Also Roberts's blessing for "how race has affected his or her life" does not necessarily mean that race will be a source of hardship in these essays. Race can also be a source of resilience and bringing important values to the intellectual life of the university as when the ITF junior reporters were impressed by Clervie Ngounoue (winner of the most recent junior Wimbledon; American)'s boards stating "my values" and "my goals". (This may not be the greatest example as she is almost certainly not going to go to college.)
Under Glenn and John's influence I thought that Roland Fryer and Tomiko Brown Nagin wrote the two best op-eds in the "after affirmative action" special section. But absent a plan like Fryer's if John supports class-based affirmative action as he says that he does then he has supported a small amount of social work as part of the function of the university. Even the function of exposing students to "the vastness of it" can be considered a kind of social work.
The reason for disproportionate fewer numbers of blacks in positions correlating to higher levels of intelligence and socioeconomic status needs no further explanation than the double bell curve. Other factors may be at play but in themselves may reflect the fundamental logic of Richard Hernstein’s famous syllogism from his Atlantic article of 1973:
· If differences in mental ability are inherited, and
· If success requires those abilities, and
· If earnings and prestige depend upon success,
· Then social standing (which reflects earnings and prestige) will be based to some extent on inherited differences among people
IQ or ‘g’ is an elusive concept, but that it correlates strongly to socioeconomic outcomes in a Eurocentric world is incontrovertible. Given the importance of mental ability, as measured by IQ (a measure dismissed out of hand by progressive orthodoxy, but well established among psychometricians and the great majority of biogenetic researchers), and its high correlation with socioeconomic success, the story of race in America may be graphically represented by two overlapping bell curves (as shown below). The normal distribution of a given variable, taken from a sufficiently large sample, as illustrated in a bell curve graph, will be numerically greatest at its numerical mean (average). The same number of values will lie to the right and to the left of the mean in smoothly diminishing numbers. 68.3% of the sample will lie within one standard deviation (SD) to the right and one standard deviation to the left of the mean. 95% of the sample will lie within two standard deviations from the mean, and three standard deviations will capture 97.5% of the sample. The analytical strength of this statistical ratio is that it is constant through all normal distributions. The mean IQ score for white Americans is approximately 100, that of black Americans 85, or approximately one standard deviation below that mark. This statistical difference has several consequential effects. If one were to superimpose the graph of black IQ distribution onto a graph of white IQ distribution, the large area of overlap reemphasizes the necessity of seeing individuals specifically, rather than as members of a group defined by generalizations that may statistically apply to that group, but are of limited applicability to its individual members. The converse, however, precludes the assumption of group equality in terms of the chosen metric. At the point at which the graph lines intersect, those points to the left will be disproportionately, relative to population, represented by blacks, those to the right disproportionally by whites. Because of the rightward shift of the white population norm and the numerical minority (13.6% of the American population) of blacks, the availability of blacks to fill upper echelon jobs, or elite university admissions, corresponding to IQ requirements of, say one standard deviation above the general population norm and beyond, becomes diminishingly small. (Harvard, other considerations aside, is considering applicants from three standard deviations from the norm, or around the 97.5 percentile.) In the other direction the disproportionate concentration of blacks at one standard deviation below the norm of the white population may be expected to correlate with disproportionate representation in lower socioeconomic positions as well as to increasingly disproportionate representation by measurements of poverty and associated sociological maladies. Employers or institutions seeking to meet aggressive diversity goals in filling higher echelons may have trouble finding qualified black applicants. They certainly exist but will, in terms of the general population, be underrepresented. There are one eighth as many blacks as whites, but the degree that they are disproportionately underrepresented in the higher ranges of the IQ distribution makes the difference much greater in terms of individuals available to fill positions correlating to the right half of the scale. [1]
Underproportioned representation of backs in higher socioeconomic positions is consistently pointed to as de facto evidence of systematic or institutional racism. Racism cannot be dismissed as a partial or even significant part of the explanation, but it is not a complete or necessarily the most important factor in the creation of the data underlying the statistic. Nor can the outcome be taken as evidence of systemic or institutional racism. We know that American has a long history of racism, beginning with attitudes that permitted the ideology of slavery, and that elements of those attitudes have persisted to the present, but anecdotal and statistical evidence exits to argue that those attitudes have not remained constant, but rather have diminished over time, to the point that one may question the degree to which racism remains systematic or institutional, or how, or to what extent, that phenomenon might be quantified. However, the importance of racism’s historical inertia cannot be discounted when considering the black person’s inertial reality.
