[I've reposted this, hoping that the comments will work this time around.]
A (white, fairly liberal) friend of mine -- who reads this blog, and can identify himself if he wants to -- wrote to my Dallas Morning News colleagues and me to caution us about a new project we've started. We're going to be focusing on the needs of Southern Dallas. That's code for "the black part of town," which suffers from underdevelopment, crime, and the usual urban ills. My friend lives there, and cautioned us that if we only see the challenges there in terms of black vs. white, we'll miss the more important dynamics. From his letter:
Your new directions such as the Southern Dallas strategy is laudable and overdue. Terrific. But. Please be mindful of not finding yourself being used as an advocate for the black areas of southern Dallas to the exclusion of the other probable 60% that is largely Hispanic and white-mixed.The dirty unspoken reality of the so-called Southern half of the city is that much of what was until the late 90s black is in the last decade Hispanic; Pleasant Grove and West Dallas for glaring starters. In my lifetime I watched those areas go from white to black….white flight…in which case the areas crumbled like a house of cards…and then the same thing happened when the Mexican wave came; the blacks fled, as these two minorities are truly oil and water. In which case, look at the same shopping centers in the two areas of the city I just mentioned…not a vacancy whereas in the years after the whites fled, enterprise was virtually gone. Prime example; Payless Cashways (like Home Depot) on South Buckner, closed when area went black…stood empty for years…now is a thriving Mexican Bazaar. Love em or hate em, the Mexicans have a way of opening a zillion businesses to cater to their own, etc. [Illegal immigrants do] not whine and wait complaining no one has done anything to introduce viable business into their midst.
This is fascinating to me. My friend is a lifelong Dallasite, and knows the city well. The reason I bring it up on this blog is to raise a question about race and culture. It is easy, I think, for whites to think that all racial minorities are natural allies, but if you live in a city with substantial black and Latino populations, you see that's just not the case. When I lived in south Florida, there was serious tension between African-Americans and Hispanics. Here in Dallas, the school board is at times bitterly divided along black-Latino lines. I don't know enough about business patterns in southern Dallas to draw my own conclusions, but I live close enough to south Dallas, in a neighborhood that's fairly Mexican, to say that yes, commerce is thriving among those immigrants. The storefronts usually don't look like much, but they are always busy, and there's real life there.
My question is this: why is it that these Mexicans come to my city and this country, many of them not even legally, and most of them speaking little if any English, yet manage to thrive, despite the fact that whites aren't exactly cutting them any slack -- and yet so many black folks, who have more advantages, it seems to me, than the poor immigrant Hispanics, don't do nearly as well, even in the same down-at-the-heels neighborhoods? I'm not asking in an accusatory way; I want to know what factors -- especially cultural -- are present that could help explain this phenomenon.
Your thoughts?
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rebeccat, my posts haven't been held up in two days. I think the mochine is confusing you with me. Serves you right for siding with Erin Manning against me :).
Per Ted: "...the Catholic Church is for open borders, simply to increase their ranks... Most, if not all Hispanics are Catholics and vote Democrat. Roger Mahony, the local Cardinal here in Los Angeles, is gungho illegals."
Ted, it seems to me you are confusing the Catholic Church with Ted Kennedy, Mahony and majority of Bishops. That would be insulting to Catholics if you were doing it on purpose :).
Here is something else to consider--I keep hearing that more and more Hispanics are becoming Protestants and Evangelicals, and that a growing number of younger Hispanics are loosing their faith altogether. Moreover, I would bet that many American Catholics, especially middle class Catholics, are giving their Bishops holy hell about acting like Democrats regarding illegals. Talk is cheap, so long as Kennedy, Mahony and the Bishops don't have to pay from their own pockets for the education, housing and medical care of millions of illegals.
one can just as easily point to poverty and parental education as being an excellent predictor of achievement.
No, one cannot. Studies done on identical twins (the same DNA in 2 people) separated at birth indicate that twins perform very similarly REGARDLESS of difference in income/lifestyle/environment of their separate families.
See Steve Sailer site, www.isteve.blogspot.com for the wealth of information about IQ studies.
