THE New York Times reports the facts, suggesting they are cause for celebration and that the new demographics amount to just retribution against guilty whites. The news, writes Sabrina Tavernese, is “a milestone for a nation whose government was founded by white Europeans and has wrestled mightily with issues of race, from the days of slavery, through a civil war, bitter civil rights battles and, most recently, highly charged debates over efforts to restrict immigration.” But the real kicker is this. While heading for minority status in America, whites must do ever more to help “minorities,” Tavernese writes. In other words, even when nonwhites become the majority they will not lose their “minority” status and will remain morally superior to whites in the eyes of liberal America.

As long as whites remain more successful than nonwhites, they will be the official majority. That’s the real news. And thus whites are duty bound to redistribute wealth into government aid for nonwhites, whose relative lack of success is entirely due to inadequate schools.

Tavernese reports:

After years of speculation, estimates and projections, the Census Bureau has made it official: White births are no longer a majority in the United States.

Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 49.6 percent of all births in the 12-month period that ended last July, according to Census Bureau data made public on Thursday, while minorities — including Hispanics, blacks, Asians and those of mixed race — reached 50.4 percent, representing a majority for the first time in the country’s history.

Such a turn has been long expected, but no one was certain when the moment would arrive — signaling a milestone for a nation whose government was founded by white Europeans and has wrestled mightily with issues of race, from the days of slavery, through a civil war, bitter civil rights battles and, most recently, highly charged debates over efforts to restrict immigration.

While over all, whites will remain a majority for some time, the fact that a younger generation is being born in which minorities are the majority has broad implications for the country’s economy, its political life and its identity. “This is an important tipping point,” said William H. Frey, the senior demographer at the Brookings Institution, describing the shift as a “transformation from a mostly white baby boomer culture to the more globalized multiethnic country that we are becoming.”

                                                                        —- Comments —-

Jane S. writes:

And thus whites are duty bound to redistribute wealth into government aid for nonwhites, whose relative lack of success is entirely due to inadequate schools. 

Their relative lack of success is entirely due to their own inadequacies, and their inadequacies are entirely due to their race, and not the schools. My parents were both educated in a one-room schoolhouse, like everyone else in those days, and they did well.

I’m not defending the schools. The schools are atrocious. But when nonwhites don’t succeed, it’s not the schools’ fault.

Arete writes:

I suppose Jane S. is of the same race as Shakespeare and Bach? Hmmm, maybe its good to remember then that she is also of the same race as Billy Ray and Miley Cyrus and most of the attendees of Nascar races. (Whites have their own “inadequacies”).

“Their inadequacies are entirely due to their race.” Extra Melatonin makes you less successful in school? Kinda hard to believe.

“The schools are atrocious”– The only way anybody gets through those retched prisons is having a mom and dad who care about you and are available to help you. Since the U.S. has made husbands and fathers (especially black husbands and fathers) obsolete it is not surprising that blacks might not do as well in school when there are essentially no parents around for them. Why does this make us angry at blacks? Whites elected this government. Liberals and Feminists (mostly white, rich and educated) are to blame for this mess.

An entire race is a very large segment of the world population to dismiss.

Yeah, Obama sucks. Let’s be above condemning his entire race for his “inadequacies” or else we might have to hold YOU accountable for the shenanigans of every red-neck who ever munched Cheetos in the parking lot of a Wal-mart.

Laura writes:

I suppose Jane S. is of the same race as Shakespeare and Bach? Hmmm, maybe its good to remember then that she is also of the same race as Billy Ray and Miley Cyrus and most of the attendees of Nascar races. ( Whites have their own “inadequacies”).

Whites, of course, have their own inadequacies. They are especially to blame when it comes to organized and highly systematized forms of evil, such as liberalism itself. But whites do not blame their inadequacies on racism and hostility toward whites.

“Their inadequacies are entirely due to their race.” Extra Melatonin makes you less successful in school? Kinda hard to believe.

Race involves more than melanin. Psychological studies confirm this, as does observation and common sense experience. For instance, blacks show higher levels of self-esteem on psychological tests than whites. They also have lower IQ as a group, which does not mean all blacks have lower IQ than all whites.

It’s an overstatement for Jane to say, “[T]heir inadequacies are entirely due to their race.” Schools more geared to blacks might be more disciplined places and the students would almost certainly do better, while not performing at the same academic level as whites. High school math curricula, for instance, often push black students ahead when they are not prepared. Blacks need stricter forms of discipline too.

 “The schools are atrocious”- The only way anybody gets through those retched prisons is having a mom and dad who care about you and are available to help you. Since the U.S. has made husbands and fathers (especially black husbands and fathers), obsolete it is not surprising that blacks might not do as well in school when there are essentially no parents around for them. Why does this make us angry at blacks? Whites elected this government. Liberals and Feminists (mostly white, rich and educated) are to blame for this mess.

Blacks perform less well than whites at the best of suburban schools. That has been widely reported.

When you say the schools are “atrocious,” do you mean they are physically atrocious places? While many urban school buildings are old, not luxurious and some quite ugly, they are still adequate environments in which to learn the basics. Many of these school buildings were once inhabited by whites, who were part of stable communities and went on to achieve at high levels.

Family stability is extremely important. Liberals have destroyed that for blacks and made the lives and functioning of blacks much worse. But even before the era of welfare and sexual freedom, blacks had higher levels of illegitimacy and family breakdown.

You say, “Why does this make us angry at blacks?”

Jane did not express anger toward blacks.

An entire race is a very large segment of the world population to dismiss.

So to speak of the “inadequacies” of blacks is to dismiss them? How does an entire people deserve such infallibility?

Let’s be above condemning his entire race for his “inadequacies” or else we might have to hold YOU accountable for the shenanigans of every red-neck who ever munched Cheetos in the parking lot of a Wal-mart.

Jane did not mention Obama, and probably would have expressed the same thoughts had he not been elected. Nor did Jane condemn the entire black race or suggest whites are perfect.

My hunch is that Arete finds it excruciating to consider blacks as less intelligent than whites because she exalts intelligence. To her, a person who cannot do well in school is less of a person than someone who can. This is why she accuses Jane of dehumanizing blacks.

Whites are especially prone to this glorification of achievement and rationality. Blacks were made in the image of God. It is not for us to grasp why he made them different from whites or why he made whites different from Asians, who have higher IQ on average than whites. Would Arete be so angry if Jane had said whites will never do as well in engineering school as Asians?

It is wrong to exaggerate the significance of racial differences, but it is also wrong to deny them altogether.

Texanne writes:

Has there been any official pronouncement as to what percentage of “white blood” is required in order to qualify an individual as white?

Laura writes:

 As far as I know, where a person fits into the census categories is entirely determined by the survey respondents.

Matthew writes:

“Blacks were made in the image of God. It is not for us to grasp why he made them different from whites or why he made whites different from Asians, who have higher IQ on average than whites.”

Mrs. Wood, I believe you are confusing the ill-defined and ill-chosen biological category of “race” with ethnicity and culture. It’s a bit naive to think that God “made” blacks with a lower IQ — a kind of a-historical thinking. The fact is that we are dealing with generations of difference in heredity, culture, education, environment, social status and so on. Blacks in America have on average always been poorer, more likely to be exposed to environmental toxins, poor nutrition, etc. This is not simply a matter of a supposedly fixed category like race; it is a matter of history and heredity, which are not easy to escape or overcome. Similarly. Asians and Jews, both of whom score higher on average than whites, are building upon centuries of culture in which study, intelligence and/or personal discipline were highly valued. These things aren’t negligible, nor can they be attributed simply to fixed categories of biology.

I quote here from an article summarizing a study done 25 years ago:

“One of the more startling new theories holds that most blacks in America are in a social position strikingly similar to other ”castelike” minorities around the world, such as the Harijans, or untouchables, of India, the Maoris of New Zealand and the Burakumi in Japan. The gap between blacks’ and whites’ I.Q. scores is similar to that between the privileged and deprived groups in each of these other cultures, education experts say. Where tests have been given, the children of these underprivileged groups score an average 10 to 15 points below children in their country’s dominant group. (On the other hand, one study shows that Burakumi children in America, where they are treated as any other Japanese, they do as well on I.Q. tests and in school as other Japanese.) This ”caste” point of view is receiving an increasingly wider and more influential hearing since John Ogbu, a Nigerian anthropologist at the University of California, first proposed it close to a decade ago. Dr. Ogbu is one of many to note that the black-white I.Q. debate is not a uniquely American issue. The same gap prevails, Dr. Ogbu contends, wherever castelike divisions exist in society. And according to Ulric Neisser, a cognitive psychologist at Emory University, ”All over the world, lower-caste children do less well in school than upper-caste children, have lower test scores, and don’t stay in school as long.””

