Free Republic

“Dear White People, the minimum requirement of black friends needed to not seem racist has been raised to two….Sorry, your ‘weed man’ Tyrone does not count!” Just like that, the upcoming Dear White People movie moved into highly controversial territory. The trailers (both standard and the recent red band) touch on scenarios that call out the casual racism still acted out in a supposedly “post-racial” America. Although the statements and questions raised by the lead character Samantha White may seem outlandish to some white Americans, for far too many African Americans her rants represent everyday reality. Here are some things...

The blogosphere has been rife with remembrances of Steve Jobs over the last couple of weeks. I don’t have anything bad to say about him, but now that some time has passed, I’m just going to say it: I think the hoopla over him is over the top. A few things to consider: 1. People write about Steve to write about themselves. 2. Individuals do not make history. Populations do. 3. You can tell a lot about a society by the people they honor. 4. Steve Jobs sheds more light on the nature vs. nurture debate than he does on...

NATURE not nurture is the main determinant of how well children perform at school and university, according to a study to be published this week

<p>People do badly on tests for different reasons. Some do badly because they're anxious or fear failure, others because they don't know how to answer the questions. How important are these factors? When it comes to the long-observed patterns of black-white differences on a range of academic measures, social science purports to know the answer. Journals and textbooks of psychology will tell you that the principal cause of black students' poor performance on tests is something called "stereotype threat." Black test-takers fall short because they're afraid that the results will be used to confirm negative views about their group's abilities. It follows that if some way can be found to dispel this "threat," group differences in scores will disappear.</p>