Rebecca I've found out that sometimes I have to hit "refresh" a couple of times to get a recent post to come up on the screen. I believe it's beliefnet and not Rod's shortcoming, he has them, more'n enough, but on this one I think he's innocent.
It is very, very odd because it really is quite consistent in holding my posts when I am responding to m david's iq theories. I know that some people will lose all respect for me even saying this, but I do believe that the ideas which m david and his ilk peddle are evil and demonic in nature and origin (not saying that they are, just that they have bought into something which has its origins in the pits of hell - which is probably true of most people in one way or another). This is why I even take the time to respond. I must admit that the consistency of how my responses on this issue are held - and the fact that it only happens with this topic, has made me think more than once that there could be demonic forces at work here. Rebeccat
While I share your opinion of their opinion on IQ I have to wonder about the demonic influence aspect. Racist opinions like those based on Bell curve theology are ignorance riding a dog while calling it a pony.
I see the evil in the Bell curve theology as detracting us from how and why we learn into a discussion on what we know and how we're just smarter than other folks.
I will piss off a lot of liberals by saying that I think that typical black child rearing practices account for the differences in scoring on IQ tests.
You won't piss me off, although I think you're only partially right. Child-rearing ulture is almost certainly the reason that some groups exceed, and it's possible that it's hindering other groups.
But I think a big factor is nutrition. That's pretty much the only logical reason they keep having to rejigger the IQ tests every few years, people are getting more nutrients when younger.
People point out the fact that people who are better off tend to have children with higher IQ, and they assume that's because of more involved parents or something. Well, people who are better off have also have taller children, and I doubt that has anything to do with parents. ('It's five o'clock, time to dangle from the ceiling for an hour!' 'Aw, mom, do I have to?')
As we feed people more and more, they get taller and smarter. The people that are not fed as well do not.
For people who think actual genetics has anything to do with the differences we're seeing right now, why on earth are all people getting smarter? Where is that coming from?
No, something besides genetics has accounted for a 5-10 point change in IQ. And having that existing, but not being explained, means trying to claim that black people are genetically predisposed to have a lower one based on currently being 5-10 points lower is just...stupid. Maybe this mysterious something just affects them more.
OTOH, the idea that IQ tests are racially biased is also stupid. IQ test are Westernly biased. Anyone trying to talk about the IQ of African tribes is a fool, but anyone asserting that a bias accounts for the low scores of any group in the US is also a fool, because anyone living in the US needs 'Western' intelligence. If they have some other kind of intelligence, well, that's interesting, but doesn't really have a lot to do with how 'smart' they are here.
As for what sort of mischief your message of "black people are stupid" creates
First, this is a slander. I never have said this. What I have said is that black IQ tests (merely a test) are a SD below whites, and that this test correlates economic performance. This does not make somebody "stupid" except to your mind. And "demonic?" Sheese. You sound like you are burning witches in the middle ages. Is it also "demonic" to point out black superiority in atheletics? When confronting a problem, I look to the facts, and quit trying to make the facts fit a bias.
Second, this issue would never come up if the races were not so visual. Regardless of race, there is the same economic division between high IQ people versus low IQ people in the same race, we just can't see it and so it isn't a big social problem. The problem with race is that when it statistically shows up, everyone sees it anyway because they all live together. So what science has shown, every man walking down the street already knows. They can just go look at the economic development of any counry in Africa versus, say, Japan.
Third, don't you think there is a connection with childrearing and IQ? Don't you think Jews are so into education because they see so clearly how it benefits them, and they have the IQ needed to invest the resources for the job and make the right choices?
Fourth, liberal social libertaianism is death for low IQ people (of any race). High IQ people are less likely to divorce or make poor choices that hurt families. For this reason, it is critical we understand how certain social behavior doesn't hurt some peoples but can hurt another, before we jump headfirst into social liberalism.
Fifth, most misunderstanding here stems from the reality that people just don't understand mathematics. Knowing the bell curve exists for all human traits (height, weight, you name it) and that humans have racial diversity should not make people squirm. If you understand stats, you can see clearly that there are millions of black people far mare intelligent than millions of whites. It's just an average. But the reality shows up when looking at large groups, like Rod does when comparing two areas of Dallas. Ignoring the facts would be foolish.
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