I have to say: I love your site and find myself agreeing with almost everything you post. However, when you get on to the issue of race, something often smells foul. Traditionalist and skeptic of modernity that you are, you ought to be more skeptical of this category, which in your usage often smacks of the doubtful biologism of the nineteenth century and the age of pseudo-sciences such as phrenology. It is as modernist as any other object of your criticism. And it really hurts our cause. While your intent may be only to throw a challenge to destructive multicultural and the mentality of victimhood and entitlement promoted by the Left, really it does sound sometimes like race-baiting fueled by your own racial resentment. And let’s not forget — since you said that whites do not blame blacks for their misfortunes — it was largely white Leftist intellectuals who gave the black community the vocabulary of victimhood and blaming. One doesn’t find that kind of attitude in earlier black writers such as Frederick Douglas. And frankly, I have met plenty of conservative black people who object to such politics and who reserve their greatest criticism for the attitudes of their own young people in this area.

And no, it’s not a matter of prizing intelligence above all things, as you suggested. Rather, it’s that some of the comments regarding this issue on your site are downright embarrassing, only giving unnecessary fodder to the Leftist accusation of “racism.” One would like to point others who don’t think quite like us to your blog to give them food for thought; this kind of thing, however, gives us great reason to hesitate in doing so.

Laura writes:

This is a very long comment. Truthfully, I haven’t had time to thoroughly read it. I will respond as soon as possible. Unfortunately, I have a number of other comments to post and then must go out for a few hours.

Jane S. responds:

To Arete: You are quite right. The way I worded my comment above was careless and came out sounding completely wrong. I sometimes think blogs are an inadequate way to discuss heavy issues. You only get space for a paragraph or two, and you have very little time to decide beforehand what to say before the discussion has expired. That doesn’t work very well for me. I need time to think things over.

I assure you, I have no illustrious racial cred to flaunt. I am much closer to the squirrel-eating trailer-trash end of the racial spectrum and nowhere near Shakespeare and Bach. This blog, in plain fact, is out of my league. My people were famine Irish and, as I understand it, when they arrived in the U.S. they were lower than blacks. They were worth considerably less than slaves. You can really see why. Where I come from, wherever you see a rundown house with too many kids and junk cars up on blocks in the yard and loud music blaring at all hours, chances are those people are descended from Irish.

On top of that, I married into a large tribe of Asian immigrants and, one benefit of fighting with my in-laws, it has helped me overcome any squeamishness in shooting off my mouth about race. They are comfortable telling me all the things that annoy them about whites, and I’m comfortable telling them all the things that annoy me about Asians.

Be that as it may, I try to avoid making overgeneralizations about race, and to be careful predicting outcomes based on race. I’ve known people who came from tiny villages in remote parts of the world that were the next best thing to being from Mars. You’d think they wouldn’t know how to sign their own name. I’ve seen those same people come to the U.S., and before you know it, they’re making more money than I’ve ever seen in my life. I do think it is has to do with their race. But I am not in a position to explain how. So I’ll leave it at that.

The point I was trying to make, very inadequately, was that people will go on comparing the success, or lack thereof, between whites and nonwhites based on their race and blame the schools, and recommend increased spending on the schools. But too much spending for education gets funneled into completely useless things like teachers’ unions and not enough into the quality of teaching.

If schools provided every student with a basic, well-rounded education, like they did in the days of one-room schoolhouses when there was no money for schools, everyone would be more likely to succeed, whatever their race.

Even so, there will still be observable differences between the achievements of people of different racial and ethnic groups and it is my belief, the schools can’t change that, regardless of how much they spend. Where my husband comes from, the majority of people lived without electricity or flush toilets until quite recently, and some of them do still. And they turn out IT engineers like gangbusters. Poets, aromatherapists, interior decorators—not so much. Don’t ask me why. But that’s how it is.

Hurricane Betsy writes:

It is wrong to expect non-whites to be as accomplished as whites in a society built and designed by white people. Black people, abos, etc. are being judged by standards that are not for them. A white person wouldn’t want to be expected to hunt monkeys and other wild bush meat, skin it, cook it over an outdoor fire and so on. Nor would they be able to shinny up a giant coconut tree, nor to do all the other big and little tasks that Africans, abos, etc. performed very, very well for themselves before Westerners came along and tried to force them into moulds they never were intended for.

Rhodesia and South Africa went to the dogs not because whites stopped running the show, keeping the “less intelligent” black races in line and closely supervising them in a white-designed culture. They went to hell because Europeans, after doing their nation-building, decided they didn’t want to make their own beds, cook their own meals and diaper their own babies anymore. It’s called arrogance. It is common sense that one day the black people would rebel. They’ve been trained to want the benefits of white people in a white-created society, but are just not suited to it and no one will say this out loud. It is not a matter of white-style intelligence. It is a matter of blooming in your biologically appropriate surroundings.

One more example: black people (and even a lot of whites) were just not created for life in huge cities. Large cities, both here and in the hot countries, are crimes against nature, humanity and God and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that people from such ancestral lands are not coping well. Just telling them that they aren’t as “intelligent” won’t wash in my world, that is for sure.

Jesse Powell writes:

I’d like to dispute the claim that “White Births Are in the Minority” as of the year from June 30, 2010 to June 30, 2011. The New York Times article leads with the opening paragraph “After years of speculation, estimates and projections, the Census Bureau has made it official: White births are no longer a majority in the United States.” The reality is, the Census Report being cited did not say that “white births” are no longer the majority; it said that it estimates that whites are no longer the majority of the “population under 1 year old”. The Census’ own headline for the report in question is “Most Children Younger Than Age 1 are Minorities, Census Bureau Reports”.

There are two ways you can be “under 1 years old” and living in the United States. The first is to be born here and the second is to be carried here by your family who arrived in America very recently. For instance you were born in Mexico. Three months after you were born your mother immigrated to the United States. You are now under the age of 1 and living in the United States even though you were not born in the United States.

The National Center for Health Statistics is the agency that reports on the racial composition of births. Below is a little table showing the proportion of non-Hispanic white births in the United States from 2005 to 2010, the most recent year available. There is essentially no chance that the percentage of white births will be under 50 percent in the year 2011 or in the year 2012 or in 2013 for that matter; white births going under 50 percent is not imminent, indeed the proportion of white births increased from 2008 to 2010 due to the very sharp fall in Hispanic fertility in the United States in recent years.

Even though the story of white births being in the minority for the first time is getting huge play in the mainstream media it is not in fact true; that milestone has not yet come and it is not imminent.

Also, Laura is right, somebody’s race is determined by what the respondent themselves says. There is no “objective criteria” used to determine race. Same goes for “Hispanic ethnicity, which is not considered a race” according to the Census Bureau. You’re Hispanic if you say you’re Hispanic. Once you are classified as Hispanic what race you are is a separate question. The vast majority of Hispanics consider themselves to be “Some Other Race” or “White”. If “Some Other Race” is not an option then the vast majority of Hispanics default to “White”. This is why the “non-Hispanic white” category is important.

Proportion of non-Hispanic white births in the United States by Year

2005	55.1%
2006	54.1%
2007	53.5%
2008	53.4%
2009	53.6%
2010	54.0%

Laura writes:

Matthew states that I am confusing biology and culture.The two are entirely different, he says:

 It’s a bit naive to think that God “made” blacks with a lower IQ — a kind of a-historical thinking. The fact is that we are dealing with generations of difference in heredity, culture, education, environment, social status and so on.

Heredity is biological. I said God made blacks in his image, which means that regardless of how blacks as a group have developed and evolved throughout history, there is a foundation created by God. We cannot fully explain these racial differences, but we can partly understand them and acknowledge the role of biology and environment. I did not address the issue of secondary environmental factors. To acknowledge evolution in this sense is not to rule out divine intention. That environment played a significant part in the emergence of specific racial characteristics seems obvious. That does not preclude the hand of God or make these racial characteristics any less real.

