The difference between "being X-ist" and "saying X-ist thing" is basically predicated on having a "persistent belief that X" or having a "momentary belief that X". (I'm using "belief" in the philosophical sense.)

Which is just silly. Facts remain facts even if we don't like them. And we can't honestly discuss certain facts without sounding racist.

Here is a real example. "On average, blacks have lower IQs than whites." How careful do you have to be when saying this? Very, you could get into a lot of trouble. However this statement actually happens to be true, and repeatedly demonstrated in various places in various ways. With some bizarre consequences. For example the Supreme Court has ruled that it is illegal to make an IQ test be part of a job hiring practice because allowing it will discriminate against blacks. Don't believe me? Go read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.!

But we can't even say facts like this in public. And if we can't say it, we can't start asking honest questions why it happens. And without asking them, we can't begin having honest conversations about what we can reasonably do to address the issue. Instead we're stuck at name calling and denial of reality. (And telling people who actually are racist that they can't talk about their racism doesn't actually reduce their racism - it just increases their resentment of the larger society, which ironically they are somewhat likely to take out on the group they are racist against!)

It depends not only on your definition of "facts", but on the interpretation of the same, and how that affects policy and decision making. For instance, these too are all "facts".

"Poor people have lower IQ's than rich people"

"Americans have lower IQ's than the Japanese, Italians, Mongolians, British, Austrians and many many others"

"More men have high IQ's than women" (more men in the top 10%)

"More men have low IQ's than women" (more men in the bottom 10%)

"As pirates decrease, global warming increases"

The real point, and something that Paul completely missed in his essay, is that we now analyse these things with a greater degree of historically-informed sophistication. Your statement could just as well read "On average, when given a written test invented by white men over 100 years ago, a sample group consisting of historically enslaved, disenfranchised and under-educated people of African heritage in the United States performed less well than a sample of their European-descended counterparts". Indeed, I'm sure that's true. The leap though to racism, which is making blanket assumptions about people based on skin colour, is completely fallacious.

I think you'd agree that IQ does not discriminate based on race at all, it discriminates based on class.

It seems common in American discourse to dress class divides up in some kind of "-ism", to subvert the individualistic views that many on the right hold. Everybody wants to fix racism, but many Americans seem to treat systemic poverty with an "every man for himself" attitude.

Unfortunately this has the result of burying the issue, because even if all racism in America were eliminated, the class divide would still remain.

No one banned giving any kind of test. What the case at issue found illegal was using a test that had a discriminatory effect when the employer could not demonstrate that the test at issue was "a reasonable measure of job performance", based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, wherein Congress banned job discrimination on race and placed the burden of proof on employers to demonstrate that practices with disparate impact were reasonably job related.

> I think you'd agree that IQ does not discriminate based on race at all, it discriminates based on class.

Tests don't discriminate, people do. An employer who has an overt policy of racial discrimination, who replaces that policy on the day the Civil Rights Act of 1964 goes into effect with an IQ test requirement covering the same jobs that were previously covered by the overt discrimination policy, where results on the test in question both has disparate racial results and have no demonstrable tie to performance in the jobs covered, well, its not hard at all to see that as the employer (not the test) discriminating on race, using the best tool for that purpose that they think they can get away with.

Therefore an intellectually honest person should be suspicious of any statement that can be read as, "We were always wrong about X but now we're right." Outside of hard science, it is more likely than not that the new statement is more determined by fashion than actual evidence. Which means that after another generation or two the pendulum will swing back again and we'll arrive at a more nuanced place which keeps some actual improvements we found, and throws out most of it.

That is a really good way to describe the test results. I'm gonna use this from now on.

- or colloquially know as 'blacks'?

Its a shame we are forced to talk about situations like this with kid gloves and extreme specifics so as not to appear racist. Our society isn't going to change if we have to speak like academics to get our point across.

Blacks on average have lower IQs because they are on average poorer, have less access to education, etc. If you test 5 yr old children and control for income, parental involvement, etc then there are no differences. So the more nuanced detailed version of that statement is that the intellectual potential of blacks (on average, in the USA) is not developed as highly as it could be, due to socioeconomic factors that are very complex, but so far as we can tell are not due to any underlying differences in potential.

Your method of making the same statement is most often used as an explanation; the equivalent of "that's how we've always done it". Mine is a more full and correct revelation that it is economic and social factors wasting the potential of bright young black kids and is something that can be and should be corrected.

It's called context kids, and no amount of complaining or smug sperglording can paper over the actual underlying motivation, despite any technical correctness. It's like complaining that black people can say the "N" word or pointing out the 1 out of 10,000 times that some black people were racist toward a white guy. I can only say "no shit sherlock". The vast, vast, vast majority of the time, if things are unequal, it is white men who benefit.

This is true. However it is a statement that has to be addressed by anyone who wants to create actual change.