The recognition of population differences raises questions relating to policy. Is justice, or fairness, best served by the denial that meaningful differences exist between individuals, or better by policies supportive of individuals finding meaningful roles tailored to their potentials, especially as related to policy in the area of public education and occupational preparation. Presuming the absence of material want, i.e., a reasonable degree of economic security, meaning is perhaps a higher human goal, in terms of personal realization, than material gain or even comparative status. Above all, people seek a place within society in which they enjoy dignity and are respected for their roles as individual humans, as ends to themselves. Personal fulfillment entails doing meaningful work well. Accomplishment of that goal implies an alignment of the task to one’s talents. Relative status having been defined, one sets about feathering one’s nest. We all come to our own pons asinorum, that point at which our intellectual capacity does not measure up to the complexity of the problem at hand, beyond which we cannot progress. One may become imbittered by that fact, or look around to see what other work needs doing.
A string may be pushed from here to yonder without it getting any longer.
Loury – hardship Olympics. Loury and McWhorter are correct to point out the degree to which admissions has come to focus on victimhood rather than excellence. The mission of the university is the pursuit of academic excellence. It may be argued that diversity contributes to the realization of broad societal goals relating to societal excellence. But these are not academic excellence, which is the mission of the school, but rather represent social engineering according to extralegal mandates with the amorphous goal of ‘social justice’, which everyone is for but which escapes definitive formulation, has a lot of moving parts, is an unsettled branch of study.
As to ‘legacy’: Private schools and public schools are different animals in respect to degree of autonomy of policy. If a private university chooses to be an old boys club, so be it. As a competitive institution, a sense of tradition and continuity within ivy covered walls may be attractive to many, whether teachers or students. If too clubby, however, the institution may achieve the status of irrelevancy, and things move on.
McWhorter, saying just because he's not all black doesn't mean he's not BLACK, speaks to the rigidity of racial identity both as empowering and and as a barrier to true integration. I like to think of Obama as of mixed race. He identifies as black, but that is only half true. Frederich Douglas's father was white. Is race to continue as the most significant element of human identity? I include a very short story as illustrative of my point:
One Drop You’re Black
So I wanted to join this very exclusive club in Atlanta. Secret handshakes and all that. Everyone was pretty much a racist, but that came with the territory. You didn’t actually have to be a racist but just not say anything that might imply you weren’t. If you went along to get along, these folks were quite friendly, and could do your career a lot of good.
So I learned the codes and got along, survived the hazing, passed initiation and rose quickly through the ranks. Until the purity test. Ancestry.com. It had been decided that everyone should take it, just to be sure there had been no interloper in anybody’s woodpile. Turns out, somewhere in those darkened woods of yore, genetic information had been injected into a ready womb, my ancestral pedigree thus impugned.
Well, you may imagine my dumbfounded, utterly amazed, and astonished, gobsmacked reaction to the revelation! It wasn’t much, just a snippet of my DNA, and apparently some while back, but the rule—one drop—is hard and fast. So suddenly I’m Black!
The reaction was swift. Striped of wealth and honors. The real estate deals I’d planned to seal evaporated. Our friends, my loving wife of many years, also gone, she with another member of the club, who took pity on her plight. All seemed lost.
But sitting on the proverbial curb, in the very depths of darkest melancholy, I began to reassess my situation. I thought of Steve Martin, sitting on the porch with his Black family, you may remember from the movie, The Jerk, raised as a poor Black boy, didn’t realize that he was white until he was 21, utterly hopeless in his efforts to find rhythm, to join the merry music making, but blissfully content within the bosom of his family, and they never even mentioning or giving the slightest regard to his impediment, or of sidelong looks at social gatherings.