Matthew suggests lower black IQ in America may be due to environmental toxins. If anything, American blacks appear to have benefited from environmental conditions. I would suggest he compare average black IQ in America with that in Africa. The same holds true regarding his comparison of American blacks to the untouchables of India and the Burakumi of Japan. Look to places where Africans are in the majority, and one will find some of the same innate tendencies.

Matthew writes:

I have to say: I love your site and find myself agreeing with almost everything you post. However, when you get on to the issue of race, something often smells foul.

Given that honest discussions of race lead to ostracism and social death, I’m not surprised that Matthew smells something foul. Perhaps what he fears are his own inhibitions. My goal is to adhere to the truth. If some find that unpleasant or obnoxious, I have nothing to offer them by way of consolation.

Matthew writes:

Traditionalist and skeptic of modernity that you are, you ought to be more skeptical of this category, which in your usage often smacks of the doubtful biologism of the nineteenth century and the age of pseudo-sciences such as phrenology. It is as modernist as any other object of your criticism. And it really hurts our cause.

No, the science of intelligence testing is not comparable to phrenology. I recommend Michael Levin’s book Why Race Matters for some good basics on the subject. But even if one discounts the entire field of psychometrics, there is the well-documented performance of blacks in schools and in high-level fields of achievement.

Matthew writes:

While your intent may be only to throw a challenge to destructive multicultural and the mentality of victimhood and entitlement promoted by the Left, really it does sound sometimes like race-baiting fueled by your own racial resentment.

The initial subject of this post was an article in The New York Times in which whites were blamed for the failures of blacks in school. That is racial resentment. I would not be writing on this subject if such resentment did not exist. If most Americans agreed with Matthew that race is not a meaningful category, there would be no such thing as affirmative action, the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus, Black History Month, hate crime legislation or a president like Barack Obama, who openly states that race is all-important. Most of America already presumes that race is important. I could easily find common ground with someone who believed race was not important. Such a person would resist public approval of overt racial consciousness in nonwhites. A society without any racial consciousness would be far superior to one in which only some groups are permitted racial pride.

Matthew does not appear to object to this overt racial pride in nonwhites.

He writes:

And let’s not forget — since you said that whites do not blame blacks for their misfortunes — it was largely white Leftist intellectuals who gave the black community the vocabulary of victimhood and blaming.

Did Matthew read my response to Arete? I made the same point about leftism.

One doesn’t find that kind of attitude in earlier black writers such as Frederick Douglas. And frankly, I have met plenty of conservative black people who object to such politics and who reserve their greatest criticism for the attitudes of their own young people in this area.

Unfortunately, those people are not numerous enough or outspoken enough to influence The New York Times. Must I explain what a generalization is? To say blacks tend to vote for people like Obama is not to say there are not black conservatives too. I have much more in common with black conservatives such as Elizabeth Wright, who commented at this site before she died last year, than I do with white liberals.

As for Betsy’s comment, blacks themselves are demanding to be judged by white standards, and claim that they do not meet these standards because of the hatred of whites. And, no, I don’t believe the brutal murders of white South Africans are justified. There are some standards that should be universal.

Arete writes:

“Blacks were made in the image of God.” Ok. I am glad that we cleared that up. I wasn’t sure if you agreed with that or not.

 [Laura writes: That is a nasty comment.]

“My hunch is that Arete finds it excruciating to consider blacks as less intelligent than whites because she exalts intelligence. To her, a person who cannot do well in school is less of a person than someone who can. “

LOL Both myself and my husband did terribly in regular school but when we dropped out (I was home schooled starting in 8th grade and he dropped out in 10th) to educate ourselves we were fine. (I now have a BA and he is finishing a PhD –if that even matters…). [Laura writes: I don’t see how that eliminates the possibility that you consider high intelligence very important. Nevertheless, that was purely speculative. I cannot explain why you consider it so damning to say that blacks have, as a group, lower innate intelligence. Do you feel as angry when someone says that blacks have greater athletic ability than whites?]

I don’t think school has much to do with intelligence. Test scores tell us as much about what the kid had for breakfast that day (eggs and toast for a strong preformance or Sugar Smacks for the sleepies) as they do about “intelligence.” IQ test scores for all those tested have been going up for decades leading those in the field to wonder what the test is actually telling us (as it is pretty clear that students are not getting more and more intelligent over the years). [IQ is affected by environment, but only so much.]

In the article they actually wonder if it is nothing more than video games and puzzles on the sides of fast food bags and restaurant placemats that is increasing the IQ of the average American child.

Race is not like one’s sex. How do you gauge what race a person is? For instance, how many blacks in your family tree would it take before your white IQ starts to suffer? One? two? three? [I agree that race is not like sex. I never said they were alike.]

Asian parents by the way, are famously involved (for better or for worse) in their children’s academic life. Again, I would posit that it is the involvement, or not, of parents in the academic life of the students rather than the degree to which their ” blood is mixed” which determines overall success. [Again, family life is very important. But to some extent family traditions are affected by innate tendencies. I have known many Asian parents who have doggedly pursued classical music training for their children. I have known some blacks who have too, but very few.] 

The only thing “excruciating” to me here is the way Mrs Wood seems to go in for Darwinian notions of race. [I have been accused by Michael of denying evolutionary factors. Darwin would never accept the idea that blacks are made in the image of God. That is about as anti-Darwinian as you can get.] I just don’t get it. Ok, lets say you are right, blacks have lower IQ’s. (and we will pretend for argument sake that IQ tests are really telling us something of value) You say God made them that way. Ok, what are the implications of that? If they are really naturally less intelligent than whites and they just can’t help their inadequacies then maybe we are “duty bound to redistribute wealth into government aid for nonwhites.” [In a paternalistic society, the elite do bear some natural sense of responsibility for others. That is good. But it should be done without creating a whole class of victims. Government aid today is often a form of reparations.] If on the other hand one believes as, I do, that blacks are not genetically hampered any more than any other race you can drop the crazy leftist programs which alienate the black fathers and break up black families. You can’t have it both ways.

P.S. I am sorry, Jane S., if I was harsh, I was thinking that you were implying more than you were. I am as poor, mid-western, white bread as they come. I think my response was partly due to the fact that I really love this website but it does sometimes sounds like Mrs. Wood is racist. That is very upsetting as I agree with her on most everything else. Maybe she could clear some things up for her readers? [If I were black and objected to the demonization of blacks would Arete accuse me of being racist? I think not. The problem is not that I am discussing race. It is that I am white and refuse to apologize for it. However, I don’t deny that I need to do more educating of readers on this topic.]

Gregory F. writes:

I think your response is quite classy to those who are too blind to see past the end of their noses on race. These are the same people who don’t mind the black reactions to the O.J. Simpson acquittal, the Trayvon Martin shooting, and the election of Obama. Please do not be intimidated or back down from these posters.

Laura writes:

Thank you.

Speaking of Trayvon Martin, I would like to ask Arete and Matthew a question.

There was a national uproar about the shooting of Martin even though the fact that he was beating George Zimmerman at the time he was shot is little disputed. Zimmerman had a broken nose, two black eyes and bloody lacerations on the back of his head to prove it. So intense was the uproar and the call for Zimmerman’s arrest, however, that even the president commented on the incident.

There has been no national uproar about the shooting death of 23-year-old Beau Zabel, who was walking home from work when he was shot in the neck and whose murderer has never been charged, or the shooting death of 60-year-old Harry Stone, who was standing on a street corner in Kansas City the other day when he was shot, or the stabbing of Aysha Ring, who was standing in line in a liquor store in Baltimore when she was fatally injured, or the murders of James Cooper and James Kouzaris, two British tourists shot in Florida last year. But of course, these are only a few examples of the many innocent people brutally slain by blacks every year.

Do you consider the lack of moral outrage over these crimes, as compared to the intense outrage over Martin’s death, indicative of any perverse attitudes regarding race? Do you feel any concern about the victims of black violence in connection with frequent assertions and suggestions by public figures and journalists that the root of this violence is the racist attitudes of whites? Does it bother you that your children will be induced to feel guilt for such savage crimes?

