Posted on 05/11/2013 10:12:22 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
There are a ton of clips of Jason Richwine talking about race and immigration floating around the Internets. For example, Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed posted a one-minute excerpt from an AEI event that Richwine attended and wrote:
Here’s Video Of Another Time The Heritage Analyst Said Blacks and Hispanics Have Lower IQs
Jason Richwine, a senior policy analyst at the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation and co-author of a controversial report on the economic costs of immigration reform, said at a 2008 event that the “most important way” race was different was in IQ. He made similar comments in a 2009 PhD dissertation, which have received attention this week.
Yes, he said that. But the entire video — which is not hidden away in some secret vault, but available on C-Span — paints a very different picture and Kaczynski omits everything else that Richwine talked about, focusing on the bit that will grab some clicks.
Here’s the link to the entire event, which lasted close to 90 minutes. It’s actually a discussion from 2008 with Mark Krikorian and his book, The New Case Against Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal. The talk was moderated by David Frum with Fred Siegel, Richwine, and Krikorian as the panelists. Questions were taken from the audience from both liberal and conservative attendees, including questions on Richwine’s thesis.
In other words, it wasn’t some secret KKK-like talk, but just a normal day at a think-tank.
I thought Krikorian did a fine job his work. As far as a real discussion on race and immigration, that doesn’t happen until about the one-hour mark, when the panel starts taking questions from the audience. If you’re really interested in the race aspect of all this, watch from then on and skip the one-minute clips from the link-baiters.
Mark was very specific in saying that he didn’t agree with Richwine’s alleged ethnic-based immigration policy, based on IQ or anything else. Siegel pointed out his issue with using IQ as an actual measure of intelligence or the ability to succeed. And Richwine ending up clearing up what he said earlier and ending up stating that he, too, was against a ethnic-based immigration policy.
What I think is lost in Richwine’s entire IQ thesis is that he’s focusing on assimilation issues and is theorizing that IQ scores play a part. For the record, I don’t buy Richwine’s argument, but the idea that we should be focusing on immigrant populations and whether or not that can successfully assimilate into U.S. society is an important point to discuss.
One thing all three seemed to agree on was that public schools were failing immigrants and that, until you can fix failing schools, the assimilation problems of newly arrived immigrants will not be solved.
Another important idea discussed at great length was Mark’s contention that each new wave of immigrants hurts the immigrant groups already established in America. This fits in well with the Reihan Salam-Matt Yglesias debate over on The Agenda on the effects of immigration on low-skilled workers.
A last thought on Richwine, who is being painted as a racist by many (including some on the right.)
To borrow a line from our president, let me be perfectly clear: Richwine’s views have been public knowledge for years and are only now becoming an issue because of his co-authorship of the Heritage study on the cost of immigration reform. If you don’t like the Heritage study, then fine. But end this bogus witch hunt by pretending that Richwine’s views are something new.
For example, back in 2009, the New York Times asked in their “Idea of the Day” column — citing Richwine’s research — “Today’s idea: Research finds that ethnic diversity reduces social trust and cohesion, at least in the short term. Is admitting smarter immigrants one answer?”
What’s more, the Times invited Richwine to contribute to their “Room for Debate” as recently as January. Richwine’s views were well known. If Richwine is a racist as alleged, why did the Times invite him to participate?
If Richwine is a racist, then so is the New York Times. Oddly, we don’t hear that charge, do we?
Let’s by all means have a debate on all of this, but the default reaction that Richwine is somehow a racist because of his statistical research is a dishonest attempt to spin the immigration reform issue, and it should stop.
It would be a statistical fluke if they had the same exact IQs.
In any discussion like this I think it’s wise to remember this analogy. Swedes are taller than Portuguese but Portuguese basketball players are taller that Swedish jockeys. Every individual should be assessed on his or her individual characteristics.
My mother always said “ You are Judged by those you have around you.”
I suppose in retrospect we could say we Judge others by their actions.
Is that racist? If it is it’s tough .