So I’d launch a new career. Buy a banjo and do stand-up comedy in all the Black venues. Tell all the tropes, but as a newly minted Black man. Now could say the ‘n’ word right out loud in public and get paid to do it. Made up a sign so it would be understood I had the right to do it—HE MAY LOOK WHITE BUT HE AIN’T, AND HE’S GOT THE DOCUMENTS TO PROVE IT!
Everything had changed again. The worm had turned. I was a big hit. Got rich. Was named Black man of the year. Got a new, younger, kinder wife who treats me really nice. Nowadays I’m pretty much retired. Hang out with friends beside the pool. My older, now-Black-too kids come around to visit, play with their new, much younger half-siblings. Somebody’s always making music. They don’t ask me to play the banjo, but I don’t mind. I just kick back and count my blessings.
Since the gutting of affirmative action in college admissions, hopefully, Clarence Thomas and his loyal admirers sincerely feel validated and vindicated. Meritorious manumission is an interesting and provocative affliction. Lol!!!!
I think the Hardship Olympics is accurately illuminated as it will be exacerbated (has been for good while already?) in this space. What was lacking in the conversation is why it will be a necessity. The necessity is not based on politics du jour but rather the existing and ignored by “those that have” rigid economics of top-tier “in the club” truths, which are the genuine horror of it all.
I get the argument, but just like most other arguments from the race and gender cult, it’s simplistic, and lacks the nuance and consideration that SHOULD accompany an assault on one’s character. It is unsurprising to see, and boring to consider. This is a hallmark of the left now. Just blather on and on about injustice but don’t dare ask for salience, a cogent argument or an explanation of the opposition’s grievance. Good thing those Ivy League schools have endless supplies of weak minded apparatchiks in training so they can continue to charge a premium to make the richest of our youth dumber than ever. Should work out really well for the US in the long run.
Also Roberts's blessing for "how race has affected his or her life" does not necessarily mean that race will be a source of hardship in these essays. Race can also be a source of resilience and bringing important values to the intellectual life of the university as when the ITF junior reporters were impressed by Clervie Ngounoue (winner of the most recent junior Wimbledon; American)'s boards stating "my values" and "my goals". (This may not be the greatest example as she is almost certainly not going to go to college.)
Under Glenn and John's influence I thought that Roland Fryer and Tomiko Brown Nagin wrote the two best op-eds in the "after affirmative action" special section. But absent a plan like Fryer's if John supports class-based affirmative action as he says that he does then he has supported a small amount of social work as part of the function of the university. Even the function of exposing students to "the vastness of it" can be considered a kind of social work.
The reason for disproportionate fewer numbers of blacks in positions correlating to higher levels of intelligence and socioeconomic status needs no further explanation than the double bell curve. Other factors may be at play but in themselves may reflect the fundamental logic of Richard Hernstein’s famous syllogism from his Atlantic article of 1973:
· If differences in mental ability are inherited, and
· If success requires those abilities, and
· If earnings and prestige depend upon success,
· Then social standing (which reflects earnings and prestige) will be based to some extent on inherited differences among people
IQ or ‘g’ is an elusive concept, but that it correlates strongly to socioeconomic outcomes in a Eurocentric world is incontrovertible. Given the importance of mental ability, as measured by IQ (a measure dismissed out of hand by progressive orthodoxy, but well established among psychometricians and the great majority of biogenetic researchers), and its high correlation with socioeconomic success, the story of race in America may be graphically represented by two overlapping bell curves (as shown below). The normal distribution of a given variable, taken from a sufficiently large sample, as illustrated in a bell curve graph, will be numerically greatest at its numerical mean (average). The same number of values will lie to the right and to the left of the mean in smoothly diminishing numbers. 