Jane S. writes:

I can’t find anyone who agrees with me on this, but I think the root cause of black people’s problems today has nothing to do with their IQ or their DNA. I think it’s because they have stopped following Christ, to a large extent.

Black Americans used to be one of Christianity’s strongest faith communities. I have a feeling that has changed.

How on earth does Jesse Jackson get away with using the title “Rev.”? What church is he connected to?

Then there’s the “church” the Obamas went to in Chicago, with the “Rev.” Jeremiah Wright. How that passes even for nominally Christian is beyond me.

Baltimore is known for having out-of-control black crime. One day, I heard about a church in the Baltimore area called the “Black Empowerment Temple.” I thought, what an odd name for a church. I found it online and there is almost no indication this is a Christian church. However, there is prominently featured a handsome, charismatic-looking, young black man. I have no idea what he preaches on Sundays. But I have a feeling there’s a link somehow to Baltimore’s black crime and places like the “Black Empowerment Temple.”

Then there’s the Nation of Islam. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that organization is predominantly black. Mike Tyson converted to Islam while he was in prison. When he got out, he went right back to robbing and mugging people, attacking women.

By the way, don’t think I’m singling out black Christians. White Christian churches have largely abandoned their faith, too.

Laura writes:

I don’t know why Jane says that she can’t find anyone who agrees with her that the root cause of black problems is their rejection of Christ. I would entirely agree and I am sure many others would too. I would only add that the root cause also involves the rejection of Christ by whites (including “Christian” whites), who continually excuse evil committed by blacks and are able to persuade blacks of their infallibility. They are complicit in the disintegration of black communities. The idea that white racism causes people to commit murder and mayhem is heresy.

Art writes:

I would have to say there is some truth in all of the comments on the page, however I lean towards Matthew’s comment in some respects. I do believe in psychometrics, but I also believe that many of our racial distinctions in this country stem from not just the neomarxists, but also the early modern theories of race propagated in Maryland and Virginia in the seventeenth century, as well as a few theories and laws that cropped up throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Many of these physical distinctions would be secondary to other factors in a functioning traditional society.

Laura writes:

I am confused by Art’s statement that he “believes in psychometrics,” as if it is religion or a cult. It’s true, human psychology cannot be studied in the precise way chemistry or anatomy can. There’s no question about that. There are many gray areas – more gray areas than black-and-white areas – in the field of psychological research.  IQ testing, however, is a reliable science that tells us something about cognitive abilities. The findings of IQ tests correspond reliably with certain life outcomes. There are no brain surgeons with IQ’s of 80, or at least let’s hope not.

A person or a race, however, can never be reduced to cognitive abilities. I do not, and I repeat this even though I said it before, I do not rely solely or primarily on IQ tests for my views of race, which are based on common sense, personal experience and on what I have seen and read with my own eyes. The bottom line is, race involves psychological traits, not simply skin color, and a sense of identification with one’s own race, which ideally does not preclude an encompassing awareness of the common humanity of all people.

Art writes:

I also believe that many of our racial distinctions in this country stem from not just the neo-Marxists, but also the early modern theories of race propagated in Maryland and Virginia in the seventeenth century, as well as a few theories and laws that cropped up throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

I don’t know what racial distinctions he is referring to.

Matthew writes:

“Do you consider the lack of moral outrage over these crimes, as compared to the intense outrage over Martin’s death, indicative of any perverse attitudes regarding race? Do you feel any concern about the victims of black violence in connection with frequent assertions and suggestions by public figures and journalists that the root of this violence is the racist attitudes of whites? Does it bother you that your children will be induced to feel guilt for such savage crimes?”

In answer to your three questions: yes, yes, and yes.

I think all this supposed “hate crime” and “bullying” craze is selective, politicized reporting, and a tool of the Left. I also don’t buy for a second that black crime can be blamed on racist attitudes of whites. As for my children, it would bother me — except that I don’t send them to school and they don’t watch TV — so they are not exposed to such Leftist propaganda.

That said, I still submit, there is something ugly about your race discussions. I hear resentment in it. No, it is not about my own inhabitions — and please, don’t psychologize your commentators. I believe there was an older Southern and Christian sense of — at the very least — manners about these things, which would forbid such talk. I do not get your invocation of the “race” card. I do not think it is truly conservative, or traditionalist. This is the obsession of my Leftist academic colleagues: race. For my own part, I try to respond by stressing Christian anthropology: the person made in the image of God.

 Laura writes:

There are several glaring contradictions in what Matthew says.

He says the lack of moral outrage over brutal crimes committed by blacks is a problem. But how can this lack of moral outrage be addressed other than by expressing moral outrage?

He says I should not “psychologize” my commentators, but I only did such a thing because he had psychologized me, saying I am resentful, as opposed to outraged. It is impossible for me to defend myself against such a charge, and I won’t.

He says there is something “ugly”about race discussions. Of course, there is. Race, to all of us, is like sex to the Victorians. It is dirty and sick to talk about it. Furthermore, there is something ugly about discussing all generalizations, including those involving angry feminists. Whenever we resort to generalizations about whole classes of people, we resort to partial truths. They can never capture the variety of personality. They should never be considered truths in the way one plus one is a truth. The science of ethics lacks precision, but it is not chaos.

We must at times resort to generalizations, most especially to counter dangerous generalizations that are capturing the public imagination. It is especially incumbent on those of us who are not extremists and who are not filled with resentment to speak on these issues. If we don’t, they will be controlled by extremists and haters. Race is a fact of life. Racial identification will motivate people, and a genuinely civilized sensibility is desperately needed. Those of us who do speak have everything to lose personally by speaking up.

It is indeed a lack of manners to talk about race — in many places and at most social gatherings. It is wrong to reduce any single human being to the common characteristics of their race and therefore when we face actual people in a social setting, we encounter them as individuals first, as we should. But we live in a world in which race is discussed implictly or overtly all the time. Therefore it is irresponsible to not talk about it in venues devoted to intellectual discussion, detached from the day-to-day.

Jesse Powell writes:

I’ve tended to be supportive of Matthew’s comments in this thread so I will give my own answer to the question you (Laura) addressed to him. In terms of race I tend to agree with what is referred to in these parts as the “standard model”; that all races are approximately the same in their intrinsic abilities and characteristics and that observable racial differences are due to cultural and historical factors and that theoretically racial differences can be overcome.

[Laura writes: I’m not sure what the “standard model” is, but I depart entirely from Mr. Powell’s view here. I reject the idea that innate tendencies must be “overcome.” I have never spoken of racial characteristics as such. Innate traits are neither good nor bad. What human beings do with these innate qualities is good or bad.

Mr. Powell says that all races are “approximately” the same. In other words, the disparity in achievement of blacks and whites is due to culture and environment (not environment in the sweeping evolutionary sense, but environment in the short term). Perhaps Jesse could clarify what these cultural factors are and how they are different from the cultural limitations faced by other groups, such as poor Jews who moved to this country and faced discrimination too. I would like to ask Jesse to explain why American blacks have on average higher IQ than African blacks, but he rejects the idea that there is such a thing as innate cognitive traits.

Mr. Powell could as easily say that environment has prevented all people from becoming as smart as Einstein. Given that he rejects real life outcomes and intelligence testing, it would be equally impossibel to respond to this assertion as to his assertion that all races can have the same mental traits. Neither the statement, “I believe all people can be as smart as Einstein” nor the statement, “I believe all races can (in the foreseeable future) arrive at identical outcomes in terms of cognitive achievement” can be proved or disproved without resorting to statistical trends or some kind of material evidence. In any event, I have never called for an end to education for blacks or for an end to efforts to help blacks achieve. In fact, I believe that recognizing racial differences would overwhelmingly benefit blacks and create schools better attuned to their potential. By the way, the statement that blacks have different cognitive abilities should not affect those abilities. But Mr. Powell seems to suggest that merely stating this fact somehow suppresses black achievement.]

“Do you consider the lack of moral outrage over these crimes, as compared to the intense outrage over Martin’s death, indicative of any perverse attitudes regarding race? Do you feel any concern about the victims of black violence in connection with frequent assertions and suggestions by public figures and journalists that the root of this violence is the racist attitudes of whites? Does it bother you that your children will be induced to feel guilt for such savage crimes?”

