The Bias Fallacy. It’s the achievement gap, not systemic racism, that explains demographic disparities in education and employment.

City Journal ^ | Autumn 2020 | Heather Mac Donald

[karpov]

The United States is being torn apart by an idea: that racism defines America. The death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer in late May 2020 catapulted this claim into national prominence; riots and the desecration of national symbols followed. Now, activists and their media allies are marshaling a more sweeping set of facts to prove the dominance of white supremacy: the absence of a proportional representation of blacks in a range of organizations. That insufficient diversity results from racial bias, claim the activists, and every few days, the press serves up another exposé of this industry or that company’s too-white workforce to drive home the point.

In one short stretch during the summer of 2020, the Wall Street Journal ran stories headlined “Wall Street Knows It’s Too White” and “A Decade-Long Stall for Black Enrollment in M.B.A. Programs.” The Los Angeles Times asked: “Why are Black and Latino people still kept out of the tech industry?” In another article, the Times documented its own “painful reckoning over race.” The New York Times pumped out news features and op-eds alleging racism in food journalism, Hollywood, publishing, and sports management, among other professions. The Chronicle of Higher Education painstakingly reported on protests against alleged racial bias in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields, citing, for example, charges that black scientists are constantly “attacked by institutional and systemic racism.” All the articles invoked employment ratios as proof of racism.

This journalistic theme has deep roots. For decades, reporters could all but guarantee themselves front-page placement by tallying shortfalls in the “diversity” of a firm or profession. Depending on the moment, sex counts might dominate the discrimination genre, as during the height of the #MeToo movement.

[karpov]

The world won't end if racial differences in intelligence are acknowledged, because people should be treated as individuals, not as representatives of their race.

[sauropod]

Bump

[doorgunner69]

Uh, there is that nasty old Bell Curve of IQ of various races that has a rather major effect on things. Cannot defeat gentics with legislature.

.

[Main Street]

“White privilege didn’t give us any advantage over others, white achievement did! And that’s the part that drives them to madness.”

[clearcarbon]

I do not recall reading in any of my history books about how “white privilege” brought waves of European immigrants to America.

[CurlyDave]

...there is that nasty old Bell Curve of IQ of various races that has a rather major effect on things. Cannot defeat gentics with legislature...

The thing I have always wondered about that curve is that by now, east asians should dominate the world. There is more to it than just IQ.

But I remember being an engineer in the 1970s and the technical magazines were full of articles on finding the "qualified Negro". Of course, these days we can't even say that word.

[RightInEastLansing]

The thing I have always wondered about that curve is that by now, east asians should dominate the world. There is more to it than just IQ.

Ashkenazi's put the West in the lead. They are a standard deviation above East Asians. Jews have won 20% of the Nobel Peace Prizes while only being .3% of the world's poplulation.

[doorgunner69]

Well, China is on the march, so to speak. Japan could be anywhere if WWII had not forced a major reset.

Knew two negros during my engineering career.

One was an old guy, physicist, very bright. He was a consultant for a customer.

The other was a young kid just out of school. He was a great guy to have around, great fun. Never really bothered to ponder how smart he was. Being right out of school, he needed the usual mentoring. No one (early 80's) seemed to notice his color.

[blue state conservative]

The Vietnamese boat people came here in the 70s unable to speak our language and with nothing but the shirts on their backs, much poorer than all ethnic groups in America. In one generation they have surpassed whites in median family income and I don’t know anyone who begrudges them for it. They expect academic excellence from their children and mostly raised them in two parent households.

[CurlyDave]

...Ashkenazi's put the West in the lead. They are a standard deviation above East Asians...

Makes sense to me. Back in the 60s I was an undergraduate at M.I.T and roughly half the students were Jewish. This was back in the days when there was significant discrimination by places like Harvard.

I guess you only need a small percentage of very smart people to make a big difference.

[aquila48]

Those curves pretty much explain everything our lying eyes see regarding race in the real world.

[JimRed]

The achievement gap and the BEHAVIOR gap.

[JimRed]

But I remember being an engineer in the 1970s and the technical magazines were full of articles on finding the "qualified Negro". Of course, these days we can't even say that word.

Back in the 80s I mentored a new guy in our real estate office, a black man in his 60s who had retired from a computer job. He was a good guy, and did very well except for one thing: when he talked about mortgage rates he used "dot" where we normally use "point". It was a holdover from his prior profession, I guess.

[kearnyirish2]

They are determined to adjust for what any differences have led to naturally; they’ve been pushing underqualified preferred groups into higher positions for half a century, and STILL haven’t achieved the desired outcome.

[FreedomPoster]

And they work their butts off, in my experience.

[nathanbedford]

Heather MacDonald is a Canadian but I doubt if that citizenship will protect her, Canada is even more despotic on the subject than America. God help her now.

Nathan Bedford's first maxim of American politics: all politics in America is not local but ultimately racial.

Doubt the maxim? Consider the last election.

[SauronOfMordor]

There is more to it than just IQ.

There are other factors: creativity, drive, willingness to work hard. IQ is important, though.

[Reeses]

Politics is not a war of ideas, but a war of interests. Like all wars, the first casualty is the truth. Anything political is lies, damned lies, and statistics. Journalism has always been a weapon of mass propaganda. Now most of these weapons are in the hands of city slicker socialists, while most of the firearms are in the hands of Americans.

[Reeses]

"Ashkenazi" translates into "German-Jew hybrid". Jews without the mix aren't particularly bright.

The dark side of higher IQ is millions of humans have to be killed to get there. Credit for the IQ jump from 80 to 100 is owed to the fierce competition with the Neanderthals, which resulted in their extinction.

[Gay State Conservative]

Since man learned to walk upright there have been those who were smarter than average and those who were dumber than average.Since then there have also been those willing to work harder than average and those who work less hard than average.

I,for example,am reasonably intelligent.My IQ might be a shade above average.I've also worked reasonably hard during my life but surely not as hard as some.Realizing those facts I'm not surprised by the fact that there are those who live in million dollar houses and drive Mercedes Benzes while I live in a reasonably nice,but far from luxurious,condo and drive a nice Honda.

Nor am I bitter.