And hand-waving away the effects of inequality goes both ways. For a thought-provoking book, read http://www.amazon.com/Mismatch-Affirmative-Students-Intended... which demonstrates that simply giving disadvantaged people direct access to the same educational opportunities that advantaged people could have actually does them a disservice.

If you test 5 yr old children and control for income, parental involvement, etc then there are no differences.

Can you please cite me a study that found that?

I've seen many that finds the differences reduced. But none that finds the differences eliminated. I understand your expectation that there must be some such study, but actually looking for one may be informative for you.

And if you fail, perhaps you should think harder about the topic. If we try to raise two children, black and white, and give them the same environment, can we? Inevitably both are exposed to the same media. Inevitably both are exposed to strangers and teachers who will judge on appearance and treat them differently. So we can't create equivalent environments!

Given that fact, it would be shocking if you could make the environments actually equivalent.

Your method of making the same statement is most often used as an explanation; the equivalent of "that's how we've always done it". Mine is a more full and correct revelation that it is economic and social factors wasting the potential of bright young black kids and is something that can be and should be corrected.

How do you know that your revelation is correct when actual critical discussion has been rejected out of hand? It is my belief that the current approach has failed, and failed badly. It is my personal belief that success is possible. But I direct you back to the book I suggested above to make the point that thinking naively about it guarantees that we continue pushing solutions that are bound to fail at great cost to everyone.

Maybe and you should state that as such.

(For the record I don't believe blacks to be inferior or whites to be superior. Nor do I care. I just don't think non-facts and postulates should be stated as facts.)

Perhaps you should read Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971), particularly at 436: "Nothing in the Act precludes the use of testing or measuring procedures; obviously they are useful. What Congress has forbidden is giving these devices and mechanisms controlling force unless they are demonstrably a reasonable measure of job performance."

The Supreme Court has not, contrary to your description, "ruled that it is illegal to make an IQ test be part of a job hiring practice because allowing it will discriminate against blacks", it has ruled that it is illegal to make an IQ test be part of job hiring where the IQ test is not demonstrably a reasonable measure of job performance, given that blacks scored lower on the tests, under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibited deliberate discrimination based on race, and placed the burden on employers to demonstrated that selective measures with discriminatory effect were reasonably directed at job requirements.

IOW, it is not that blacks do worse on the test, on average, that makes it illegal, but that fact combined with a situation where the employer cannot demonstrated that it is reasonably related to the job function.

(Its perhaps worth noting that the specific requirement at issue in the case went into effect on the day the Civil Rights Act of 1964 went into effect, the same day that the overt policy of racial discrimination that it replaced was discontinued.)

However the measure that they hit on is actually a reasonable way of improving your interview process. There is general research to that end, and it was presented in that case. But the sample set of previous employees hired by Duke Power Co was not large enough to statistically demonstrate that fact. Therefore the court decided as it did. As a result the fact that IQ tests are more effective at figuring out who to hire than human interviews is no longer actionable by any normal employer.

There are some notable exceptions. For example the US military has enough history and experience with the ASVAB that they are able to safely use it. But very few companies are in a position to do such research for themselves.

If it can be established as a fact, its actionable. It can't be assumed to be a fact for the specific jobs it is applied to, however -- and while Griggs may be a leading case, that's pretty clearly the intent of the burden established by the Civil Rights Act for the employer in disparate impact situations.

> But very few companies are in a position to do such research for themselves.

Any company is in the position to do it (or pay to have it done), for very few companies is the expected benefit justify the cost, because the expected utility of general intelligence testing, even where any such benefit is rationally expected to be born out, is pretty low compared to more specific job-focused alternatives that are also easier to demonstrate are job related if they have a disparate impact.

Wrong.

In order to be in a position to do it, you need to start with a sample of many thousands of people being hired into a specific kind of job, all of whom have been given the test in question, and all of whom are then judged by standardized metrics. ONLY THEN can you collect enough data to make strong statistical inferences on this issue.

The military can meet this threshold. Very, very few private employers can. And claiming otherwise is wrong.

...the expected utility of general intelligence testing, even where any such benefit is rationally expected to be born out, is pretty low compared to more specific job-focused alternatives that are also easier to demonstrate are job related if they have a disparate impact.

I do not believe this to be the case for most entry-level jobs. Can you cite specific research indicating otherwise?

The issue is that in saying that, you tend to be saying that black people intrinsically have lower intelligence than white people unless you're careful to be explicit about what you mean. As it is, that's not necessarily the case - there's a lot of disagreement over whether or not IQ tests are a correct measure of intelligence over more than one culture, for a start.