I will agree that ignoring white victims of black crimes where the attack against the white victim can be reasonably inferred to be motivated by racial hate against whites while at the same time accusing Martin Zimmerman of racial hate in a national uproar while the evidence points to self-defense is perverse. [“Racial hate” is not necessary to make a crime abhorrent. I have not criticized black crime purely because it may involve racial hatred.] I would also say it is perverse to solely focus on the white victims of black racially motivated attacks and to ignore or dismiss as unimportant the much larger number of blacks killed by other blacks due to the social breakdown that affects blacks disproportionately in this society. [Yes, it is wrong to dismiss black victims of black crime, which is not something I have done. In fact, I have written about at least one victim of black crime and when writing on the subject I often refer to the black victims of black crime. The perpetrators are still black. Many of these crimes involving black victims of black assailants are crimes of passion or hatred among people who know each other. That does not make them any less wrong or evil, but it does make them

I assume Jesse objects to the frequent black focus on the black victims of slavery or white violence, e.g., lynchings. I would imagine, given his objection to a white blogger talking about the white victims of black violence, that he rejects this identification by blacks of victims within their own race. Does Jesse ever speak out against this and if so how would this be morally distinct from the objections I have raised?] You also mention public figures and journalists who claim the root of black violence against whites (to the extent they admit these crimes exist) is due to white racism. In my experience the claim that black crime is due to white racism is usually a general statement and is not linked to black racially motivated crimes against whites. [It doesn’t matter whether the crimes are explicitly racial. Black crime in general is often blamed on whites, as Jesse himself seems to blame it on the historical and cultural conditions created by whites.] An effort isn’t being made to justify racial attacks against whites; the effort is more to ignore racial attacks against whites. [To ignore evil is to condone it.] Regarding white children being made to feel guilty about the crimes of blacks; people should only feel guilty about things they have done wrong. [Of course, they shouldn’t. But they must receive affirmation from somewhere of their sense that they are not to blame.] As to “collective racial guilt” both blacks and whites in their history as peoples have things to be ashamed of. It might be true that “white racial guilt” is promoted too heavily in this culture but that doesn’t mean that whites have nothing to be ashamed of regarding their past as a collective people. [Did I ever say that they didn’t? Did you read my comments at the beginning of this entry in which I said whites were overwhelmingly responsible for systematic, organized forms of evil, such as liberalism itself?]

However, more importantly, all of this is irrelevant to the claim that blacks have lower IQs than whites and that therefore all black problems are simply due to their intrinsic inherited inferiority. [Please point to a statement where I said that all black problems are due to lower IQ. As I said above, lower IQ is a morally neutral fact.] No amount of misplaced hostility towards whites used to justify blacks not taking responsibility for their own problems as a community can justify the assertion that blacks are intrinsically inferior to whites based on the result of IQ tests. [I have never stated that blacks are intrinsically inferior to whites. Is the statement that blacks have superior athletic ability comparable to saying they are intrinsically superior to whites?] IQ test results are affected by more than just inherited intrinsic ability. [Yes, they are. But it takes extreme conditions to alter those foundational realities.] You might say that IQ test results are partially affected by inherited intrinsic ability but the fact that IQ tests are indeed affected by other factors as well means that the racial differences seen in IQ scores could very well be caused by cultural and historical factors and not by racially related heritable factors.

I wish to respond to some comments written by Jane S.  She says, “Their relative lack of success is entirely due to their own inadequacies, and their inadequacies are entirely due to their race, and not the schools.” Then she says “I think the root cause of black people’s problems today has nothing to do with their IQ or their DNA.” These two statements flatly and directly contradict each other. [Jane herself acknowledged the contradiction.]  Jane S. says that 100 percent of black people’s problems has to do with their DNA and then she says 0 percent of black people’s problems has to do with their DNA. Which is it? You can’t have it both ways.

Art writes:

I agree with Laura on the psychological study of IQ and other areas of intelligence, to be more clear on my earlier statement on psychometrics. I am sure there are some people who believe intelligence cannot be quantified at all. To clarify what I meant to say on racial distinctions I will point to two examples: the prohibitions on race mixing in the Maryland and Virginia colonies that were copied in other areas, and the belief in affirmative action held by many today. In both areas physical racial characteristics are elevated to an area much greater than that in a traditional society.

Laura writes:

I would like to respond to something else Matthew said.

He wrote:

For my own part, I try to respond by stressing Christian anthropology: the person made in the image of God.

To say that a person is made in the image of God is not to say that a person possesses the endless possibilities of God. Though I was made in the image of God, I cannot play in the NBA no matter how much I desire it. Christian anthropology involves first and foremost humility. It is unkind and un-Christian to act as if prominent black leaders are incapable or unworthy of possessing this essential virtue.

Josey Montana writes:

Matthew is a superb example of classical conditioning. Remarkable that he overcame the instinct of self-preservation, particularly vis-à-vis Ethnic Genetic Interest (EGI). Perhaps the past fifty years of unrelenting, multi-billion dollar propaganda has been worthwhile – for everyone except us Americans who paid for it.

Clem writes:

Laura, I agree with Gregory, you are a fine spokeswoman and I thank you.

Matthew said:

“”That said, I still submit, there is something ugly about your race discussions. I hear resentment in it.””

Really? You think after 50 plus years of the ‘evil white man’ that whites when discussing race might take an FU attitude? Imagine that!

“”I believe there was an older Southern and Christian sense of — at the very least — manners about these things, which would forbid such talk. I do not get your invocation of the “race” card. “”

What the hell does that even mean? I don’t know about your world but race is an issue everyday and about everything. From black holes to nooses to IQ to slavery to equality to affirmative action to a list a mile long and you do not get the invocation of the race card?

“”I do not think it is truly conservative, or traditionalist.””

Thank God, and Lord knows it is not conservative. Conservatives don’t conserve anything.

It is however traditionalist in the truest sense of the word. For to have a tradition you must first have a people and to be a people you must have common ancestors.

Matthew writes:

You grossly twist my comments — virtually all of them.

I never said that “the lack of moral outrage over brutal crimes committed by blacks is a problem” — those are your words. Rather, I agreed with your statement that “the lack of moral outrage over these crimes, as compared to the intense outrage over Martin’s death, [is] indicative of any perverse attitudes regarding race.” The key phrase here is “as compared to the intense outrage over Martin’s death.” My point was about the politicization and the racialization of this crime and its response, which I think false and opportunist — as demonstrated by the comparative lack of equivalent outrage on the Left at the killings of whites. In other words, I think any murder of a human person, black or white, ought to be the subject of equal moral outrage.

But your outrage is obviously about something more than that; you apparently believe we ought to return this Leftist racialization of moral response to the violent death of blacks with an equivalent and opposing racialization of moral in response to the violent death of whites. I think it is this racialization, on both sides, that is wrong and sub-Christian.

“‘He says I should not “psychologize” my commentators, but I only did such a thing because he had psychologized me, saying I am resentful, as opposed to outraged.'” Excuse me, no: you started by telling another commentator that perhaps she over-values intelligence, though she gave no evidence for that, and then you went on to talk about how my criticism reveals my discomfort with my own “inhibitions.” That was cheap, and psychologizing.

“Race, to all of us, is like sex to the Victorians. It is dirty and sick to talk about it.” I don’t agree — not for all of us. I have black colleagues with whom I can discuss the issue with very good humor and charity, and occasional criticism — it does not make me terribly uncomfortable; only I don’t say things to insult the community from which they came. .

“Racial identification will motivate people, and a genuinely civilized sensibility is desperately needed.” — what kind of bizarre rationalization is going on here?

“To say that a person is made in the image of God is not to say that a person possesses the endless possibilities of God. Though I was made in the image of God, I cannot play in the NBA no matter how much I desire it. Christian anthropology involves first and foremost humility. It is unkind and un-Christian to act as if prominent black leaders are incapable or unworthy of possessing this essential virtue.” And here you /really/ twist what I said. Nothing I wrote suggested that I believe in the infinite human perfectability of individuals. I frankly do not care about this issue of IQs or the NBA. I was questioning rather the racialization of issues which you are pushing, which is a kind of exact mirror of Leftist professors at my university, where professors tell students they need to learn to “racialize their consciousness” and be constantly aware of “white privilege.” I do not think this is Christian, or sound thinking. My statement about the imago Dei was in response to that sub-Christian nonsense. I believe you deserve the same response as these Leftists, and you are closer to them than you think.