68.3% of the sample will lie within one standard deviation (SD) to the right and one standard deviation to the left of the mean. 95% of the sample will lie within two standard deviations from the mean, and three standard deviations will capture 97.5% of the sample. The analytical strength of this statistical ratio is that it is constant through all normal distributions. The mean IQ score for white Americans is approximately 100, that of black Americans 85, or approximately one standard deviation below that mark. This statistical difference has several consequential effects. If one were to superimpose the graph of black IQ distribution onto a graph of white IQ distribution, the large area of overlap reemphasizes the necessity of seeing individuals specifically, rather than as members of a group defined by generalizations that may statistically apply to that group, but are of limited applicability to its individual members. The converse, however, precludes the assumption of group equality in terms of the chosen metric. At the point at which the graph lines intersect, those points to the left will be disproportionately, relative to population, represented by blacks, those to the right disproportionally by whites. Because of the rightward shift of the white population norm and the numerical minority (13.6% of the American population) of blacks, the availability of blacks to fill upper echelon jobs, or elite university admissions, corresponding to IQ requirements of, say one standard deviation above the general population norm and beyond, becomes diminishingly small. (Harvard, other considerations aside, is considering applicants from three standard deviations from the norm, or around the 97.5 percentile.) In the other direction the disproportionate concentration of blacks at one standard deviation below the norm of the white population may be expected to correlate with disproportionate representation in lower socioeconomic positions as well as to increasingly disproportionate representation by measurements of poverty and associated sociological maladies. Employers or institutions seeking to meet aggressive diversity goals in filling higher echelons may have trouble finding qualified black applicants. They certainly exist but will, in terms of the general population, be underrepresented. There are one eighth as many blacks as whites, but the degree that they are disproportionately underrepresented in the higher ranges of the IQ distribution makes the difference much greater in terms of individuals available to fill positions correlating to the right half of the scale. [1]
Underproportioned representation of backs in higher socioeconomic positions is consistently pointed to as de facto evidence of systematic or institutional racism. Racism cannot be dismissed as a partial or even significant part of the explanation, but it is not a complete or necessarily the most important factor in the creation of the data underlying the statistic. Nor can the outcome be taken as evidence of systemic or institutional racism. We know that American has a long history of racism, beginning with attitudes that permitted the ideology of slavery, and that elements of those attitudes have persisted to the present, but anecdotal and statistical evidence exits to argue that those attitudes have not remained constant, but rather have diminished over time, to the point that one may question the degree to which racism remains systematic or institutional, or how, or to what extent, that phenomenon might be quantified. However, the importance of racism’s historical inertia cannot be discounted when considering the black person’s inertial reality.
The recognition of population differences raises questions relating to policy. Is justice, or fairness, best served by the denial that meaningful differences exist between individuals, or better by policies supportive of individuals finding meaningful roles tailored to their potentials, especially as related to policy in the area of public education and occupational preparation. Presuming the absence of material want, i.e., a reasonable degree of economic security, meaning is perhaps a higher human goal, in terms of personal realization, than material gain or even comparative status. Above all, people seek a place within society in which they enjoy dignity and are respected for their roles as individual humans, as ends to themselves. Personal fulfillment entails doing meaningful work well. Accomplishment of that goal implies an alignment of the task to one’s talents. Relative status having been defined, one sets about feathering one’s nest. We all come to our own pons asinorum, that point at which our intellectual capacity does not measure up to the complexity of the problem at hand, beyond which we cannot progress. One may become imbittered by that fact, or look around to see what other work needs doing.
A string may be pushed from here to yonder without it getting any longer.
Loury – hardship Olympics. Loury and McWhorter are correct to point out the degree to which admissions has come to focus on victimhood rather than excellence. The mission of the university is the pursuit of academic excellence. It may be argued that diversity contributes to the realization of broad societal goals relating to societal excellence. But these are not academic excellence, which is the mission of the school, but rather represent social engineering according to extralegal mandates with the amorphous goal of ‘social justice’, which everyone is for but which escapes definitive formulation, has a lot of moving parts, is an unsettled branch of study.
