A Supreme Court Ruling That Warms My Little Racist Heart

[John Kilduff]

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I cannot believe the shallowness of this discussion. It is an embarrassment, frankly.

Here is the context that is being omitted from this discussion:

Until Brown v. Board of Education, black students were forcibly segregated into inferior schools, while white students received better funding, better facilities and better education. This was not backdoor, under-the-counter, hush-hush behavior. This was OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT POLICY. For generations.

After Brown ruled this practice unconstitutional, school districts around the country magically continued to do end-runs around it for the next two decades, in order to channel white students into better schools and black students into inferior schools. That is not irrelevant, either.

THIS is where the whole discussion STARTS.

The movement and ideology behind segregation did not suddenly vanish off the face of the earth in 1954. It didn't vanish by 1964, either. Or 1974. Or yesterday. The institutional structure behind such separate-and-unequal policies was MASSIVE. Powerful people, in powerful positions, with massive social and ideological investment.

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All true.

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You cannot have a discussion about school integration unless you place it in the context of the segregationist history it was designed to remedy.
And you cannot have a discussion about affirmative action unless you place it in the context of the OFFICIAL second-class status it was designed to address.

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Fine.

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And yet here 2+2 is, arguing about whether blacks are genetically predisposed to low SAT scores and basketball.

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Well, none of the above refutes that possibility. All of the above supports the idea that segregation and discrimination have had a negative impact on Black scholastic performance (an idea to which I subscribe). How does the existence of that major factor, preclude the possibility of there being other factors at work? It doesn't. It can't. That's not how factors work. We don't say, "Well, it so clear that factor D exists, and D is such a strong factor; therefore factor E can't exist." Any scientist saying that about anything would be no scientist at all.

I'd certainly hope there isn't any genetic component at work in poor average Black scholastic performance. That's what I'd like to think, but I can't be sure. And there is that huge gap. I'm not going to completely rule out any possible factors just because doing so would make me feel better that way.

I would guess, though, that it is pretty darn likely that there is some genetic factor at work in Black athletic performance.

Would you guess that the reasons Blacks so strongly dominate professional sports in the USA are purely due of socioeconomic factors? Blacks are what percentage of the population??? -and what percentage of professional sports players are Black??? It strains credulity to think that there ISN'T some genetic component at work in professional sports when it comes to overall Black sports achievement, the dominance is so overwhelming.

The argument about the effects of decades of segregation is much more likely to fully explain Black SAT scores, than the socioeconomic argument is to fully account for the marvelous dominance of Blacks in professional sports.

The thing is, though, that "nice" people usually don't like to acknowledge the possibility of Black athletic dominance being tied to a genetic factor, because then they would also have to acknowledge the possibility of Black scholastic performance being tied to a genetic factor. And they really CAN'T face that. It would make them somehow not so nice if they did. It would make them feel almost bigoted or racist. Besides, what is it going to help? It might hurt somehow, though.

Those are the reasons many people can't face that possibility, in my opinion. So they have to completely deny it and think of anyone who acknowledges that possibility as a bigot or racist. And a bigot or racist, as we all know, is the very lowest type of person in modern America. So the denial of such a possibility is necessary for these people to retain their sense of goodness about themselves.

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It boggles the mind.q/q

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It's often hard for the human mind to resist the tendency to let emotions color analysis. Nevertheless, it is a tendency that I believe should be diligently guarded against.

Thanks for reading.