And lest you defend this racialization of yours further, let me quote you your own words: “I could easily find common ground with someone who believed race was not important. Such a person would resist public approval of overt racial consciousness in nonwhites. A society without any racial consciousness would be far superior to one in which only some groups are permitted racial pride. Matthew does not appear to object to this overt racial pride in nonwhites.”

I do not object to /ethnic/ pride in any group; on the contrary, I admire it and affirm it. I must say though that I have not met too many blacks who seemed to have much of this at all. And none of the friends I have who possess a deep sense of their ethnic roots do talk about being “white”, as you do, but rather about being Greek (spend some time with them if you want to know what real ethnic pride is), Bulgarian, Irish, Swiss, etc. — as I also take pride especially in my New England Mayflower swampyankee British ancestry. Having a cultural history, being part of an ethnos, gives one reason for healthy natural pride and identity; “race” does not. There is no “white” culture. With all your appeal to being white, it sounds to me like you have no culture.

Matthew adds:

Laura writes:

“The initial subject of this post was an article in The New York Times in which whites were blamed for the failures of blacks in school. That is racial resentment. I would not be writing on this subject if such resentment did not exist. If most Americans agreed with Michael that race is not a meaningful category, there would be no such thing as affirmative action, the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus, Black History Month, hate crime legislation or a president like Barack Obama, who openly states that race is all-important.”

Right. And you are on the same page with them. Returning blame for blame, race-resentment for race-resentment.

As you wrote, “Christian anthropology involves first and foremost humility.” It also involves charity.

As Clem wrote, “to have a tradition you must first have a people and to be a people you must have common ancestors.” Right. But whites are not a people. Greeks are a people, Russians are a people, French are a people, English are (or were) a people — they all have (or had) traditions, cultures. There is no “white tradition.” Unless of course you believe in the kind of Romantic New Age fantasy of Nordic neo-paganism concocted by Neo-Nazi types. All this “white” talk here is beginning to sound to me rather like “white trash” talk. Excuse the phrase, but in this instance it expresses well the poverty of individuals who have no great particular culture of their own to take pride in, and so instead fall back on “race” and resentment as a way of compensating for their lack.

Laura writes:

 Matthew writes:

You grossly twist my comments — virtually all of them.

If I misrepresented your views, it was with the full intention of giving you the opportunity to correct them. I agree that it is wrong to “psychologize” commenters’ remarks. As I said regarding Arete’s remark, my theory as to why she found the idea of lower average black intelligence so objectionable was purely speculative. Even so it is best to refrain from understanding the motives for any statements. In return, you might refrain from continually stating that I am filled with resentment.

I am confused, however, by how I twisted the substance of your comment on outrage over black crimes. On the one hand, you say that the “lack of equivalent outrage on the Left at the killings of whites” shows that they are using murders of blacks for opportunistic purposes. And you also state there should be outrage over the murder of any person, black or white. Then, on the other hand, you say it is wrong to express outrage over ignored deaths as I have done. You write:

But your outrage is obviously about something more than that; you apparently believe we ought to return this Leftist racialization of moral response to the violent death of blacks with an equivalent and opposing racialization of moral in response to the violent death of whites. I think it is this racialization, on both sides, that is wrong and sub-Christian. [emphasis added]

This is a very damning accusation. In objecting to racial extremism, my real motive, you say, is to install racial extremism of another variety. I’m not sure where in my writings you get the impression that I am the moral cretin and racial obsessive you accuse me of being. By writing occasionally about race you say I want to make race everything. How is it possible for any white person to write about race and not be faced with this charge if a person who writes about it occasionally, amid many other issues, is accused of such?

No, I don’t believe that every black who murders a white should be demonized to the degree George Zimmerman has been demonized, upheld as the walking personification of every outrage committed by blacks against whites in history. However, how, may I ask, is it possible to prove that whites are being demonized except by pointing to the lack of public outrage over whites murdered by blacks?

I make no apology about caring for these slayings, and I would fully respect any black person who cared about brutal slayings of people who were part of their extended community. I have never suggested that blacks should be suppressed from expressing such legitimate concern over the black victims of crime. You accuse me of caring nothing for the deaths of blacks, even though I have indeed shown concern for black victims of black crime (black crime being the real focus), as evidenced here and in comments I have made stating that blacks are victims. However, I fully acknowledge I have written primarily about the white victims of black crime. Your objections  ignore the context in which I am writing – and that is a world which exonerates blacks for their misbehavior. It may send them to jail, but it does not shame them. Let’s just say, I am speaking the truth that needs to be spoken. But I fully acknowledge I am not addressing every injustice in the world.

Matthew says most people he knows hardly ever think of themselves as black or white. Given that most blacks live with other blacks and most whites live in neighborhoods with other whites, I question that it is not a part of their thinking life. But that’s great that they don’t think about it that much. I certainly don’t think about race all the time either. But the fact is we live in a world in which our major instiutions focus on race all the time. For instance, Sabrina Tavernese in the article that began this post writes:

The United States has a spotty record educating minority youth; will older Americans balk at paying to educate a younger generation that looks less like themselves? And while the increasingly diverse young population is a potential engine of growth, will it become a burden if it is not properly educated?

“The question is, how do we reimagine the social contract when the generations don’t look like one another?” said Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, co-director of Immigration studies at New York University.

How it is possible to counter  the implication by Tavernese of white racism, a racism so evil that it infiltrates the entire education system, except by acknowledging the categories of black and white? If Matthew could tell me how I might respond to Tavernese’s utterly false implication that whites have deliberately and maliciously withheld a proper education from blacks for years, how I could do this without addressing the issue of race at all and without addressing the historical evidence that speaks against such a charge, I would be most grateful. If Matthew can suggest such a route to me that would come without the heavy personal cost I face as a moral white cretin addressing racial injustice, it would be most welcome.

On the basis of the occasional posts I write here about race, Matthew compares me to the leftist professor who rants against white privilege and treats race as being central to everything and who has an entire institutional apparatus supporting his view. The leftist professor chooses books purely on the basis of the race of the authors. He believes that whites should pay ongoing reparations for any misdeeds against blacks committed by whites who lived hundreds of years ago.

I talk about race occasionally. Is it the subtext of everything I say? When I write about art and literature, do I choose authors or artists first and foremost because they are white? Do I exalt mediocrity because it trumpets the white race? Do I write about the ways in which white authors or artists have been held back in history or mistreated by other races? Do I have an entire institution behind me that is involved in systematically downplaying the accomplishments of blacks?  Have I ever suggested a system of reparations and exclusion of blacks from jobs and higher education, comparable to the exclusion of whites from affirmative action positions? No, to all of the above.

The leftist professor is rewarded and promoted for his comments on race. He can speak openly about them. I face certain banishment from intellectual institutions and publishers. I am called names fairly often and risk almost every social relationship I have in the real world, except those with my husband and children and with supportive readers. I think there are substantial differences between the leftist professor and me.

Ultimately, I can’t defend myself against the charge that I am secretly a neo-pagan, neo-Nazi fanatic. I can defend myself against the idea that I am white trash with no particular culture to be proud of because I do write about the culture I admire all the time. I do consider myself a citizen of the West. This culture is not first and foremost white culture, but it is largely made by white people, who also have various ethnic loyalties which generally come before any overarching loyalty to the white race.

We may speak of being white as one aspect of Western culture and in a society where being white was not continually demonized we would have the luxury of almost never speaking of it at all.

Greg (not Greg F. who commented above) writes:

Matthew wrote:

I do not object to /ethnic/ pride in any group; on the contrary, I admire it and affirm it. I must say though that I have not met too many blacks who seemed to have much of this at all. And none of the friends I have who possess a deep sense of their ethnic roots do talk about being “white”, as you do, but rather about being Greek (spend some time with them if you want to know what real ethnic pride is), Bulgarian, Irish, Swiss, etc. — as I also take pride especially in my New England Mayflower swampyankee British ancestry. Having a cultural history, being part of an ethnos, gives one reason for healthy natural pride and identity; “race” does not. There is no “white” culture. With all your appeal to being white, it sounds to me like you have no culture.

