally . . .
Date: Jul 03 2005 07:28:48 PM
Author: *

The mean intelligence test scores of Hispanics typically lie between those of Blacks and Whites. There are also differences in the patterning of scores across different abilities and subtests (Hennessy & Merrifield, 1978; Lesser, Fifer & Clark, 1965). Linguistic factors play a particularly important role for Hispanic Americans, who may know relatively little English. (By one estimate, 25% of Puerto Ricans and Mexican Americans and at least 40% of Cubans speak English 'not well" or 'not at all" - Rodriguez, 1992). Even those who describe themselves as bilingual may be at a disadvantage if Spanish was their first and best-learned language. It is not surprising that Latino children typically score higher on the performance than on the verbal subtests of the English-based WISC-R (Kaufman, 1994). Nevertheless, the predictive validity of Latino test scores is not negligible. In young children, the WISC-R has reasonably high correlations with school achievement measures (McShane & Cook, 1985). For high school students of moderate to high English proficiency, standard aptitude tests predict first-year college grades about as well as they do for non Hispanic Whites (Pennock-Roman, 1992).

It's one thing to just be wrong, you know. There's no shame in that. But lifting things like that completely out of context, and then arguing that it represents your argument, that doesn't work, and it's kind of embarrasing when people point it out.

Subject: and context for #2
Date: Jul 03 2005 07:27:34 PM
Author: *

Because ethnic differences in intelligence reflect complex patterns, no overall generalization about them is appropriate. The mean IQ scores of Chinese- and Japanese-Americans, for example, differ little from those of Whites though their spatial ability scores tend to be somewhat higher. The outstanding record of these groups in terms of school achievement and occupational status evidently reflects cultural factors. The mean intelligence test scores of Hispanic Americans are somewhat lower than those of Whites, in part because Hispanics are often less familiar with English. Nevertheless their test scores, like those of African Americans, are reasonably good predictors of school and college achievement.

Subject: *
Date: Jul 03 2005 07:26:37 PM
Author: *

way to take those quotes entirely out of context. very impressive. heres the context discussing the excerpt beginning with "Although . . ."

. . . It is possible, however, that this differential is diminishing. In the most recent re-standardization of the Stanford-Binet test, the Black/White differential was 13 points for younger children and 10 points for older children (Thorndike et al, 1986). In several other studies of children since 1980, the Black mean has consistently been over 90 and the differential has been in single digits. Larger and more definitive studies are needed before this trend can be regarded as established.

Another reason to think the IQ mean might be changing is that the Black/ White differential in achievement scores has diminished substantially in the last few years. Consider, for example, the mathematics achievement of five year olds as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The differential between Black and White scores, about 1.1 standard deviations as recently as 1978, had shrunk to .65 SD by 1990 because of Black gains. Hispanics showed similar but smaller gains; there was little change in the scores of Whites. Other assessments of school achievement also show substantial recent gains in the performance of minority children.

That's exactly the opposite of what the bell curve is arguing - what is innate does not alter with changes in the environment

Subject: You Sure This was the Right Link?
Date: Jul 03 2005 06:41:01 PM
Author: A Face in the Crowd

I went to the APA link that "*" listed, and I found these passages:

"Although studies using different tests and samples yield a range of results, the Black mean is typically about one standard deviation (about 15 points) below that of Whites."

"The mean IQ scores of Chinese- and Japanese-Americans, for example, differ little from those of Whites though their spatial ability scores tend to be somewhat higher."

"The mean intelligence test scores of Hispanics typically lie between those of Blacks and Whites."

These are precisely the findings of "The Bell Curve," except the authors here speculate that the differences are due to complex social reasons rather than innate differences.

Subject: *
Date: Jul 03 2005 06:22:54 PM
Author: *

the 'bell curve'? you have got to be joking me.

you do know that there are entire books and articles devoted to explaining why the research and assumptions in 'the bell curve' are fatally flawed, right? i mean, you do know that? You also know that basically no one in the scientific community has anything but scorn for the book, right? Also that the research was funded by the "Pioneer Fund", a group whose goal is to promote eugenics and sterilizing the "genetically unfit"?

I'm assuming you also know that neither of the authors had published any research on the topics discussed in the book in peer-reviewed journals before this book. Although one was a psychologist, the other has no credentials in statistics or psychometrics whatsoever.

just in case, here's some more references:

Stephen Jay Gould's "Mismeasure of Man", or his November, 1994 article on which it is based.

The American Psychological Association's Board of Scientific Affairs' response:
http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/apa_01.html

Inequality by Design, by The Sociology Department of UC, Berkeley

An article in the "Psychological Review":
http://www.apa.org/journals/features/rev1082346.pdf

I could go on, but all of this 'proving you wrong' sure does entail a lot of typing.

Subject: Where, oh where, is Equality?
Date: Jul 03 2005 06:03:25 PM
Author: K. Diggety

Benny, you "insist" that we are innately equal.

I'd like you to share some of your evidence...even anecdotal...that would lead you to insist on such a stance.