The fact that IQ tests were decided to be illegal, follows the idea that you can't discriminate on factors that would affect certian subgroups without sufficient reason. For example, if you required that all employees wear no headgear, you'd be discriminating against Sikhs and Muslims. However, possibly you could require that if there were serious safety concerns. You couldn't require that all employees are OK with alcohol... unless, of course, their job actually involves alcohol. Nobody's job involves filling out IQ tests, or is directly relevant to anything on an IQ test, to IQ tests are not allowed.

That's an issue, I don't think it's the issue, not be a long shot. Try being very careful and explicit about what you mean, it's not gonna help one whit, you're already on the third rail as soon as the words black, white and intelligence come out of your mouth.

Racist stereotypes have traditionally in large part been about difference in intelligence between "races", how some were more evolved than the animalistic others, etc. (i.e. dehumanization of "others")

Is it, actually? Or is it a stance acquired after centuries of marginalization? Consider PG's examination of social issues:

Changes between the past and the present sometimes do represent progress. ... But this becomes rapidly less true as you move away from the certainty of the hard sciences. By the time you get to social questions, many changes are just fashion. The age of consent fluctuates like hemlines.

I don't expect that marginalization of entire groups of people will be in vogue again any time soon. Note that the negation of one of PG's many (LOL) weasel-worded statements ("many changes are just fashion") covers policies that were ridiculous (like women's suffrage) or barbaric (child labor and slavery).

No rational person -- PG included -- would support regressing on these issues. It's highly unlikely that his article supports your claim (or any other claim re: sensitivity on national/global socioeconomic tragedies).

Here's a counterargument: maybe the ban on racism by civilized, well-adjusted people isn't hypersensitive silliness, but the imposition of a new standard for discourse based on respect for fellow people?

While we've definitely made progress towards racial, gender and sexual equality, this still happens every day, and may not be a fixable problem. Democrats routinely marginalize Republicans, and vice versa. Even those who benefit from the recent shifts in favor of gay marriage equality routinely marginalize bigamists, or polygamists. There's always a group of people not in vogue, and the way in which we deal with these things is somewhat absurdist.

The current de rigueur is for society to realize that our unjust treatment of a special group is unfair. In the 60s, it was our unfair treatment of blacks. In the 90s, it was our unfair treatment of gays. Then we work to get them declared as a protected class, and then we fight for their rights using that protected status as leverage.

Instead, we should do a better job of understanding what rights entitle us to, and then simply afford those rights to all people, whether or not they belong to a majority class, a protected class, or an unpopular minority.

Tribe mentality will always cause us to identify more with people we can more easily identify, and it will always cause us to mentally place others as being outside our tribes. Creating special rules for the disenfranchised du jour just reinforces that there will always be groups of people fighting for some form of equality.

> Instead, we should do a better job of understanding what rights entitle us to, and then simply afford those rights to all people

Yeah, I don't think you understand the process you refer to in the preceding paragraph represents -- it represents an evolving understanding of what rights people should have (note that this is an evolving social consensus, not an evolving understanding of something which exists as an external material fact), followed by corrective efforts to address manners in which the status quo situation differs from the evolving social consensus of the desired situation. The entire idea of a "protected class" is that it is one which has in recent history been actively discrimated against in a manner which violates the current social norm, such that there is a heightened presumption that acts which have a disparate impact on that class are invalid as discrimination on that basis rather than simply incidental impacts of some permissible distinction. It is part of a process aimed at realizing and securing the new understanding of "what rights entitle us to" by eradicating residual practices that were accepted under a previous, more limited understanding.

Particularly, its important to understand that one issue is that our general understanding of what our rights entitle us to include that they generally do entitle us to discriminate according to our own personal biases, where that doesn't cause unwarranted social harm -- but the understanding of what causes unwarranted social harm is evolving.

This is just a first step. We also need to understand what the actual barriers are to progress, and address them.

Let me give a good example. A few years ago there was a fascinating longitudinal study that started with an equivalent group of blacks and whites. All educated, young, middle class professionals in similar jobs. Following them forward 15 years, the whites by and large were still middle class professionals, but a large portion of the blacks were living in poverty. Proof of racism, right?

Not at all! Their data had more detail in it. One of the factors that they were able to control for was fiscal planning. One was whether people understood the value of creating savings for themselves so that they could handle short-term challenges like a layoff. When they controlled for this factor, blacks and whites were identical. But more whites knew to do this, so they did better.

The solution to this particular problem is NOT to give blacks more opportunities and preferences. It is to make an effort to educate the black community the importance of always living within your means.

FWIW, I was thinking of this with my original comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbdxeFcQtaU

(... but I see that it doesn't necessarily apply in this context.)

This is from a Kurd/Iranian with a muslim background living in Sweden.

This thinking is also conventionally and conveniently used by white relativist liberals living in predominately white neighbourhoods.

Not saying you are. It's just it's what I've experienced.

Of course, there's real racism on all sides, which are mostly negative assumptions about how you think one will act.