I’m surprised that Matthew has met so few blacks who exhibit ethnic pride. The lack might be regional to where he lives, but where I come from and live, black ethnic pride is pervasive; not all of it is self-aggrandizing, and some of it is healthy, but a lot of it is destructive in several important ways. Although I gladly agree with Matthew in admiring and affirming ethnic pride, I disagree with many aspects of the black version of ethnic pride that I encounter on a daily basis, both in personal interactions and through news and entertainment media. While it is perfectly normal and healthy for anyone to be aware of his race and to take pride in that dimension of his God-given makeup, such racial pride is inherently prone to flaring up sinfully, and it is this kind of sinful racial pride that I encounter not just occasionally, but constantly from the black community. On the other hand, not only is the sinful version of race pride virtually non-existent among white people in the year 2012, whites also appear to lack even the healthy version of racial awareness, and in fact we tend to display a kind of schizophrenia that amounts to racial anemia. And just because people like Louis Farrakhan and Jesse Jackson invoke race dishonestly and self-seekingly, that doesn’t mean that any and all invocations of race are equivalently dishonest or opportunistic. Race remains real, no matter how cockamamie some conceptions of race may be.

Regarding Laura’s comments about the disparity in levels of outrage over, on the one hand the killing of Trayvon Martin and on the other hand the recent spate of black-on-white murders, Matthew wrote, “you apparently believe we ought to return this Leftist racialization of moral response to the violent death of blacks with an equivalent and opposing racialization of moral in response to the violent death of whites. I think it is this racialization, on both sides, that is wrong and sub-Christian.” I cannot speak for Laura of course, but I want to give my own opinion of Matthew’s analysis. It isn’t that the way to solve this disparity is to ratchet up irrational responses to the atrocities being committed constantly by blacks against whites. What ought to be done by white people is to muster up even a rational level of outrage, something which is desperately lacking. Not only is the silence surrounding these black-on-white atrocities irrational, it is decidedly evil and it constitutes a national endorsement of public human sacrifice of individual whites on the basis of spurious white guilt. The white race has been tried in the tribunal of Leftist Justice and found wanting, and white victims must be offered up quickly to appease the God of racial justice.

First we need to recognize that the disparity in coverage of Trayvon versus the black crimes is there, and recognize also the deafening silence/gag order surrounding the black atrocities. (Not to mention the disanalogy of the fact that Trayvon’s killer is not white!) Matthew is correct to note that attempting to explain and excuse bad behavior on the basis of race is a Leftist strategy, and thus should be vehemently denounced as a basis for social policy, such as affirmative action. But the fact that ‘racism’ is a mythological notion does not undermine the inescapable reality of race itself. To put the point in terms that Matthew may find more amenable, all of us traditionalists must devote a lot of time debunking feminism whose central claim is that the mythological belief in sexual difference is the cause of centuries of evil oppression and that the solution to this situation is the obliteration of what feminism insists are artificial distinctions between men and women. And when we as believers in traditional, God-given sex roles take all of the time that we do to refute feminism by pointing out that accusations of sexism and male chauvinism are exaggerated, we do not finish up by concluding that sex isn’t even real. Denying sex is not the rationale of anti-feminism, but the denial that all sex-distinctions are bad is.

In the same way, although Trotsky invented out of whole cloth his insane theory that all historic injustices could be traced to what he called ‘racism’, and although we as traditionalists militate against Trotsky’s claim and world view, it does not follow that Trotsky invented racial categories, nor that we must discard race from all considerations of human realities. Matthew himself obviously believes that many forms of injustice stem from what he calls racism, but there is all the difference in the world between noticing race and exalting race. For the leftist of any stripe, even noticing race constitutes evil and such noticing earns the one noticing it the brand, ‘racist.’ But this movement to regard all acknowledgement of racial reality as evil and irrational is a very recent phenomenon, rooted in anti-Christian Enlightenment thinking, and taking its terminology from Trotsky and Marx. Indeed, Christians prior to the 20th century never hesitated to acknowledge the divine origins of racial difference.

Matthew wants to suggest that white identity is pseudo-scientific and that it is a concept that is undermined by the existence of so many sub-groupings of European ethnicities and nationalities. He doesn’t say this, but he also seems to suggest that such diversity and even the intense ethnic pride which obtains among, say Bulgarians or Swiss, proves that white identity has been foisted upon an unwilling collage of groupings late in history. Nothing could be further from the truth, as any cursory examination of European history or literature prior to the second half of the 20th century will show. Men like Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Goethe, C.S. Lewis, R.L. Dabney, William Shakespeare and countless others both recognized an unshakable cultural unity among white people and affirmed the way that that unity distinguished Europeans from other races. By denying white people this heritage of unity, Matthew severely hampers his own ability to read and benefit from such thinkers.

John writes:

Does Matthew really believe that ethnicity and race can be entirely separated? That we can indiscriminately conceive of white Chinese; Asian Zulus; and black Swedes? Modern liberalism spouts such nonsense. Traditionalism and common sense certainly don’t.

Art writes:

Laura writes:

“This culture is not first and foremost white culture, but it is largely made by white people, who also have various ethnic loyalties which generally come before any overarching loyalty to the white race.”

 I would agree, but to me national and ethnic loyalty override race. I would certainly sooner marry a black English Catholic who believes in wifely submission than a white liberal feminist Swedish women.

 Laura writes:

One rarely has to make such stark choices.

Arete writes:

I am sorry, Mrs Wood. I was not trying to be nasty. I was genuinely relieved to hear that you believe that blacks were “made in the image and likeness of God.”I was really not getting that from what I was reading (perhaps it was my own misreading)and I was a little less embarrassed that I have recommended this site to my friends when I read that. Maybe its just the medium of blogs I don’t know… [Laura writes: Okay, I understand you weren’t trying to be nasty. Thank you for the apology. You say, “May it’s just the medium of blogs..” No, I think it’s that you immediately see any statement criticizing blacks as being Nazi-like. That’s not the fault of blogs. That’s due to an emotional reaction on your part, an inability to distinguish between extreme invocations of violence and criticism, an inability that is common and not your fault.] 

I am asking these questions seriously and not trying to be snarky: What are we to do with all of these statistics and side remarks on black failings? Where does it lead? What are you thinking we need to solve these problems? exile? camps? “separate but equal” worlds? It appears to me that you want your readers to distrust blacks as a race? It seems to me that this kind of talk only gets whites to do what we are so tired of blacks doing – that is, blaming someone else (blacks) for their problems.
I grew up in Indiana very near Boonville (ironically for a place so far north one of the few modern centers of KKK activity in this country) and I heard my fair share of nonsense about how “I wouldn’t be so poor if the government didn’t give all my money to those blacks!” When the truth is that there are many reasons that this person is poor –mostly his own addictions and poor choices. This guy would read your side comments and stats on black sins and jump in his truck with a baseball bat looking to even up the score– usually he would just end up smashing property or running a car with black person off the road but he does not need fuel to his fire (though the thought of our hypothetical Hoosier reading your blog is a funny one and admittedly, highly unlikely). I am hoping that you have never seen a convened body of racists march down a street in your town but it is very scary.

 Laura writes:

It’s interesting that Arete is concerned about racial violence. Yet she makes no mention of the very real racial violence that is occurring in this country. Yes, the white man who grabs a baseball bat and beats a “nigger” should be publicly shamed and bitterly denounced. But shouldn’t the mobs of black teenagers who beat “whitey” also be publicly shamed and denounced? Shouldn’t the murder of Harry Stone, who was standing on a corner in Kansas City last week and was shot by one of three black men in a car, inspire collective outrage? Shouldn’t this beating of a white man by two blacks in Sacramento?

If there was a serious problem in this country with whites attacking innocent blacks, I would express anger and bitterness about it. I expect you would too. Okay, call me white trash and a moral cretin, but are you? Couldn’t you speak up if such crimes were occurring? Or do you fear that you wouldn’t care about them? I think otherwise. I think you would maintain your sense of justice even under the weight of the truth of racial differences.

Arete writes:

What are we to do with all of these statistics and side remarks on black failings? Where does it lead? What are you thinking we need to solve these problems? exile? camps? “separate but equal” worlds?