You keep insisting, then you keep dodging the question.

Subject: Books for Benny to Read
Date: Jul 03 2005 06:00:12 PM
Author: The Belgian Method

Lifted from the old "Dos" thread:

Subject: IQ Tests
Date: Jul 02 2005 09:35:17 AM
Author: Skink Matson

There exists TONS of evidence for inequality. Pick up a book called "The Bell Curve" for starters. Over 900 pages...IQ tests administered every which way.

And however you slice it, Jews and Asians come out on top, then whitey, then Hispanics, then...well...you know, Benny.

Average black IQ in America is 85. Average black IQ in Africa is 75. More evidence of how they've been "damaged" by their exodus here.

Culturally determined? Ha-ha-ha! Did you learn that response in your sociology class? The problem with such a rebuttal is that even though WHITE people supposedly rigged these tests, Asians and Jews consistently score higher on them than white Europeans. The truth is that Jews are SIX TIMES more likely than white Europeans to tally a “genius” score on IQ tests. And to my knowledge, no black or Hispanic has EVER designed an IQ test where blacks and Hispanics score higher than others. Can your sociology professor produce one?

This is perhaps the seventh or eighth time Benny has been asked to produce evidence of innate human equality...even between two individuals, much less the races.

Subject: Well . . .better off-ish
Date: Jul 03 2005 05:33:35 PM
Author: ^

Excerpted from the New England Journal of Medicine, v.345, n.2 12jul01

White men in the 10 "healthiest" counties in the United States have a life expectancy above 76.4 years. Black men in the 10 least healthy counties have a life expectancy of 61 (Philadelphia), 60 (Baltimore and New York), and 57.9 (District of Columbia).

The 20-year gap in life expectancy between whites in the healthiest counties and blacks in the least healthy is as big as differences between countries at very different stages of economic development. The best off are like Japan; the worst off hover around the level of Kazakhstan and Bangladesh.

Poverty is more complex than simply a lack of money. According to Diez Roux et al., the most affluent group of black neighborhoods (containing approximately a third of the black study subjects) had about the same median household income as the worst-off group of white neighborhoods. The worst-off-whites had a higher incidence of coronary events than the best-off blacks. Yet for both blacks and whites, there was a social gradient in the incidence of coronary events: the worse off the neighborhood, the higher the incidence. Thus, inequalities in health are not confined to poor health among the most deprived. . . Describing the social gradient in morbidity and mortality in terms of "inequality" draws attention to the fact that death and illness are related to social inequalities.

Subject: .
Date: Jul 03 2005 05:32:46 PM
Author: ^

The North's wealth also came from slavery. Do you think the South made all that money off cotton because people just love raw, unprocessed cotton?

This is the (very rough approximation) of the way slave labor worked in the south (and continues to work today, albeit with different details)

Slave labor allows Southern plantation owners to cheaply produce raw materials, which are moved to ports along the coast (this also has something to do with why so few people owned slaves, yet so many others were enslaved - access to waterways is crucial, but a limited resource).

raw materials are moved to the vast industrial manufacturing centers of the north, who are all too happy to have access to nearby, inexpensive raw materials, where they are turned into finished goods.

finished goods are then transferred to markets by the massive northeast shipping industry.

and, finally, money for everybody! (well, money for slave owners and factory owners and shipping magnates, anyway)

The North may not have contained vast amounts of slaves, but do not fool yourself into thinking that it did not benefit from the US slave economy.

And, by the way, which do you think would be easier to overrun, dense cities full of people or a bunch of wide open farms, full mostly of people who think overrunning the joint is the best thing going? Now, why was the North "able to roll over" the South?

Subject: ?
Date: Jul 03 2005 05:15:53 PM
Author: ^

Congrats on turning an inflammatory, ethically icky, and problematic magazine article into a kinda-supportable discussion on intersections of economics, race, and slavery. Or was it the other way around?

However, while there is significant evidence to suggest that racism has been used successfully by the wealthy to prevent organization along economic interests, the evidence to suggest that racial slavery was purely an economic decision which then caused racism (rather than the other way 'round) is rather less strong.

While some evidence does suggest this, the question is very much a "chicken or the egg" type issue among historians of the period, rather than a settled fact, as you have presented it.

Primary source documents reveal that early explorers of the Atlantic displayed so much extremity in feelings of inherent European superiority, and clearly felt Africans were 'naturally' subject to European mistreatment, and therefore the most viable candidate for enslavement in the Americas and elsewhere. These forms of evidence are particularly strong when one studies histories of science and the body (as I do), rather than those of race and slavery, where primary sources are more likely to be politico-legal and very aware of controversy, especially as the Civil War approached.

Subject: Equality
Date: Jul 03 2005 05:02:04 PM
Author: Benny

You are a weird racist who is obsessed with torture and murder.

I got burned (I suspect by you) for insisting that we are innately equal and not providing scientific evidence to support my claims. Where's yours? You're a zine writer, not a scientist. At least refer me to some books or something. And not yours, thank you.