As to ‘legacy’: Private schools and public schools are different animals in respect to degree of autonomy of policy. If a private university chooses to be an old boys club, so be it. As a competitive institution, a sense of tradition and continuity within ivy covered walls may be attractive to many, whether teachers or students. If too clubby, however, the institution may achieve the status of irrelevancy, and things move on.
McWhorter, saying just because he's not all black doesn't mean he's not BLACK, speaks to the rigidity of racial identity both as empowering and and as a barrier to true integration. I like to think of Obama as of mixed race. He identifies as black, but that is only half true. Frederich Douglas's father was white. Is race to continue as the most significant element of human identity? I include a very short story as illustrative of my point:
One Drop You’re Black
So I wanted to join this very exclusive club in Atlanta. Secret handshakes and all that. Everyone was pretty much a racist, but that came with the territory. You didn’t actually have to be a racist but just not say anything that might imply you weren’t. If you went along to get along, these folks were quite friendly, and could do your career a lot of good.
So I learned the codes and got along, survived the hazing, passed initiation and rose quickly through the ranks. Until the purity test. Ancestry.com. It had been decided that everyone should take it, just to be sure there had been no interloper in anybody’s woodpile. Turns out, somewhere in those darkened woods of yore, genetic information had been injected into a ready womb, my ancestral pedigree thus impugned.
Well, you may imagine my dumbfounded, utterly amazed, and astonished, gobsmacked reaction to the revelation! It wasn’t much, just a snippet of my DNA, and apparently some while back, but the rule—one drop—is hard and fast. So suddenly I’m Black!
The reaction was swift. Striped of wealth and honors. The real estate deals I’d planned to seal evaporated. Our friends, my loving wife of many years, also gone, she with another member of the club, who took pity on her plight. All seemed lost.
But sitting on the proverbial curb, in the very depths of darkest melancholy, I began to reassess my situation. I thought of Steve Martin, sitting on the porch with his Black family, you may remember from the movie, The Jerk, raised as a poor Black boy, didn’t realize that he was white until he was 21, utterly hopeless in his efforts to find rhythm, to join the merry music making, but blissfully content within the bosom of his family, and they never even mentioning or giving the slightest regard to his impediment, or of sidelong looks at social gatherings.
So I’d launch a new career. Buy a banjo and do stand-up comedy in all the Black venues. Tell all the tropes, but as a newly minted Black man. Now could say the ‘n’ word right out loud in public and get paid to do it. Made up a sign so it would be understood I had the right to do it—HE MAY LOOK WHITE BUT HE AIN’T, AND HE’S GOT THE DOCUMENTS TO PROVE IT!
Everything had changed again. The worm had turned. I was a big hit. Got rich. Was named Black man of the year. Got a new, younger, kinder wife who treats me really nice. Nowadays I’m pretty much retired. Hang out with friends beside the pool. My older, now-Black-too kids come around to visit, play with their new, much younger half-siblings. Somebody’s always making music. They don’t ask me to play the banjo, but I don’t mind. I just kick back and count my blessings.
Since the gutting of affirmative action in college admissions, hopefully, Clarence Thomas and his loyal admirers sincerely feel validated and vindicated. Meritorious manumission is an interesting and provocative affliction. Lol!!!!
I think the Hardship Olympics is accurately illuminated as it will be exacerbated (has been for good while already?) in this space. What was lacking in the conversation is why it will be a necessity. The necessity is not based on politics du jour but rather the existing and ignored by “those that have” rigid economics of top-tier “in the club” truths, which are the genuine horror of it all.
I get the argument, but just like most other arguments from the race and gender cult, it’s simplistic, and lacks the nuance and consideration that SHOULD accompany an assault on one’s character. It is unsurprising to see, and boring to consider. This is a hallmark of the left now. Just blather on and on about injustice but don’t dare ask for salience, a cogent argument or an explanation of the opposition’s grievance. Good thing those Ivy League schools have endless supplies of weak minded apparatchiks in training so they can continue to charge a premium to make the richest of our youth dumber than ever. Should work out really well for the US in the long run.