It is racist to come to any conclusions on race, unless you conclude that all minority races are being oppressed.
If the IQ tests are not reliable, take a poll and ask questions. Everyone is relying on polls. [/sarc]
I also don’t think IQ is a great basis for deciding who gets to immigrate.
Depends. If you poll nationwide, probably not. If you poll within groups of similar education/income level, then yes.
Remember what was done to the people who wrote “The Bell Curve”. Facts be damned, the agenda is all important.
I’d agree. Very skilled people in particular fields can often have low IQs. Since when did the exalted ‘IQ’ become paramount anyway? It was only developed because there’s no objective way to measure brain power.
I haven’t clicked on NRO since they fired John Derbyshire.
This was the circumstances behind Derbyshire’s firing for those who don’t know...
In April 2012, Derbyshire wrote an article for Taki’s Magazine titled “The Talk: Nonblack Version.” The article was a response to reports in the news media of ‘talks’ given by African-American parents to their children warning them against white people.
The article, which he couched in terms of purported advice he had given his own children on dealing with African Americans, describes 5% of black people as “ferociously hostile” to whites. He then advises his readers to avoid settling in black neighborhoods, avoid events that draw large numbers of black people, and refrain from helping black people who seem to be in distress.
He also advises white readers to scrutinize black politicians more heavily than white ones, to cultivate friendships with the handful of “intelligent and well socialized blacks” for reasons of public relations, and argued that the average intelligence of black people is lower than that of white people.
Derbyshire’s column immediately provoked condemnation from across the political spectrum. Derbyshire’s editor at the conservative publication National Review, Rich Lowry, described the piece as “appalling.”
On April 7, Lowry announced that Derbyshire had been dismissed from National Review.
“We never would have published it, but the main reason that people noticed it is that it is by a National Review writer. Derb is effectively using our name to get more oxygen for views with which we’d never associate ourselves otherwise. So there has to be a parting of the ways.”
In response to the commentary provoked by his piece, Derbyshire wrote a more extensive explanation of the points made in the article on his home page.
READ IT HERE:
http://www.johnderbyshire.com/April2012/page.html
A treasure-trove of wonderful one-liners.
It seems as though IQ in this instance, is measuring assimilation. The hip hop culture is less like dominate American culture than is Hispanic culture but black language is more like English than is Spanish. Asian language lag is somewhat offset by aggressive assimilation.
My Jedi suit protects me from flames.
I am a STRONG advocate of legal immigration.
My Foreman is an immigrant from Mexico with a third grade education. He would score poorly on any written test, even in Spanish.
However, he is a GENIUS in the shop. He not only knows all of our manufacturing processes, he can repair or fabricate any piece of equipment from electrical to forklifts.
Even more important, his work ethic is amazing. He never stops working. When he finishes an 80 hour week at the shop, he goes home and welds on the side.
He is ambitious and an avid saver. He always puts his family first and paid over $140,000 to put his son through the state’s top university.
His morals are old world straight and Catholic.
Our country is richer because of immigrants like this. As an engineer I worked with immigrants from many countries. The brain drain from the old countries to ours is undeniable.
That said, we get a lot of low quality immigrants, especially the illegal kind. They need to be sent packing across a well defended border.
One policy I would recommend is that when an immigrant kid commits a felony, the entire family is deported. The families often have excellent control over their kids behavior, and in many cultures, a kid would not dare harm his family.
The other policy which I advance is that we should immediately offer asylum to ALL oppressed Christians in the world. For example, we should rescue the Copts of Egypt.
It’s those whitey biased IQ tests that makes ‘em LOOK dumber than they are...
you have summed up liberalism. congratulations.
Question! Am I a racist for pointing out/noticing that in the major sports of today that dark skinned players, tan to black, have become the dominate proportion of players and I believe this has a generic root? I also believe that there are other dominate individual racial characteristics/features and differences that apply to the myriad of human activities and potentials. People are people and dogs are dogs and a poodle lap dog is very unlike a retriever hunting dog
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