You are putting the cart before the horse. The first task is to digest the truth. In order to know and understand the truth, it is not necessary to know what we will do with it. The truth is always good. A person first learns that he has cancer. Then he figures out what to do about it.

Lawrence Auster:

Sabrina Tavernese writes:

The United States has a spotty record educating minority youth …

Classic statement: It’s our fault. We are withholding something from them, which, if we stopped withholding it, would make them equal to us. Reality turned on its head. That is liberalism. And there’s no escape from it … short of the overturning of the current society.

Laura writes:

In my last comment, I said that we don’t know what changes might come about if whites were less self-destructive and more truthful about race. I can mention, however, one direction in which it should not go and that is toward any exclusion of blacks from the highest levels of achievement.

MAY 22

Jane S. writes:

Art writes:

“I would agree, but to me national and ethnic loyalty override race. I would certainly sooner marry a black English Catholic who believes in wifely submission than a white liberal feminist Swedish women.”

Laura writes:

“One rarely has to make such stark choices.”

It may be rare, but it does happen. I have only ever met one man I wanted to marry—one. And he was of a different race. He was hardworking, sober, reliable, trustworthy, well-mannered, devoted to his family, generous, helpful, kind. He had the looks of a fairy-tale prince. He had other sensational qualities I won’t go into here. How often do you find all that in one package? I didn’t care about his race. It didn’t matter to me at all.

I was shocked to hear myself referred to as a “race traitor.” If you can be a traitor to your race, then that must mean there’s such a thing as “race loyalty” and I have never been on the receiving end of that. [Laura writes: Well, your ancestors married within their own race, so indirectly you have been on the receiving end of race loyalty.] No one has ever taken my side on account of my race.

My people are like barn swallows; we spread everywhere. I was raised to think of myself as common. I was never urged to preserve the purity of my redneck trailer-trash genes. I did not hear any sighs of regret from white guys when I got married; too busy with their skateboards and electric guitars, I guess.

Anyone who contemplates entering a biracial marriage, I won’t say “don’t do it,” but I will say: you will have a really hard time. You will have to work hard at things you wouldn’t have to work as hard at, if you had married one of your own kind. And you will never stop being an outsider in that family. Never.

I am very glad to have had years of firsthand interpersonal experience with people of another race. For one thing, I can have open, frank discussions with them about race. I frequently remind them that the reason America is such a great country, the place that people all over the world want to come to, is because it was built by white people and if they have a problem with that, they can go back home. They never argue with me. They know I’m right. They’ve had 3 or 4,000 years to turn their country into a halfway decent place to live, and all they’ve done is make things worse, to the point where no one wants to be there, not even them. And they were never colonized, so they have no one to blame but themselves.

Another thing I’ve learned is that there are innate differences between racial groups. Qualities that are dyed in the wool. It’s like the difference between AM and FM radio. Some people are tuned into a totally different frequency. My impression of my husband’s people is always changing. It’s like peeling an onion. There’s layers upon layers.

Finally, I’ve learned that most people sound very foolish when it comes to talking about race. If you make commonsense observations about race, there are people like Arete who immediately accuse you of hating on people because of their race. I have to say, I find it very tedious, the way Americans use histrionics to try and steer the subject. Why do people always conflate racial discrimination with personal hatred? You need to get a thicker skin. I get discriminated against on a daily basis. I’ve been told that I’m under a curse because I was born female. There are people—people I know well—who will not eat at the same table with me because I’m a beefeater and an untouchable. Do I share those beliefs? Oh, God, no. But I don’t freak out and think, “They must hate me! They probably wish I was dead!”

Then there’s fools like Matthew who claim that “it’s a bit naïve to think that God “made” blacks with a lower IQ,” and that blacks underachieve because they have been “exposed to environmental toxins, poor nutrition, etc.” and that Asians score higher on average than whites because they are building “upon centuries of culture in which study, intelligence and/or personal discipline were highly valued.”

Matthew, you need to get out more. I can tell you’ve never been anywhere. There are parts of Asia that are poorer than sub-Saharan Africa. Asian cultures do not place a high value on being smart. All that matters is whether or not you are rich. You can be dumber than a bucket of nails, as long as you have money. And why shouldn’t God make blacks with a lower IQ? God can do as He pleases. I used to wish God had made me an intellectual, but now I’m glad He didn’t. You, on the other hand, think you’re an intellectual, but you are not.

What it comes down to is, some people will never believe that they are things you are born with, things about you that cannot be changed. People are made of cookie dough: they can be rolled out and shaped however you like. It’s a repugnant way of looking at human beings, but there it is.

Laura writes:

Excellent.

Matthew wrote: “It’s a bit naive to think that God “made” blacks with a lower.”

Well, assuming God “made” people, why did he make anyone with a lower IQ?  Is that any greater of a mystery than that racial groups should exhibit certain tendencies?

Matthew’s point about Asia begs the question as to why Asians value intelligence so much more. It requires intelligence to value intelligence.

 Mary writes:

I have to admit this is the first time I’ve heard race discussed in this way. It strikes me as…audacious. And I think that this audacity is eye-opening and mostly helpful here given the extent of existing problems and the fact that these problems are being methodically exacerbated by the left to achieve certain political ends – to the detriment of blacks and whites collectively. I say *mostly* helpful because I find certain aspects of this discussion – IQ levels to name one – imprudent. But maybe audacity and prudence are incompatible.

As to the mention of the Jewish immigrant in the US, I have always held the view that their high level of success vs. the low performance of blacks in America was due to the way in which both groups came to dwell here in the first place. It may sound simplistic but I think it’s significant: whether Jews came here to escape persecution or to pursue the “American dream”, it was voluntary at any rate, and since the skills they brought with them were reproducible in the new setting, they were confident of at least a minimum level of success. Forgive me if my impressions about slavery are hopelessly skewed by my public school education, but as I have always seen it, Africans were brought here against their will with no reproducible skills or common culture, and the men were purposely separated from their families to weaken opposition to slave owners. – a very poor start at best.

This debasement of fatherhood in the black family was reinforced in the 60’s with the advent of welfare, less than 100 years after the Civil war. Isn’t this fatherless model responsible for a lot of what we see happening today with violent young black men, gangs, etc., and isn’t this pandering in the form of entitlements to the black population at the root of what’s being discussed here? I welcome correction.

 Laura writes:

It is highly imprudent not to discuss the intelligence question, given that massive sums and massive amounts of energy are committed to creating equal outcomes. When these outcomes don’t appear, whites are blamed and blacks are made to feel like failures.

Slavery did not incapacitate blacks from later forming families as we know from the high rates of family stability among blacks in the late nineteenth and early 20th century. As Elizabeth Wright, the black conservative who died last year, wrote:

Long before it was decided that America’s former slaves were cripples in need of the state’s largesse, black men proved their mettle. They developed capital, created banks, thousands of businesses, owned property worth millions of dollars, established schools, and uplifted communities. They did all this during the period now looked back on as “the worst of times.”

The black illegitimacy rate was 24 percent in 1960. Today, it is about 70 percent.

Jane writes:

Mary writes:

“Africans were brought here against their will with no reproducible skills or common culture.”

Prior to the 60s, blacks and whites had a common culture that held them together; it’s called Christianity.

Laura writes:

Good blacks possess a superior warmth and radiant earthiness to which high levels of rationality would be an incalculable impediment.

Good Christians possess a willingness to love God and obey His will, to which high levels of rationality are an incalculable impediment.

Relations between whites and blacks started falling apart when they began turning their backs on Christ. That’s the elephant in the living room that liberals and even most conservatives want to ignore. Throw all the money you want at the schools. Until they find their way back to Christ, it won’t help.

Mary writes:

Jane said: “I’ll reiterate here that I believe it is loss of faith in Christ that is at the root of today’s social problems, for white and blacks both, and not disparities in IQ.”

I agree. I also feel that the exquisite tact necessary to discuss things like minority IQ levels is no longer possible in this country; the public discourse is too degenerated, and there is no such thing as private discussion, at least not the kind that can produce results. So my fear is a practical one: that within minutes this would be used to harm whites and to further black victimhood. I can imagine this to be in the form of more aggressive affirmative action policies – not just boosting blacks up but obvious suppression of white progress the likes of which we have never seen thus far. Although it may not seem like it sometimes, things could be very much worse that they are now.